Identity Cards Bill

My Lords, there is very little new to be said about the issue of compulsion or voluntarism and passports and identity cards. The issue has been flogged to death in this House and in the other place and has had another six lashes this afternoon from the noble Lord, Lord Phillips, so I do not propose to say anything about that bleeding corpse. People can decide what they want to do. However, I do want to say a word or two about the speech made by the noble Lord, Lord McNally, the leader of the Liberal Democrats, the last time we looked at this and about what he has been saying in the short interim since then and this afternoon. He is trying to transform the discussion from one on identity cards to one of much greater constitutional significance. As I understand it, his argument—and it is right that this should be confronted by the House—is that disputes between the two Houses should be resolved by the use of the Parliament Act. That is a novel proposition on any view. I do not think that anybody has gone quite so far as the noble Lord in claiming that the Parliament Act is arbitrational in character. It is not. It is not there to produce a consensus between the two Houses; it is there to recognise and establish the supremacy of the House of Commons over the House of Lords. Indeed, if one follows the argument of the noble Lord, Lord McNally, his proposition would lead to the almost total sidelining of this House in relation to the passage of legislation. If there were no real discussion between the two Houses to resolve a contentious issue between them, all the Commons would have to do is sit there and insist, secure in the knowledge that, at the end of the day, it is bound to get its own way. I do not believe for a moment that that would be an improvement on the present situation. At least now there are some attempts to produce agreement. The Parliament Act is there as an ultimate deterrent, rarely, if ever, to be actually used. When I contemplated what the noble Lord, Lord McNally, had been saying, I was reminded of a tone poem by Richard Strauss—I am sure that some of your Lordships will be aware of it—called Till Eulenspiegel. The English translation of the title is, ““His merry pranks and his jolly japes””. I think that the noble Lord, Lord McNally, has been somewhat mischievous in the way that he has the approached this issue. But the fact is that an accident of parliamentary arithmetic in this House has elevated the Liberal Democrats to a position of unprecedented power.