Identity Cards Bill

I accept that but, as my hon. Friend will know, Dickens wrote some of his greatest novels as part works. They were serialised before being brought together to form a whole. I hope that his interventions in our debates will form part of a great encyclopaedia of parliamentary occasions, so that at the flick of an internet switch anyone will be able to search his great works. I want to move on from our earlier debates, because last week, Mr. Deputy Speaker chided me for rehearsing that argument. Everyone knows my views on the Labour manifesto, and everyone knows what that manifesto says, so we can reach our own conclusions about the meaning of those English words. Lord Armstrong has sensibly endeavoured to find a way through that does not wreck the Bill and preserves a decent and proper balance between the citizen’s rights and freedoms and the Government’s necessary demands to realise their policy. His amendments are clearly not all that my party and I would want, but that is the nature of compromise. If the Government are prepared to accept our good will in supporting his amendments and if they are prepared to accept our genuine concerns about the rights of the individual as against the power of the state, I hope that they will conclude that Lord Armstrong’s attempt to broker a deal between the two warring sides is certainly worth supporting this evening. Lord Armstrong’s amendments provide a clear and simple solution that achieves fairness and justice, and which ought to commend itself to hon. Members on both sides of the House, whether or not we support the general principle behind the Bill and the establishment of the national identity register. The Under-Secretary of State for the Home Department, the hon. Member for Leigh (Andy Burnham) is in the Chamber, and he will know Government policy often appears to be made up on the hoof from day to day. Different announcements appear in the newspapers as the Bill is manoeuvred through the highways and byways of Government policy making. However, if the Government are confident that their policy is right, they should allow the public to prove their case by giving them the choice to opt out of registration on the back of designated documents. Both the Home Secretary and Baroness Scotland have accepted the thrust of Lord Armstrong’s amendments by arguing that people can avoid compulsion by stealth if they renew their passports before the Bill in its unamended form becomes law. If they are prepared to advise the public to ““cheat”” to avoid the Bill’s requirements, it is not logical for them to resist Lord Armstrong’s attempt to bring light to this overheated debate. I urge the House to be adult about the matter so that at least we can put a Bill that is clear on the statute book. If we accede to Lord Armstrong’s amendments we will, I accept, dissatisfy both sides of the argument but, presumably, we will achieve consensus, which gives the Government time to think and digest the quality of the arguments for and against opting out. Lord Armstrong’s intervention in this affair is timely and constructive and it is certainly worth queuing outside the bathroom of my right hon. Friend the Member for Haltemprice and Howden for it. I look forward to the Home Secretary moving quietly towards that upstairs room with his bath towel in hand.