Identity Cards Bill

It is a serious crime, but your Lordships will also know that taking drugs from one country to another, sometimes secreted in the body, can be at the lower end of drug trafficking. There is a huge issue as to whether such people would or would not be included. Many of the offences that HMRC pursues go right across the full spectrum. The noble Lord would be saying that you could investigate the serious end of crime whereas the other end—a point raised by the noble Earl, Lord Errol, who restricted it to offences against the person—would not be prosecuted. Those offences are often seen as equally important—and sometimes more important because they impinge on more people’s lives—by the ordinary person in the street. Clause 19(4) is necessarily detailed to ensure that all the relevant functions of HMRC are covered so that it will be possible to provide it with information from the national identity register to assist with its functions; for example, in directing its compliance work effectively and reducing the risk of making payments to individuals who have made fraudulent claims. In addition, the boundary between the civil and criminal work of HMRC is a complex area. Disruption of revenue fraud to prevent significant tax loss developing is a key element of the strategy for combating commercial fraud; for example, value added tax and duty on tobacco, oils and alcohol. Although it is possible to arrest and prosecute the perpetrators, part of the response in tackling serious tax fraud may be the use of civil procedures to frustrate criminals and prevent loss of revenue. For example, in ““missing trader”” VAT fraud, where fraudulent VAT repayment claims can amount to millions of pounds, HMRC may use civil procedures to recover the loss of tax. These civil procedures, which can be more effective than criminal proceedings in recovering funds, may include restraint orders where a debt has been established, the appointment of an insolvency practitioner or civil conspiracy proceedings. What links these civil disruption activities to criminal investigation is that both require timely and accurate intelligence for effective action to be taken. It makes sense then that the Revenue and Customs can be provided with information held on the national identity register that could help in its investigations regardless of whether it leads to a criminal prosecution. There are also good reasons why we should not limit the provision of this information to ““serious”” crime. Revenue and Customs deals with child benefit and tax credit fraud. An individual instance of these types of fraud may not appear to be a serious crime but it could be part of a serious organised fraud, and cumulatively these cases where false identities are used could lead to a major loss to public funds. I cannot speak about any ongoing cases, but, as your Lordships will know, at this moment a number of issues are being discussed in the press about the impact of such purported activity. Of course, as I have said before, we are not talking of wholesale access to information. We are talking about basic identity details being provided. The Bill already provides that information in paragraph 9 of Schedule 1—the audit trail information which we spent a long time discussing—can be provided only in cases of serious crime. Detailed rules will be laid down in secondary legislation under Clause 23 as to exactly how any request for information to be provided to Revenue and Customs is to be handled. Amendment No. 209 would remove the public interest test in Clause 19(7) and limit the Secretary of State to making regulations and orders under the powers in the clause only when necessary in the interests of national security or for the prevention or detection of serious crime, rather than in the public interest as defined in Clause 1(4). Subsection (7) provides a safeguard on the use of the powers by the Secretary of State under subsections (3)(c), (4)(f) and (5) to allow provision of information from the register to the police, Revenue and Customs and government departments for specified purposes. Subsection (7) confines the exercise of those powers to cases in which it is necessary in the public interest as defined in Clause 1(4). Clause 19(3) and (4) already provides power to provide information to the police and Her Majesty’s Revenue and Customs for the purposes of national security and prevention and detection of crime, so it would not make sense to limit the order-making powers to those purposes. The order and regulation-making powers under Clause 19 are the subject of the next group of amendments, but the circumstances in which the police, Revenue and Customs and government authorities may legitimately require verification information without an individual’s consent are not limited to the prevention and detection of serious crime or national security. To limit the provision of information without consent in that fashion would be to limit the usefulness of the identity cards scheme. For example, the power in Clause 19(3)(c) may be used to authorise the provision of information to the police for the purposes of identifying victims of accidents, terrorist incidents or disaster. Regrettably, we all know how necessary that has proven to be on occasion, when one has not been able to identify the person in any other way. The power to provide information to government departments under Clause 19(5) may be used to provide information—for example, to the Department for Work and Pensions for benefits entitlement purposes. We do not accept that the public interest definition is too far-reaching, because it includes,"““the efficient and effective provision of public services””." Providing information to help a public authority to tackle housing benefit fraud, for example, or to identify someone attempting to access services to which they are not entitled surely goes to the heart of the benefits of the scheme. Such information should be available without consent. I hope that the Committee will accept that the information held on the national identity register is held in confidence and, as I hope that I have made clear in all our debates, there will be no open access to the register. I was pleased that the noble Lord, Lord Bassam, was able to remind us of that fact earlier in answer to the noble Lord, Lord Hylton. No one will be able to simply browse through the entries on the register. As I have said, regulations under Clause 23 would govern how any request for information would be handled, by whom it could be made and by whom it would need to be authorised. The order-making powers to prescribe additional purposes for which information may be provided to the police, the Revenue and government departments are subject to the public interest test in subsection (7) and to the scrutiny of Parliament. I shall answer the point made by the noble and learned Lord, Lord Lyell. Of course regulations under Clause 23(5) may allow information to be provided to an officer of a lower rank than the chief constable of the police. The regulations will make different provisions depending on the nature of the information, and a higher rank will be needed for paragraph 9 information. We think that proper. Following the report of the Delegated Powers and Regulatory Reform Committee, I have indicated that I am willing to look again at the powers and make them subject to the affirmative rather than the negative resolution procedure. I will return to the matter on Report. I agree with Members of the Committee who say that that would be an appropriate level of scrutiny.