Identity Cards Bill

I accept that point. We have come to a state of enlightenment on this because I accept that, if you have an ID card, the social security office should be entitled to require you to produce it. However, this wording would allow an officious person in a social security office to see an ID card and then say, ““Well, I want further evidence of registrable facts. I am not entirely happy about that.””. That is what the clause says. The noble Baroness may say that that is not what is intended, but that is what it says. Simple rewording could achieve the point that the noble Baroness rightly makes and the point that I make. As regards Amendment No. 190 and prescription charges, I understood the noble Baroness to say that the Government do not intend that this provision should stand in the way of people getting prescriptions; that is, it will not require them to get an ID card before universal compulsion—I think that the noble Baroness said that. I wonder how that will be enforceable given that chemists are independent proprietors and purveyors of medicines. Do the Government intend to make it compulsory on all chemists to abide by that policy provision? It is an important matter and we need to be sure that we are not erecting inadvertent hurdles.