Identity Cards Bill

My Lords, I naturally and strongly support what the noble Lord, Lord Phillips of Sudbury, and my noble friends on the Front Bench have said, but what has concerned me and still does is that in creating the Bill, we are creating a database. It is the database and its future implications that we all fear as a threat to liberty. I believe that the noble Baroness, Lady Kennedy of The Shaws, spoke up for England, to use an old phrase, when she said that it threatens our ancient liberties. That is what we are here to defend and it is the database and its possible use not only by this Government but by others that causes me deep anxiety. We must be very, very careful not to bring on ourselves a system that cannot but be fascist, in the end.