Identity Cards Bill

There is a growing air of scepticism in the Chamber, and the longer the Minister spoke, the more the scepticism became apparent. He said that there would not be a special pot of money to prevent Home Office funds for the police and other necessary forms of security from being spent. However, one is of course always reminded of the Prime Minister’s remarks in 1995 when he criticised the then Home Secretary, my right hon. and learned Friend the Member for Folkestone and Hythe (Mr. Howard), by saying: "““Instead of wasting hundreds of millions of pounds on compulsory ID cards as the Tory Right demands, let that money provide thousands more police officers on the beat in our local communities.””" What goes around turns around. The longer the Minister spoke, the more it became abundantly clear not only that members of the public do not read party political manifestos, but that Ministers do not read their own manifestos. No sensible person who read the Government’s manifesto could have reached any conclusion about the natural and ordinary meaning of the words other than that the scheme would not be anything other than entirely voluntary. The likely costs of the scheme reinforce the Government’s wisdom of writing such words into their manifesto.