Identity Cards Bill

My hon. Friend makes a compelling point. The problem is compounded by the fact that the Home Secretary has told us that any move to fully fledged compulsion will be made through primary legislation. We are being asked to accept that gratefully as a significant concession. What possible purpose will be served by primary legislation to make the possession of identity cards compulsory if they have, to all intents and purposes, already been made compulsory for the vast majority of the population?Legislating badly is one thing. Legislating for something that the Government have already imposed surreptitiously on the British people is at best a waste of parliamentary time and at worst downright cynical. There are many good reasons for not making such a flawed Bill compulsory. It is based on the flimsiest costings. Only last week, the London School of Economics estimated that the Government would rack up a deficit of £1.8 billion in 10 years unless they significantly raised the fees for identity cards and new biometric passports. The Government’s guesstimate—it is no more than that—of a fee of £93 for the combined card and passport already appears entirely implausible. The central database for ID cards will be far more powerful than any other equivalent ID database used elsewhere in Europe. Experience in the United Kingdom suggests that initial use will soon be expanded. When ID cards were introduced as a wartime measure in 1939, they had three stated purposes: conscription, national security and rationing. By 1950, an audit found that that had expanded to 39 stated purposes. The inevitable creeping expansion of the information held on individuals by the state will unalterably change the relationship between citizen and Government in this country. The Bill is based on flimsy costings, does not have a clear purpose and now rests on a fictional use of the English language. Such a measure is bad enough. It should not now be foisted on the British people through the back door. I urge hon. Members to support the Lords amendment.