Identity Cards Bill

I feel that we are making very slow progress, but progress none the less, and I welcome that. I was delighted when the Home Secretary said this afternoon that he welcomed the positive tone being adopted. The Lords amendments are a huge compromise. Some of us have had enormous reservations and have battled on the issue for weeks and weeks. It is almost difficult to accept but, in the interests of compromise, we must accept the Lords amendments, which are well intentioned and seem to be the only way forward that has a chance of reaching compromise with the Government. The Home Secretary said this afternoon that he will listen. That, too, is a welcome development, but only if he listens to the debate and is prepared to accept some compromise, whether the one now on offer or, later in the day, some other. Otherwise, listening and adopting a positive tone will mean nothing. We have made some progress already this afternoon. For the first time, we have heard from the Government what the debate is not about. We had been led to believe that it was about us coming in line with an international network of information that would allow us to tackle international terrorism and international crime. It was interesting that the Home Secretary said today that Britain was not acting as part of an international network, nor in relation to any requirement from the EU. We are doing it for our Government’s national reasons. There is no doubt that they have sincere reasons, which we have heard from the Home Secretary in previous debates. We have established today that the scheme will not help us internationally. It may help us inside Britain to deal with those matters, but it will not be our contribution to an international effort to tackle terrorism and crime. It is important that the Home Secretary has said that. The debate is also not about the so-called battle between the two Houses. I do not agree that this is a constitutional matter, and it should not be. That is a bad reason. Our Whips are undoubtedly putting pressure on Labour Members on exactly that basis—““Surely you cannot want to side with the Lords and obstruct the Commons””. That is crude and represents a misunderstanding of our constitution. We are a Parliament made up of two Houses and both of them have the same job: to scrutinise and hold the Government of the day to account. We should be doing that in co-operation with each other, which is not to say that the House of the Executive, which is this House, should not have supremacy. I believe that it should, but supremacy through co-operation, argument and compromise, not supremacy because we are elected. That is a very good reason, but in my view both Houses ought to be elected. As soon as they are, and I would hasten that day, that argument will fall. Even after both Houses are elected, this Chamber should be the supreme Chamber because the Executive is located here. The House of scrutiny should be along the other end of the corridor. We are working on the same matters and, given that the job of both Houses is to scrutinise the Government, it is right and proper that, if the other House has doubts, it should express them and refer us to reconsider what we are doing and saying. There is nothing improper or unconstitutional about it. It is wholly constructive. The Lords are demonstrating the good faith of that constructive parliamentary attitude by coming up again and again with attempts to find a compromise. In this case, they have gone very far with amendments 22J and 22K. Those are worthy of the Government’s consideration. I hope that the Government will not seek to drive the proposition through now or later today. If they do, that would demonstrate that they were uncertain about their own case. They have good cause not to be confident. The Government do not trust the public to support an Identity Cards Bill that is truly voluntary. They have cited opinion polls showing that 70 per cent. of the public support identity cards, but the public do not know what will be in the register and do not understand it. When the public scrutinise the measure, I doubt whether they will accept a voluntary scheme. If the Government were really confident of their case, they would put it to the electorate and allow them to sign up or not sign up through a voluntary scheme. If they were persuasive and articulate, perhaps they would persuade the people of this country to sign up to a voluntary scheme. Everybody is against terrorism and everybody is against international crime. If the Home Secretary and the Prime Minister were to make a sufficiently passionate and articulate case, we would get what we should have, which is a voluntary scheme that the people of this country want to sign up to because they see it as a co-operative effort against crime and terrorism. However, the Government do not have that confidence in their case and do not think that the public will sign up. The Government are not confident that the country would support a compulsory scheme. If the scheme were compulsory, they would not be able to compel the public to sign up and charge them £90 or £100, in which case they would have to pick up the cost themselves. I do not think that the Home Secretary is confident that he can persuade the Chancellor to provide the £13 billion that the scheme will cost—the figure is possibly greater than that. If the Chancellor had had to consider in his Budget whether to make cuts or to put up taxes to find that £13 billion, the Home Secretary would have received a very dusty answer.