Identity Cards Bill

I agree, and I have welcomed the concession—I am not sure whether the hon. Gentleman was in the Chamber when I intervened on the Minister in the early part of his speech. However, it is a 20 per cent. or partial concession. As I have said, there are still plenty of provisions in the Bill that give the Secretary of State power to compel the citizen to do something. It is right to welcome the limited concession, but we need to be very careful indeed about a Bill that essentially sets up a national identity register, which is a large Government computer into which all sorts of private information will go, and to which various Government agencies will have access. We the citizens will have no knowledge of when that information goes in, what is taken out, and to whom it is passed. Under the Bill’s final provisions, we will not be allowed to see an audit trail of the information that has been accessed.