Identity Cards Bill

I do not know what to say to that—bash on, I think. Amendment No. 255A would require the Secretary of State, before imposing a penalty, to send the defaulter written warning of his intention together with brief details of the alleged default, so that the defaulter can say whether the Secretary of State has the wrong person or that he had a heart attack on the day he was supposed to attend an interview at Peterborough, or whatever else. We could be arguing about nothing because the code that is to be promulgated under the Act refers to warning letters and penalty notices. For those Members of the Committee who do not know what I am talking about, I am referring to the draft code of practice issued by the Home Office on the ninth of this month and sent to many noble Lords. However, I suspect that some noble Lords do not have a copy. Part 3 of the code, headed,"““Warning letters and penalty notices””," states:"““Before imposing a civil penalty for non compliance with a requirement, it will normally be appropriate to send a warning letter setting out the reasons why the Secretary of State has reason to believe liability to a civil penalty has arisen and urging compliance””." I think the Home Office drafted that after it saw my amendment. But, be that as it may, I do not mind as long as we have a fair procedure. It is plainly not fair to get a penalty before you have said your piece. We are now arguing about whether this vital provision should be on the face of the Bill or be left lurking in a code—a code, incidentally, which can be changed by negative resolution. It is such a fundamental right to be told what someone is proposing to penalise you for in order that you can say your piece before he or she makes a decision to penalise, my legal instincts tell me that it should be on the face of the Bill, albeit that even in the code it has the same legal effect. We are talking about presentation and what somebody looking at the Bill will see rather than what they might see if they read the textbook—I refer to the note at the bottom of page 311. We have had discussions on this before, when I raised in extenso the whole question of whether the penalty regime is in fact a criminal code. It is not necessary for me today to enlarge on or repeat that, except in the context that if I am right in my feeling that this should be in the Bill, it certainly should be in the Bill if this is a quasi-criminal regime, as I believe that it is. Noble Lords may remember that on the previous Committee day I referred to some of the tests that the European Court will apply in deciding whether a code that calls itself ““civil”” is or is not criminal. Apart from her general response, I would be grateful if the Minister would answer three points. First, the code says that a warning letter will ““normally”” be sent—that is not good enough. If a penalty is in the process of being slapped on a citizen, a warning letter must be sent, and I see no exception to that. These are not small penalties; we are talking about penalties of £1,000 to £2,500. The notes accompanying the code say that the general level of penalty will be a quarter of the maximum so that if, for example, I refuse to have my photo taken when I get to Peterborough, or I miss the bus, I am in line for a penalty of £625, which is an awful lot of money to many in this Chamber, let alone some of our less fortunate citizens. I hope that where the draft code now says it will be ““normally”” be appropriate to send a warning letter, the noble Baroness will accept that it must be appropriate. Secondly, there must be a time limit for a response, and the draft code gives no such time limit. The citizen should have a clear and unbreakable right to send in his or her representations within a certain time. Finally, I would be grateful if the noble Baroness would clear up an uncertainty that arises from the draft code. On page 12, under the section about representations being made after the fine has been imposed, it says that representations may be made by ““telephone or e mail”” as well as by mail. There is no reference in the earlier part dealing with warning letters—letters that go out before the penalty notice is applied—to the right of the citizen to send in telephonic representations. If at the end of all this we are told that there will be a warning letter, there will be a time limit and there will be the possibility of responding by telephone, I will at least be much assuaged, if not wholly persuaded. I will do the Chamber a mercy if I sit down now, although there are all sorts of interesting things that I wanted to say. I beg to move.