Identity Cards Bill

My Lords, I am immensely grateful to the many noble Lords who have taken part in what has been a vigorous and illuminating debate. Perhaps I may first put the mind of the noble Lord, Lord Gould, at rest: the love affair between the Liberal Party and the Tory Party is extraordinarily pragmatic. He can rest assured that if and when we consider the Government are doing the right thing, we will as always support them in the Lobbies. It is as simple as that. Further to the noble Lord, Lord Gould, who was very kind in his remarks, he did say that Members on this side, particularly on my part, have engaged in a wrecking procedure on the Bill. I am sorry; I am addressing the noble Lord, Lord Foulkes of Cumnock, not the noble Lord, Lord Gould. I refer him to the comment of the noble Lord, Lord Bassam of Brighton, made at the end of the debate. He said that Members on these Benches had introduced more positive and improving changes to the Bill than anyone else in the House. Something like 65 amendments have been accepted by the Government. An equal number of them came from these Benches. There is no desire to wreck the Bill but there is a passionate desire—passion is dangerous if you are legislating—to see this as a voluntary scheme for all the reasons that have been enunciated in opening the debate and have been reinforced by Members of this House contributing to it. The amount of information to be part of the database which is behind this ID card scheme takes 135 pages of legislation to describe—three and a half pages of Schedule 1. It goes considerably further than anything required by the Passport Office or any other department of state. It is the database, particularly the audit trail, that we object to so strongly. We would accept a simple, straightforward ID card shorn of this immense database, but not otherwise. We do not believe that this is a minor matter. In accordance with the Salisbury convention and the noble Baroness’s explanation of it, we are being cautious in our challenge. We have abandoned all the issues that were thrown back at us by the Commons, bar this one. We are not simply digging our heels in. We believe—and others have spoken more effectively than I have—that this is an issue of major long-term cultural and practical importance to this House. To those who say, ““What about security?””, we say that the funds that are likely to be expended on this uniquely grandiose scheme could be better spent in other directions. They could be better utilised and without the risk to the public relationship with the police and security officers that this scheme will involve. Whether the scheme should be voluntary or not has been argued ad nauseam, and I do not propose to add to the argument. But I feel that your Lordships want this matter tested; therefore, I seek to test the opinion of the House. On Question, Whether the said amendment (No. D1) shall be agreed to? Their Lordships divided: Contents, 227; Not-Contents, 166. On Question, Motion, as amended, agreed to. MOTION E 21 Clause 8, page 7, line 28, leave out ““or is subject to compulsory registration”” The Commons disagree to this amendment, but propose Amendment No. 21A in lieu— 21A Page 37, line 34, leave out from ““required”” to end of line 35 and insert ““to be entered in the Register in accordance with an obligation imposed by an Act of Parliament passed after the passing of this Act.””