Identity Cards Bill

The hon. and learned Gentleman and I start this debate from different points of view: he is against having a national ID register and ID cards, and I am in favour of them. My hon. Friend the Minister conceded earlier that the proposals go somewhat beyond the strict minimum required by the International Civil Aviation Organisation and other regulations; however, that is not entirely the point. The ICAO requires this sort of development in the passport and that an infrastructure should be set up to collect biometrics. If we are to go through the process of collecting biometrics because our citizens need that to be done to travel abroad, let us do the job properly and do the other thing that we need to do, namely, establish a decent ID card system and a national identity register. We need that development to enable us to tackle the whole range of identity fraud and to deal with illegal migration problems over the next 10 years, particularly as the EU expands and borders become more difficult to secure nationally. That is a gain worth having. The fact that we need to collect biometric data for passport use does not mean that all we should do is the absolute minimum required by those international requirements, given that the gains of having a decent identity register system are significant. That is where the hon. and learned Gentleman and I have different approaches to these issues.