Identity Cards Bill

My right hon. Friend is right about the Liberal Democrat arithmetic. The situation is very simple. I repeat that Lord Strathclyde made it clear that the Lords should frustrate the will of the Commons only when there is a ““good deal”” of public support for what the Lords was doing. The NO2ID campaign is opposed to our policy, but that organisation set the questions in the poll, in which more than half the country said that it did not support the campaign. I studied yesterday’s Divisions in the Lords carefully, to establish how opinion had moved between the votes on 6 and 15 March. There was almost no change in the position of those peers who are whipped by the Conservative, Liberal Democrat and Labour parties. On 6 March, 190 peers—principally Tories and Liberal Democrats—were against the Government position. Yesterday, that number rose to 194—almost no change. The peers who are not whipped—the Cross Benchers and the bishops—voted on 6 March by 37 to 12 against the Government position, but yesterday a majority was clearly in favour of supporting and not frustrating the Commons’ position. [Interruption.] In answer to the hilarity among Opposition Members, I have to add in fairness that there were only four bishops in the total of more than 50 Cross-Bench peers. They were not significant in the arithmetic, although their significance may lie in the guidance that they get from yet another place. My point is that it was the whipped Conservative and Liberal Democrat peers who voted to frustrate the elected House and overthrow the Government’s position. That was what happened, and I urge my colleagues to sustain the Government’s position. I also urge the Opposition to stop trying to frustrate the will of the people.