Identity Cards Bill

As usual, I am grateful to the Minister for that full explanation. A number of issues arise from it—I think we all agree that this is a complicated clause—and I should like to start with the question of amendments to Clause 1. I did table an amendment to Clause 1 and, if reference is made to Hansard, I think you will find that I expatiated at length upon the inadequacies of subsection (3)(b). But let us not get bogged down with that. The Minister said that there will be regulations in relation to Clause 17 but I do not think that we should allow access to paragraph 9 data unless it is specified on the face of the Bill. In all other parts of the Bill the Government have taken great care to say when there will and when there will not be access to the highly-sensitive data in paragraph 9. The Government need to let the Committee know whether or not they intend, or contemplate, making regulations that will give public service providers access to paragraph 9 information and, if so, what provisions the regulations will contain. Otherwise we should put something in this clause about that. My ears pricked up when the Minister referred to the police finding fingerprints at the scene of a crime and using the ascertainment limb of the clause to obtain information. Does that mean that the police will be able to provide the national identity card register with a fingerprint and check whether anyone on the register has a matching fingerprint? If it does, I had not realised that the clause went that far and it excites rather than satisfies my anxieties about it. It is something that I shall want to think about and no doubt colleagues on the Conservative Benches will want to contemplate the matter rather carefully. The first point that caught my ear when the Minister was speaking was her reference to the convenience to the citizen of information being ascertainable rather than verifiable under this clause. I am not sure my question is fair, but I have no option because the wording of Clause 17 (1) is so extraordinarily obscure. It states:"““The Secretary of State may by regulations make provision authorising a person providing a public service””," but the person providing a public service cannot be an individual can they?