Identity Cards Bill

My Lords, those who have just heard that speech and the previous speech by the noble Lord, Lord Gould, will have noted where the weight of argument lay. As always, the noble Baroness spoke with great effectiveness and she eliminated the arguments of her noble friend—although they had already been eliminated in the other place by a supporter of the Bill, his right honourable friend, Mr Denham, in the Home Affairs Select Committee. On this occasion, having taken part throughout the Committee stage, I need to say very little following the admirable speech of the noble Lord, Lord Phillips, who dealt effectively with voluntarism, and the very important speech on the Salisbury convention by my noble friend Lady Anelay. However, one other point was touched on briefly during an earlier speech—that is, the way in which the Government are rolling out this project on a manageable basis. One argument advanced by the noble Baroness, Lady Scotland, was that this was all very important from a security point of view for the maintenance of law and order. If it were important for that reason, we would not have to wait for the manageable roll-out as people applied for passports over the next few years. That demolishes the argument that there is any urgency or significance in the move to this project. If the Government really believed that it was vital for security, they would not be talking about a manageable roll-out as people reapplied for passports; they would be saying that we must get on with it. Finally, I return to the point made in another place by Mr McNulty, the Minister responsible for immigration, citizenship and nationality, when he emphasised that the most important element of the programme was the database that stands behind the card. We talk about what the public believe and whether they support this measure in terms of the possible help they think may occasionally be provided if they can present a card to identify themselves. But I think that very few of them are aware of the significance of the database, the access that will be available to it by many bodies or the fact that it provides a route to a whole range of other government databases. It is not a single database; we are providing a considerable number of doors to the whole range of government databases, and that is why this measure is of such significance. Mr McNulty, in a rather curious comment during his speech in which he conceded the important point that there must be legislation before we move to Clauses 6 and 7, in which we now are to have legislation before we have compulsion—another great victory for this House—said:"““as we move towards flicking the switch for compulsion through primary legislation””." I repeat: flicking the switch for compulsion. He went on to say that, by then, there would be a,"““relatively small number of people who had not registered for and obtained a card””.—[Official Report, Commons, 13/2/06; col. 1151.]" So we are to have legislation for a relatively small number of people—Mr McNulty said that it would probably be less than 20 per cent—and we are to have creeping compulsion for the 80 per cent who require a passport and who do not believe that the need for a passport is voluntary but compulsory. Therefore, I strongly support the noble Lord, Lord Phillips. His speech provided an overwhelming argument for this House to support his amendment, and I hope that it will do so.