Identity Cards Bill

I am making the point that that figure relates to the budget for issuing biometric passports and identity cards to the public. The perspective that needs to be taken is that ID cards do not account for the whole of that amount. The hon. Gentleman makes my point partly for me: £1.7 billion is the annual cost to the UK of identity fraud, so the benefits case begins to stack up for the scheme. I will summarise the additional costs over and above those of biometric passports that the scheme would place on the Government, as shown in the regulatory impact assessment. First, the costs include covering the whole resident population aged 16-plus, rather than just the 80 per cent. of British citizens who will have passports by 2008. Secondly, they include recording, matching and storing three types of biometric information—face, fingerprint and iris—rather than one, which is the current standard required for the first generation of biometric passports. Thirdly, they include providing an online identity verification service that can validate ID cards and other identity inquiries for user organisations in the public and private sectors. That is what we are talking about this evening, and it is important to apply that perspective to the scale of the costs.