Identity Cards Bill

May I begin by saying that I am sorry that the Prime Minister cannot be here today? I doubt that his absence will have as great an influence on the votes tonight as his previous absence, but at least the Home Secretary and I can draw some pleasure from the fact that the phrase, ““Detained in South Africa”” has a nicer tone today than it did 20 years ago. I wish to discuss the national identity register much more than the piece of plastic or the biometric attached to identity card. The rather arcane subject of this debate is designation. In practice, it is the most controversial and, indeed, the most important debate that we shall hold today, because it will determine whether the ID card scheme is covertly rendered compulsory or not. In 2005, under the heading, ““Strong and secure borders,”” page 52 of the 111-page Labour manifesto said: "““We will introduce ID cards, including biometric data like fingerprints, backed up by a national register and rolling out initially on a voluntary basis as people renew their passports.””" I heard what the Home Secretary said about consultation papers and so on, but any reasonable member of the public would deduce that they could choose whether or not to have an ID card when they renewed their passport. That is a perfectly reasonable conclusion to draw, but it is the opposite of what the Government intend. To justify what this Bill does, the Labour manifesto should have said: ““We will introduce ID cards, including biometric data like fingerprints, backed up by a national register and rolling out initially on a compulsory basis for a progressively larger portion of the population as people renew their passports.”” That is the truth of today’s proposals. Faced with that fact, Baroness Scotland, speaking on behalf of the Government, tried to claim that passports are voluntary. That is not the case if someone’s work takes them abroad, nor if their parents live abroad, nor if their spouse or partner is from an another country. Nor is it the case if their children travel abroad, fall sick or get into trouble. It is a novel interpretation of ““voluntary”” if the price of a foreign holiday is a requirement for inclusion in the national identity register. The Lords therefore amended the Bill, quite properly in my view, to remove that creeping compulsion, and make inclusion on the register optional when someone receives or renews a passport. That is what the Government are seeking to reverse, for reasons to which I shall return. The Government may ask why that should be voluntary. If people are already getting a passport, what is the reason for turning down an identity card? There are many good reasons for not wanting to be on the national identity register, which involves a large number of pieces of data about each individual being put on a single Government database, many of them the access keys for other Government databases. That is the important point: it is a central database with access keys effectively to all the other Government databases. It is disingenuous of the Home Secretary to say, ““We’ve already got all those.”” One of the transitions that has taken place over the past several years under the Government, and to a small extent under the previous Government too, is the removal of barriers to the transfer of information around Government. Those barriers were a protection of the liberties of the individual, and now they have gone. Many have gone for good reason—to make the Child Support Agency work, to stop terrorism, and so on—and the Bill will accelerate that process. I ask the House to forgive me for a political point, but it is one that I care about very much. After the way the Government treated Martin Sixsmith, Pam Warren, Rose Addis and others, seeking information about them and using it to destroy reputations, I would not trust them with data about my life, let alone anyone else’s.