Identity Cards Bill

My Lords, I am most grateful to the noble Lord, Lord Richard, for giving way. It is very rare that I seek to speak at the beginning of such debates on Bills, but I thought that it might be helpful during this interchange between the Houses if I made clear our position. That is the only reason why I have pressed ahead in this regard. I support Motion A1, moved by the noble Lord, Lord Phillips of Sudbury, and oppose government Motion A. Motion A1 offers the Government an honourable and reasonable compromise. In essence, it provides the opportunity for the Government to proceed immediately with a voluntary ID card and a national register regime related to passports. Significantly, it would also enable the Government to operate that on a compulsory basis, as they wish, from the end of the first Session of the next Parliament. That would enable preparations to proceed immediately, but it would require an explicit mandate before compulsion began. It would also enable any government who did not wish to impose a compulsory register and ID card scheme to repeal the Act in the first Session of the next Parliament. The amendments would mean that the Government got their Bill immediately, including potentially the power of compulsion, while upholding the constitutional position, which so many noble Lords have expressed, that something so far-reaching as making the freedom to travel conditional on being compulsorily enrolled on the national identity register, with all the implications that that has for the audit trail of our lives, and compulsorily having an identity card, should be put to the British people clearly and openly at a general election. The Opposition do not think, and have never thought, that the suggestion that a government should be held to their manifesto commitment on the Identity Cards Bill is in breach of the Salisbury convention. I set out our views on this matter, clearly and at some length, on 6 March, and I do not propose to test the patience of the House today by repeating those arguments. They stand for themselves, at col. 555 of Hansard, for those keen enough to look at them. As to the wider issue raised by the recommendation of the Wakeham commission—that this House should be cautious about challenging the clearly expressed views of another place on issues of policy—I set out our agreement with that point on Wednesday of last week. I explained why such agreement does not preclude us from pressing the Government to reach a better solution to the problem of their own creation. Again, I shall not test the patience of the House by repeating what I said at col. 1232. Any normal person reading the manifesto commitment on this matter would interpret that commitment as, ““When I renew my passport, I can choose whether I go on the register and have an ID card. And if I don’t want to, I can choose not to””. That is what ““voluntary”” would initially mean to anyone who read it. The Minister rejected our compromise proposal in her opening speech. She says that it would require the setting up of two databases, and queries the costs involved. But the Government have consistently refused to reveal the full costs of their scheme. Their amendment in lieu, which was accepted by this House on a previous occasion, still leaves the most significant parts of their assessment of costs hidden from public scrutiny. The Government’s own system of compulsion by stealth surely also has complexity in its arrangements. It must enable those who do not need a passport to sign up for an ID card if they want one. There will have to be a record of those true volunteers, in addition to those who are compelled to have an ID card if they need to travel—for work, to visit their relatives, or to take a holiday. There is also still some confusion about whether the Government intend to adapt the passport system into the proposed national identity register—whether a separate NIR would ultimately replace the passport system or whether the two would co-exist. Whatever the decision, it is clear that the ID scheme would involve multiple systems, developed over time, to achieve multiple functions. The Minister said today that in accepting an amendment such as this, the Government would have to rewrite their business plan. But government policy on how they will run the scheme is still evolving. If I wanted to be difficult, I could say that they are making it up day by day. But I don’t want to be difficult. Last week, Mr Burnham, the Minister in charge of the ID card scheme, revealed to the Social Market Foundation conference that the plans for the initial stage of the verification process have been significantly changed. Instead of a system whereby the verification of identity would be by electronic readers—which is what we have debated in this House, at all stages of the Bill—the Government have now announced that they plan to use the chip and PIN system first. Mr Burnham said that a PIN would be an intermediate way of checking the card. The Government now accept what many have been saying for some time: the cost of buying in biometric readers could be a significant burden on businesses, public service providers and government departments. It is clear that the Government have not yet determined the initial architecture of the IT system, and that may be no bad thing. If they are prepared to take time to consider more carefully an effective and reliable system of verification, I, for one, will not complain. It therefore means that there is still time to discuss just how the initial period of the scheme should operate. I was brought up to believe that one should stand up for what one believes is right and speak out against what one believes is wrong. That is simply what I have been trying to do in the debates on the Government’s plans for compulsion by stealth. For all my faults, I am always an optimist. I believe that there are reasonable and honourable solutions to problems. It is right to take the time and the patience, and to act in good faith, to find those solutions. If the Minister continues to believe that she is unable to accept the amending Motion of the noble Lord, Lord Phillips, I shall strongly support him in the Division Lobbies, because I think it is important for another place to have the opportunity to consider this new proposal. It is a sensible and honourable compromise, with something for both sides of the argument, and I hope that people on all sides will support it. I support Motion A1.