Identity Cards Bill

I speak to support my hon. Friend the Member for Sheffield, Hallam (Mr. Clegg) and the view that the Liberal Democrats have taken consistently for many years. There may be disagreement on quite how freedom to travel should be defined. I share the view that there is a freedom to travel. It is a European Union freedom, certainly. There may not be a right to have a passport historically, for the reasons given by the hon. and learned Member for Harborough (Mr. Garnier) and, as was pointed out by the hon. Member for Aldridge-Brownhills (Mr. Shepherd), it was always a question of the royal prerogative, and the Foreign Secretary would sign the inside of the passport. However, there is no doubt that there was a common understanding that people would be able to travel if they needed to. The Home Secretary has come here tonight to say to the elderly relative who is told that his or her child is ill in another country, ““This is a matter of free choice, but you must have an identity card if you want to visit a relative who is very ill.”” The Home Secretary has come to the House to say to a business person, ““If you want to do business and fly the flag for Britain, you must have an identity card as a condition of your choice to go and sell our products abroad.”” The Home Secretary is saying to the civil servant who is told that he must go and do work for our country abroad, ““You must also have an identity card.”” That is not freedom of choice in the conventional sense of the term, and the Home Secretary can never persuade us that it is. Furthermore, the argument is clearly disingenuous. Originally, a supplementary part of the Bill provided for a piece of secondary legislation to be passed by both Houses before compulsion took over from the voluntary system. Then we were told that we would have a different Bill—because this Bill did not provide for compulsion, compulsion would be dealt with separately. Only now, at this last stage, are we being told that under this system there will now compulsion if people want passports. Finally, there is a constitutional point that I want to make to the Home Secretary. He has come here seeking to persuade us that the House of Lords should not be followed. The Government may have a majority of Members in this place, but it has a lower share of the vote than any majority Government since 1832. It has no justification for complaining that the House at the other end of the Corridor should not do its job, and ensure that Government proposals that were not in the manifesto are stopped by the British Parliament. The House at the other end of the Corridor is the creation of this Government; it is put there by this Government; it is nominated by this Government; it is bought, in part, by this Government. The House at the other end of the Corridor is entirely a new Labour creation. The Government have a cheek to come here and tell us that, with their minimal moral and political authority, they must ask the House of Lords to reject a view that the House of Commons has passed, and insert another view. On these Benches we stand by principle, we stand by practice, we stand by precedent, we stand by democracy, and we stand for the right of Parliament as a whole to do its job as a whole and to throw out this Bill as a whole, if that is the view that the other House holds to. We encourage the other House to hold to it because the other House is right. The Home Secretary can persuade no one tonight that he is right. He is flawed, fundamentally wrong, and trying to deceive us—but we are not buying any of it.