Identity Cards Bill

No. The Government believe that unless they force a majority of the population to have an ID card by covert compulsion, they will never win the vote to make it compulsory in the final analysis. They know that if the card is not compulsory, it will not just be ineffective against terrorism, fraud, illegal immigration and crime; it will be completely useless. Listening to the Home Secretary go on about the extra costs arising from the scheme, I was almost dumbstruck. The Opposition are not imposing £20 billion on the public for no virtue—we are not doing that, but that is what will happen. Covert compulsion has become necessary to the Government’s ill-starred strategy, which is incompetent in design, ineffective in execution and deceitful in delivery; but that does not mean that it is not dangerous. The proposal will completely invert the relationship between the citizen and the state. As we saw from the statement that preceded the debate, the Government too often forget that they are the servant of the people, not the other way round. The right to my identity is held by me, not by the state. My right to my citizenship is my birthright, not the gift of the Government, and our right as British citizens to our liberty and privacy should not be carelessly thrown away. That is why I ask everyone in the House to support the Lords in their defence of the rights of individual British citizens against unnecessary intrusion into their lives by an over-meddlesome Government, apparently bent on creating a surveillance state.