Identity Cards Bill

Indeed, Madam Deputy Speaker. Even without that intervention, I should not have tried to highlight the divisions in the Conservative party on the Bill at different stages. As the Minister has already said, I have been critical of the little-lamented super-affirmative procedure, which was unworkable. However, as one who deeply opposes the identity cards scheme and the identity register and does not want the introduction of any element of compulsion, I almost mourn its passing. The super-affirmative procedure was a secondary legislative procedure and the Parliament Act could not be applied to it. It would therefore have been possible, especially given the requirement to agree a report in both Houses, to block the implementation of a compulsory scheme indefinitely. However, it is not the job of the House to implement law that we know to be bad, even if it sometimes appears convenient to do that. The Lords amendments improve the opportunity for scrutiny through a second primary measure and Liberal Democrat Members welcome that. The hon. and learned Member for Harborough has already made the point that the compulsion that the amendments would exclude is merely express compulsion. The possibility of compulsion by stealth, which we shall discuss shortly, through the designated documents remains. The Government oversell their position when Ministers claim, as they did today, that they have made some great concession that requires the House to revisit compulsion at a later date in primary legislation. My hon. Friend the Member for Cambridge (David Howarth) made a good point, which the Minister and his officials should consider at their leisure, about the Legislative and Regulatory Reform Bill, which is beginning its passage through the House. Hon. Members know that, if enacted in its current form, it would allow the Government to amend primary legislation through using statutory instruments. It therefore remains open to the Government to use secondary legislation to amend the Identity Cards Bill or to introduce compulsion. That worries me. There are two possible routes that could be taken here. The first is that the Minister could stand up today and state expressly that that is not the Government’s intention. The alternative route—which I believe would be open to the House on another occasion, and I commend it to hon. Members in the light of that—would be to amend the Legislative and Regulatory Reform Bill when we have the opportunity to do so. To give the Government the power to amend primary legislation in the sweeping way that is proposed by that Bill seems very wrong.