Identity Cards Bill

The right hon. Gentleman makes a point that he adheres to honestly and straightforwardly, but on which we differ, and that is that it is possible for the proposed system to be entirely clear and to have perfect integrity. When we were considering the early stages of this when he was still Home Secretary, I went to see the Metropolitan police, at that point under Sir John Stevens—I know a favourite of his—and I talked to him and all his deputy commissioners about their interest in the system. I put to them a question that I subsequently put to his previous advisers, to the Cabinet Office advisers, and to the briefers who talked to us about this at various stages. The question was this: how will somebody be prevented from putting a virus into one of the many thousands of access points in the system to change a piece of data, for example, relating to me, by inserting a little programme that says that every time a question is asked about me, answer yes?