Identity Cards Bill

I am grateful to the noble Earl, Lord Errol, for not agreeing with the amendment. I think that the amendment is unnecessary and that the Bill is already in the correct state. I shall describe why. I say to the noble Lord, Lord Hylton, and try to reassure him, that we are not seeking to chisel away at civil liberties. There is no intention to cause alarm. Indeed, we hope that much of that which we produce in this Bill will be reassuring and helpful and will enable us to help our citizens to feel more secure and far less alarmed and to deal with a number of the issues that have concerned them. I shall not go through all the reasons that were set out so convincingly at Second Reading. Amendment No. 201 would amend Clause 19(3)(b) and restrict the provision of information to the police for the prevention or detection of crime to cases of ““serious”” crime. That would not be appropriate. Paragraph 9 of Schedule 1 information—that is, the audit trail—can be provided only in cases of serious crime. But it would not be appropriate to limit the provision of all the identity and application history information on the register in this way. We went through in detail last time why we thought it was appropriate for the audit trail to be so restricted. For example, if the police were investigating someone who had a collection of identity cards or passports in different names in his possession with a view to establishing whether an offence under Clause 27(5) had been committed, if the amendment were agreed to, the police could not apply for information from the register to verify the entries without the consent of those concerned, because the maximum penalty for possession of documents belonging to another without reasonable excuse is two years. That would not fall into the category of ““serious crime””. I am fairly confident that the noble Lord would agree that that would be ridiculous, because it would not be able to do that which we would expect to do on behalf of the public. I turn to the matter raised by the noble Earl, Lord Errol, in relation to robbery. If there were true investigations into shoplifting or street robbery, that, too, may not fall within the definition of serious crime; and yet it must be right that we use the information that we have to be able to identify and pursue those who have been guilty of committing criminal offences to the detriment of others and who have victimised decent members of the community in that way. Amendment No. 203 would limit the provision of information without consent to the Commissioners of Her Majesty’s Revenue and Customs to circumstances where that information was necessary in the interests of national security or for the prevention and detection of serious crime. It is implicit in regard to all the other proper pursuits of HMRC that it would be disabled from using any information on the register. Her Majesty’s Revenue and Customs has law enforcement responsibilities, often undertaken jointly with the police, but it is also directly involved in the prevention and detection of crime. The Customs side is responsible for the investigation and prosecution of crime including major cases of drug trafficking. The Revenue side also has an important role in law enforcement. We do not think that they should be impeded from discharging their duties appropriately.