Identity Cards Bill

The hon. Gentleman makes an excellent point, to which I cannot add. Given the constraints of time, I do not intend even to try. However, he brings me neatly to my first substantive point, which deals with compulsion. My noble Friend Lord Phillips of Sudbury put the matter nicely when he moved the amendment in another place. He stated: "““We seek to replace compulsion by voluntarism. Citizens should not be forced to have ID cards. Compulsion is far too often resorted to by the modern state. That comes from an intensely managerial culture in which regulation rules. That sits uneasily with fundamental rights such as privacy and voluntarism. This Bill is an authentic clash between such rights and managerial efficiency.””—[Official Report, House of Lords, 23 January 2006; Vol. 677, c. 957.]" That outlines well the divide between the Government and us on the amendment. I must also reinforce the point of the right hon. Member for Haltemprice and Howden (David Davis) about the Labour manifesto commitment, which is worth reading into the record. It states: "““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.””" The Home Secretary has already accepted today that the process of designating documents, especially passports, brings with it an element of compulsion. That is why the Government want to include the word ““must”” in the Bill, while we believe that it should be ““may””. I do not understand how the Government can square that circle or perceive their comments today as anything other than a blatant breach of their manifesto commitment. Approximately 85 per cent. of the population hold passports. If we are to link the identity register and identity cards with the renewal of passports, when we pass the second Bill—which we shall eventually be allowed to discuss—there will be, as the hon. Member for Buckingham (John Bercow) said, an irresistible momentum behind compulsion. The argument will be presented that we already hold the information and that it would therefore be such a waste if we did not move to compulsion. The designated documents mean compulsion by the back door. I am worried by the way the Government have tried to conflate the sensible case for biometrics for passports—when we debated the matter in Committee, we stressed that we did not object to that—and the use of biometrics for identity cards. There are several important distinctions to be drawn. First, passports will hold considerably fewer biometrics than are proposed for identity cards. Passports will not be subject to the same footprint through the database that is to be attached to the national identity register. A much wider range of information will be held under schedule 1 on the identity register than that held in relation to a passport. Schedule 1 provides for ““personal information””, including name, "““other names by which he is or has been known . . . date of birth . . . place of birth . . . gender . . . the address of his principal place of residence in the United Kingdom . . . the address of every other place in the United Kingdom where he has a place of residence.””" The ““identifying information”” includes the biometrics and the photograph. Provision is made for ““residential status”” and no fewer than 13 ““personal reference numbers””, which include "““any driver number given to him by a driving licence””." Surely that cannot be described as akin to the limited information that is held in relation to a passport.