Identity Cards Bill

My Lords, I want to speak to this amending Motion and, first, to confirm something that I said in the debate last week. I had not intended to speak but spoke from memory about the Parliament Act. I was asked afterwards whether what I had said was correct. I have re-checked and confirmed that this Bill, if it were to be passed under the Parliament Act, would be the first major manifesto or programme Bill to be thus dealt with since 1949—and, in some readings, since 1914. I will not go through the history of the Parliament Act, but that is the seriousness of the decision which your Lordships’ House—including the Official Opposition—will have to take if we can find no compromise. Motion A1 goes much further than the Parliament Act and, in a way, compounds the importance of the issue.