Identity Cards Bill

My Lords, I beg to move that this House do not insist on its Amendment No. 21 and do agree to Amendment No. 21A proposed by the Commons in lieu thereof. The noble Baroness said: My Lords, I should explain that the Government decided in the other place not to seek to reverse Amendments Nos. 19 and 20, which have now removed Clauses 6 and 7 from the Bill on compulsory registration and on the super-affirmative resolution procedure for bringing in compulsory registration through secondary legislation. Those clauses dealt with the requirement to register and to be issued with an identity card in the second stage of the identity card scheme, and for compulsion to be brought into effect by way of secondary legislation made under this Bill and subject to the super-affirmative procedure. The Government have accepted the view of your Lordships’ House on those clauses, which have now been dropped. The Government have listened carefully to the points raised in both Houses. We have always said that this is designed to be a compulsory scheme, and it still is. We have always made it clear that compulsion will apply in the second stage of the scheme. The final move to compulsion will be when all United Kingdom residents aged 16 or over will be required to have an identity card with civil financial penalties for failure to register and be issued with an identity card. We have always been clear that that second compulsory stage will require a vote in both Houses. Our original proposal was for a type of secondary legislation known as the super-affirmative procedure, but we now accept that the use of secondary legislation in this way does not seem to have found favour, despite receiving approval from the Delegated Powers and Regulatory Reform Committee in its report on this Bill. We have therefore decided that fresh primary legislation will be the best way of moving to the second compulsory phase of the identity cards scheme. We have not set a precise timetable for moving to compulsion because that will depend on a number of factors, including the speed of rollout of the initial phase of the scheme, when we intend that the issue of identity cards will be linked to the renewal of passports and immigration documents. Moving to compulsion by the use of primary legislation rather than using the super-affirmative order route need not make any great difference to the timetable, however. Even though Clauses 6 and 7 of the Bill have now been dropped, there will remain numerous references to compulsion in the Bill. In particular, Clause 9 remains, which provides for the issue of identity cards to those people who are subject to compulsory registration; Clause 15, on identity checks for public services; and Clause 18, on the safeguards prohibiting an identity card being required as the sole proof of identity in advance of compulsion, although it contains provisions relating to the position after compulsory registration. That is why the Government propose Amendment No. 21A to clarify in Clause 43 that the definition of, ““subject to compulsory registration”” now means required,"““to be entered in the Register in accordance with an obligation imposed by an Act of Parliament passed after the passing of this Act””." That means that any references in the Bill to ““compulsory registration”” now relate to compulsion imposed in future primary legislation. Amendment No. 21, which the Motion disagrees with, would remove a consequential reference in Clause 8 to issuing an identity card to someone who is subject to compulsory registration. While this will have no effect until the further primary legislation referred to in Amendment No. 21A is in place, as I have made clear the ultimate intention is for there to be a compulsory scheme and so it would make sense for this reference to remain in Clause 8. Moved, That this House do not insist on its Amendment No. 21 and do agree to Amendment No. 21A proposed by the Commons in lieu thereof.—(Baroness Scotland of Asthal.)