Identity Cards Bill

May I draw Members’ attention to the Minister’s letter of 7 February, which was sent only to Labour Members? In attacking the London School of Economics’ report on the costs of the project, he said: "““The LSE also allocated an inflated £1 billion marketing budget and assumed a much higher loss/ theft rate than is the case for existing documents.””" Was not the Minister aware when he wrote the letter that the Government had received a denial of that point on 5 August 2005 when the LSE responded to the Government response to the LSE report? Surely he was aware that the LSE status report issued in January 2006 stated that it had made no such estimate. Would he care to correct that erroneous allegation, which continues the line of ad hominem attacks that he and his colleagues have made on Simon Davies and his colleagues?