Identity Cards Bill

My Lords, you would have had—as you would have had since Anglo-Saxon times—equality before the law. That was the great benefit of common law. I give a tiny history lesson: the reason we had a common tax was because the Anglo-Saxon kings created a united kingdom of England where the law was the same everywhere, where everybody paid tax and where there was no tax privilege. When my forebear, very unwisely, sold the whole of Woking for 5 shillings an acre and thought he had a good deal, the noble Lord would still have had the same rights in front of the law as did his forebears, for which I am proud and I hope he is proud as well.