Verification of Information in Passport Applications Etc. (Specified Persons) Order 2007

My Lords, I am grateful to both noble Lords for their interest in, if not support for, the order. I was not quite sure whether the noble Lord, Lord Henley, supported it. Of course, it relates not to ID cards but to passports and passport security, which is a different point. The noble Lord, Lord Henley, as ever chides us about costs, but he fails to understand that most of the costs of ID cards are contained in the current budget for the Identity and Passport Service, as we have explained on many occasions. However, this matter is of genuine interest, concern and debate. We have yet to hear from Her Majesty’s loyal Opposition whether they will abolish legislation on ID cards if they ever return to government. There is a debate to be had on that, no doubt over many years. The noble Lord then asked about the precise costs of the order and how it is to work and be funded. How do we pay Equifax and what are the charges? We pay Equifax by way of a licence fee, the cost of which is calculated by estimating the number of transactions at a predetermined transaction charge. In addition, a provisional annual development cost was anticipated at the outset of the Equifax contract. The actual cost of development is met on completion of the work or through a series of milestone payments. There are, of course, some continuing maintenance software and hardware charges, which are quite tightly controlled in that process. The contract was let in March 2004, but became effective from June 2004. The contract value when let was £8.3 million—a combination of licence and development spend. How do we pay for GRO information on births, marriages and deaths? The Identity and Passport Service pays a fee to the GRO for all certified copies of birth, marriage or death certificates. We are also provided with bulk data on all child deaths, for which we have made a contribution to the costs. We do that for the very good reason that we do not want to do anything that undermines our continued fight to prevent identity fraud, the consequences of which I am sure we all recognise are very serious indeed. I should add that we are also looking to the provision of online information on births, marriages and deaths, but the costs of this have yet to be settled, so this may be something for the future. The noble Lord, Lord Dholakia, offered us his support for the order, and reiterated a position that interestingly emerged in our discussions on the UK Borders Bill when he voiced his fairly vociferous support for doing more to secure our borders. We as a Government are genuinely grateful for that. The noble Lord is absolutely right that we need properly to secure the way in which passports work. We have been working very hard at that and we now have a very good passport service that turns applications around very quickly. The service is also becoming increasingly effective in tracking down fraud and abuse, which will help us in the fight to secure our borders. The noble Lord asked about information data and their destruction. They will have to be destroyed if they are no longer relevant because, as I explained in my initial contribution, the Data Protection Act 1998 clearly applies to the retention of this information. There were no other questions of substance but, if I have missed anything, I shall check Hansard very carefully and ensure that I add to the pile of correspondence that the noble Lord, Lord Henley, obviously greatly enjoys. On Question, Motion agreed to.