Identity Cards Bill

I am more than happy to help. Clause 11, as the noble Lord indicated, empowers the Secretary of State and designated documents authorities to impose requirements on people to provide information for verifying the register. But the power applies where it appears to the Secretary of State or a designated documents authority that the person concerned may have information in his possession which could be used for verification. The rationale behind this clause is the rigorous biographical footprint check that will be undertaken when a person applies to be entered onto the register. That is the most important moment when we have to be absolutely sure that the person being entered is the person that they say they are. We therefore need to ensure as far as possible that no false or inaccurate details are entered into the register. A requirement under the clause can be imposed only on a body named in an affirmative order approved by Parliament. Amendment No. 162 would remove paragraph (c) from Clause 11 (1) and would thus not allow information to be validated unless it were either already on the register under subsection (1)(a) or had been provided for the purpose of being recorded in the register, such as an individual’s own application under subsection (1)(b). I shall try to give the noble Baroness some examples to assist her so that she better understands what we are trying to do. It is quite possible that there will be information that needs to be validated that is not on the register and has not been provided for the purpose of registration; for example, information already known about a person from existing Home Office immigration records, or if in checking someone’s address with, say, the DVLA, a different address to the one on the application was given. The second address would not have been provided for the purpose of being recorded on the register and could be out of date. In making any further checks with, say, the Department for Work and Pensions, it would be right to check both addresses—the original provided by the applicant and the second provided by the DVLA. I am not suggesting that every inconsistency will mean that the applicant is deliberately submitting false information, but there needs to be sufficient powers to make such checks not just on the information that the applicant has provided with their application. Amendment No. 163 would restrict the Secretary of State to requiring information from a person only if that person had the information. Amendment No. 164 has the same effect but in respect of designated document authorities. In our view these amendments are unnecessary. The Secretary of State has power to require validation information if it appears to him that a person or body designated in an order under the clause may have it, but the duty to provide it under Clause 11(3)(b) applies only if the person has the information in his possession. So at least in that respect the Bill already has the effect that I believe that the noble Baroness wants and that the noble Lord has expressed a desire to have.