Identity Cards Bill

My Lords, no one has that right, save and except the provisions which currently apply to security and other measures that are currently reflected for passports and the UK identity scheme. If noble Lords had their way, we would have the burden of the new system brought in by technology but we would not have the benefits. The benefits that we have put address the issues which have been properly raised by a number of my noble friends, not least my noble friend Lady Kennedy of The Shaws, who I will for ever see as one of the most fast friends that I have. But, on this issue, we do not agree—for this reason. My noble friend said, and rightly so, that she has no objection to the improvements made on biometric passports. She fears the improper use of the database. I have to say to my noble friend that we fear it too, which is why we have put in the safeguards to make sure that there is an audit trail, a monitor and a commissioner. All those things do not currently prevail in relation to the UK passport database. We believe that we are making a step change which has to be addressed. I hear what the noble Baroness, Lady Anelay, says about the Salisbury convention. I do not agree for this reason: the Salisbury convention is not about semantics; it is about the essence of what was provided. When this matter went before the other place, the whole Bill went through and was approved in the form in which it was subsequently reintroduced. We made it plain that the Bill that would come back to this place and the other place after the election, if the electorate was so wise as to reinstate us, would be the same Bill. That is the background. I shall remind the noble Baroness what was said by the commission when it reviewed the whole working of the Salisbury convention. The noble Lord, Lord Wakeham, who stands in high regard in this House, said that the commission’s report stated at Recommendation 7:"““The principles underlying the ’Salisbury Convention’ remain valid and should be maintained. A version of the ’mandate’ doctrine should continue to be observed: where the electorate has chosen a party to form a Government, the elements of that party’s general election manifesto should be respected by the second chamber. More generally, the second chamber should be cautious about challenging the clearly expressed views of the House of Commons on any public policy issue. It is not possible to reduce this to a simple formula, particularly one based on manifesto commitments””." Let us be clear. We went to the electorate. We said, ““We want ID cards””. It will be a compulsory scheme in the long term. The whole point of the word ““initially”” is that in the first place it will be. Let us be frank: people have constantly in this House made reference to primary legislation. It may have escaped your Lordships, but this is primary legislation. We are considering not secondary legislation, but primary legislation, which the Government have done well. In relation to the comments made by the noble Lord, Lord Thomas of Swynnerton, we are as conscious of our history as any. On the remarks of the noble Lord, Lord Waddington, I hope that I have reassured him that we do want a fair, just, proportionate and non-discriminatory procedure. We are doing that in a way that will enable us to introduce it incrementally, as was made clear by my noble friend Lord Macdonald. It is also the most efficacious way. On the comments made by the noble Lord, Lord Roberts of Llandudno, we have made an incremental provision for the roll-out. The new local passport offices will start to open in October 2006. It is not yet possible to announce their precise locations as the availability of premises has yet to be finalised. However, there will be a balanced spread of offices throughout the United Kingdom in major towns and cities. Staff are being recruited and trained now and will be fully trained before the first of the offices opens in October. The programme is well under way and, it is hoped, will make full provision. We have come to the time when I respectfully suggest that this House should give way. We have debated this again and again. From the very start it was always our intention that the roll-out of passports should be the vehicle with which we would start the process towards a compulsory scheme. There has been no duplicity about it, and no misunderstanding. I accept absolutely that noble Lords opposite wish to take advantage of a perceived infelicitous point of drafting in our manifesto, but in reality that is all it is. It has been said that this has forced noble Lords opposite into an alliance. However, of course we are the Government and they are the Opposition; that is part of their function. But I hope that, in opposing, noble Lords will put the needs of this country first. We believe that it will inure to this country’s advantage to have the procedures in place. I simply remind noble Lords that a number of practitioners in the field, not least those charged with our security provision,have made it clear that they see this as a major advantage. The present and previous Commissioners of the Metropolitan Police support it; the Association of Chief Police Officers supports it, as does the head of the Security Service, Eliza Manningham-Buller. Other supporters include Judge Jean-Louis Bruguiere, France’s top counter-terror investigator, who stated that identity cards will help Britain to protect itself against attacks by al-Qaeda and other sympathisers. We are not alone among common law countries to use this. Identity cards exist in common law countries such as Cyprus, Malaysia and Singapore. Equally, national population registers or ID cards are used in countries such as Sweden, Finland and Denmark—those are hardly totalitarian states. Somehow to imply that identity cards will suddenly change our way of life or who we are as British citizens is to do a disservice to the British character.