Identity Cards Bill

I had better be careful what I say on the question of reciprocity. I know that the noble Lord has a particular view about the islands. The case is that, as we know, organised crime and terrorism have no national boundaries. We think that we have rightly made provision for the police forces of the United Kingdom to request information without the consent of the individual in the context of national security and for the prevention or detection of crime. We believe that it is an entirely reasonable step to include the police forces of the islands, which we have done at their request, in order to safeguard the public of all the jurisdictions. The nearness of the islands and the ease of travel between them and the United Kingdom mean that criminals as well as legitimate tourists and other travellers can carry out their activities across the jurisdictions. It seems to us to be perfectly proper for this legislation to allow explicitly for the provision of information to the islands’ police, who quite rightly work very closely indeed with United Kingdom police forces. For example, they can already be provided with fingerprint and DNA information under Section 63A of the Police and Criminal Evidence Act 1984. Such arrangements recognise the special position of the Crown dependencies in relation to the United Kingdom. We ought not to overlook the fact that we are talking about the provision of identity information from the register, including name, address, date of birth, photograph, biometrics and so on, to help the police with their investigations. The register is not an amalgam of every bit of information held on every government database and Clause 19 does not allow paragraph 9 of Schedule 1 information—that is, the audit trail—to be provided to the insular police forces unless the serious crime test is met under Clause 20(4). Thinking back to when I had some responsibility for relations with the insular authorities, knowing how their police forces—which are modelled very closely on our own—work, and knowing as the noble Lord and I both do that there is a feeling and a sense that offshore activities of a financial and sometimes dubious nature take place relating to those three particular insular authorities, I think that this is an extremely sensible move. Given that their own authorities have requested this, we should welcome it for proper and effective law enforcement relationships. As to the noble Lord’s throwaway comment on reciprocity, the case does not arise as the islands do not as yet have an identity card scheme or an identity register, although that is something for them to consider in the future. No doubt, when they see the success of our scheme they will probably wish to go further along that path. Having heard of the value of the provision to law enforcement for the detection of serious crime and fraud, I think that it is probably extremely useful that they have requested this of us.