Identity Cards Bill

I certainly will, Mr. Deputy Speaker, and I apologise for any inconvenience. I want to stress to the House that the £584 million cost of issuing passport and identity cards includes all the existing costs of issuing passports through the United Kingdom Passport Service, together with the developments that will be needed over the next few years to introduce biometric passports, starting with passports incorporating facial images and moving to biometric fingerprints. About 70 per cent. of the cost of issuing identity cards, alongside passports, is attributable to the introduction of biometric passports. Let me put that figure into perspective. The figure of £584 million includes the baseline figures for the operation of the UK Passport Service, which in 2006–07 is expected to be some £397 million. That is the organisation’s running cost in carrying out its core responsibility of issuing passports to the British public. Essentially, the difference between those two figures—about £200 million—is what we are debating. That is the extra cost that the identity card scheme will place on the public, and it is the set-up costs of establishing the scheme, which were mentioned by my hon. Friend the Member for Stroud.