Identity Cards Bill

I shall certainly try to remember that, Madam Deputy Speaker. I am perhaps not the best person to persuade the Home Secretary to look at this matter again. I have opposed identity cards from the start, and I am sure that he is not going to take much notice of what I am going to say now. However, we shall reach agreement on one point. It is nonsense to say that if the scheme comes into operation there will be gulags and concentration camps. Our European partners have identity cards, and they are not police states. We are very pleased that they are fellow democracies. So let us continue to debate this subject without exaggeration. By and large, I believe that the views of this Chamber should always prevail over those of the House of Lords. I hold that view even more strongly when the House of Lords votes down a measure that I happen to support. But on a general constitutional level, I do not believe that it would be wrong to continue to adhere to that principle, although there must be exceptions. Although this is a constitutional issue, and although I feel as strongly as their lordships in the majority, I have abstained on previous occasions after voting against the Bill on Second Reading. I shall continue to follow that line; I shall abstain when we vote on this proposition later. On the substance of the matter, however—and without going into the issue of election manifestos—I am worried that, if the Government have their way, we shall have a scheme in which anyone who renews their passport after a certain date will automatically have their name entered on the national identity register. That is what I object to. Many law-abiding people are opposed to identity cards and having their names on the national identity register. My right hon. Friend the Home Secretary will not disagree that there are people—although we might disagree about the numbers—who have such strong views and who see no reason why they should renew their passport before the due time. Those are the sort of people who, if there is primary legislation in due course in which Parliament decides that there should be a compulsory scheme, would accept the law. They have no desire to be fined, not to pay those fines, to go to prison and be a martyr. However much they object, they accept that Parliament is the decisive policy maker. What they disagree to, which is the reason that I cannot support the Government, is that it is intended that people will automatically go on the identity register once they renew their passport, without Parliament deciding that there should be a compulsory scheme. That is the reason for a lot of disquiet. I hope—I doubt it, but I am ever optimistic—that my right hon. Friend the Home Secretary will be willing to seek a compromise rather than stand absolutely firm as he has done today. If the Government’s position is upheld tonight and they have a majority, as I have no doubt that they will, the Lords might give way following that decision. They have done so on other issues, and they might do so on this one. If they do not, however, I hope, as I have already mentioned, that the Home Secretary will be willing to see what compromise can be reached. It would be totally inappropriate for the Parliament Act to be invoked on this measure.