Identity Cards Bill

My Lords, the noble Lord paints a utopia which did not exist in the 16th century, either—I am thinking of Sir Thomas More. First, as for the great majority of people, the most recent polls in November and just last week showed that the greatest majority of people who support identity cards is 52 per cent. The noble Lord’s definition of the great majority does not quite coincide with mine. As for older people, some may indeed find it convenient. I must say that the only letters that I have received from people aged over 70, including the latest today, have asked me fervently to persuade the Government to exclude those over 70. I shall be delighted to forward the letter that I received only today to the noble Lord, Lord Foulkes. I shall try to make sure that I do so; he will remind me if I forget. The noble Lord repeats the arguments made by the Minister about the convenience of the scheme. In particular, he refers to the joy that we will have in notifying the national identity register when we change addresses. I know that the noble Lord was unable to be with us for all our debates—I am sure that he attended as much as he could—but we had significant debate about the fact that the Government have left to themselves an enabling power in this skeleton Bill to force us to provide our change of address on each and every occasion. The Minister said that the Government hoped or intended only to require us to notify a change of address when we had lived there for more than three months. Well, ““Whoopee!””, is all I can say. That means that I would have to think back to every place I have lived during my 58 years and when I lived there, to notify all that and then to notify changes of address thereafter after three months. Under later provisions in the Bill, you would then face a civil penalty—after all, if you are paying money, that is a fine—if you forgot to notify your change of address. The noble Lord has enabled me to remind the House again of the problems of the system, but he does so unnecessarily because, on this one, I did intend to go quietly.