Identity Cards Bill

My Lords, I am not sure how you follow that, but I shall certainly not follow the noble Earl down the Anglo-Saxon route. I would like, however, to join in the tributes to the noble Lord, Lord Phillips. I had the privilege—I mean that; it was a privilege—of serving with him on the Joint Committee on the Charities Bill. On that committee, I learnt that he goes into his arguments very carefully and puts them very eloquently and forcefully. Sometimes he is right and sometimes he is wrong. On the Charities Bill, sometimes he was right and we agreed; and sometimes he was wrong. I think the noble Lord is wrong today. He argued very eloquently and I listened carefully to him. I do not think that he is arguing about voluntary versus compulsory. I think his argument was meant to be a demolition of the whole idea of identity cards. Day by day, sitting by sitting, in Committee he and his colleagues have been undermining the whole Bill bit by bit. When I ask people about identity cards, even those who are violently against them say, ““I am against them. But if we have identity cards, there would be no sense in having them as voluntary; they must be compulsory to have any effect””. They argue that very strongly. I do find the thinking of the Liberals awfully woolly from time to time—I shall come back to that. But I can understand why they are pursuing this argument here. What I do not understand—my noble friend Lord Gould raised this—is why the Tories have joined that unholy alliance. We have former Cabinet Ministers who, if they were still in power—if I dare say so to the noble Lord, Lord Waddington, if he were still Home Secretary—would be arguing the case eloquently and powerfully for the introduction of identity cards. Former Home Secretaries, former Foreign Secretaries and, indeed, the former Prime Minister, who is here, would be pushing strongly for the introduction of identity cards. Again and again, the Government are asked when there is a breach of security: what is being done about it? When there are terrorist acts, they are asked: what is being done about it? Those questions are asked by the Liberals and by the Tories but, when the Government bring forward measures to tackle security or terrorism, they do not get the support, in particular, of the Liberal Democrats. Again and again, when there is social security fraud, people from the Opposition Benches say: what will be done about it? What action will be taken? When the Government bring forth legislation to deal with it, no support is forthcoming. There are many other examples that I could cite. So I hope that some Conservatives, at least, will realise that if they were in government, they would understand the argument and bring forward the kind of responsible legislation to deal with those problems that the Government propose today. Finally, I say to my noble friend—I think I may still call her my noble friend—Lady Kennedy of The Shaws, who sat down to huge cheers from the Liberal Democrats and the Tories, that I look forward to the day when I sit here and hear her support the Government, which she is supposed to have been brought here to support.