Identity Cards Bill

No, I shall not. I must make some progress. I may give way to the hon. Gentleman in a moment, but I am not sure. We can see that the Government’s proposal is clearly in breach of their own manifesto, unless one takes the attitude that the manifesto did not mean to say that or that that is not what they understood it to mean—but the words mean what they mean. This part of the Bill is not the exercise of a democratic mandate. The best that can be said of it is that it is an exercise in elected dictatorship, full stop. So the Lords are right to amend it and they are entirely within their rights. That point destroys the entire speech that the Home Secretary just made. We have continually been treated by the Home Secretary and his Ministers—sometimes from a sedentary position, but mostly on the ““Today”” programme—to new reasons for this legislation, be they terrorism, welfare reform, immigration or fraud. One Minister puts up a reason for the idea, only for another honest Minister to admit that the Government have overstated their case. That has happened several times in the course of argument over the Bill. That is followed by another Minister coming up with another argument, which is also overstated. That has been most obviously the case on terrorism. The Government love to portray everybody except themselves as soft on terrorism. It is their favourite tactic with all of their illiberal legislation. Time and again, impositions are placed on the British people, that they have not faced for centuries, on the basis of arguments that are designed to make other people, the Government think, look soft on terrorism. That has applied most obviously to this legislation. I want the House to listen to the words of Baroness Park of Monmouth. The House should remember that Daphne Park has worked in the defence of our country in some of the most dangerous postings in the word. She has taken more risks in the defence of our country than the Home Secretary has had hot dinners, and that is a pretty high hurdle. I would trust her judgment on the defence of the realm way beyond that of the Prime Minister or, indeed, any Minister. Yesterday she said:"““The very creation of such an enormous national identity register will be a present to terrorists; it will be a splendid thing for them to disrupt . . . . It will also provide valuable information to organised crime and to the intelligence services of unfriendly countries””.—[Official Report, House of Lords, 15 March 2006; Vol. 679, c. 1234.]" So much for our national security.