Identity Cards Bill

My Lords, I understand now and I can follow the noble Lord’s argument even better. It was very interesting to hear the intervention of the noble Lord, Lord Gould. It was nice to see the sorcerer’s apprentice in the flesh, telling us how these things are done. On the substance of the argument, voluntary means voluntary and compulsory means compulsory. I invite the noble Lord, Lord Gould, to tell us whether one of his focus groups tested those two words before the general election. I suspect it did. The reason that ““voluntary”” went in the Bill, as the noble Baroness, Lady Anelay, pointed out, is that it is a softer and more acceptable word. I took part in writing four manifestos and fought on two, so I know a little about them. Some are kept, some are changed and some are quietly forgotten. The issue here, as the noble Lord, Lord Peston, has rightly said, is to do with the relative responsibilities of our two Houses. I do not accept that the Salisbury convention stands any more. It is absurd that a convention set up 60 years ago between a Labour government with 48 per cent of the electorate behind them and a wholly hereditary, Conservative-dominated House of Lords should still apply, with a Labour Government elected by 34 per cent of the vote and Labour now the largest party in the House.