Identity Cards Act 2006 (Information and Code of Practice on Penalties) Order 2009

My Lords, linking the identity card with the passport interview offices clearly shows that a network is being set up with the long-term aim of being used for ID purposes and building a national database. We know that every new passport applicant over 16 years of age will have a face-to-face interview. We know that until about 10 months ago—I am waiting for the Government’s updated figures—216,000 people had gone through the personal passport interview procedure. Not a single one was refused a passport. If you add that to the estimate of about 600,000 people a year who apply for passports, probably half a million people who applied for a passport had a face-to-face interview. It will be interesting to see exactly how many of these people have been accepted and whether any have been refused. We know that the interviews were established for this network. In an Answer to a Written Question last December, the Minister in the other place said: ""we will build upon existing practice for interviewing first time adult passport applicants".—[Official Report, Commons, 15/12/08; col. 518W.]" Clearly the passport interview offices were part of the network to be set up to provide the necessary administration for identity cards. I think that 68 out of the 69 offices are already operational and that about 468 officers are in place. We also know that these interviews are going ahead day by day. If not one applicant has been refused, does that make the scheme a white elephant? If the scheme is not to proceed, does that mean that we have spent scores of millions of pounds on a scheme that is of no use whatever? Will the Minister enlighten us as to whether the passport interview scheme is to continue—as I said, the long-term aim was to provide procedures for the identity card—if identity cards are not going ahead? What has been the cost? Perhaps the Minister will be able to give me the updated figures on these 68 offices. As part of the scheme, the 30 or 40 remote places that did not really justify a full-time, or even a part-time, office were to have video links. If biometrics such as fingerprints are to be collected, will the Minister say how you can process fingerprints by video link? Not only are ID cards ill thought out but the very structure on which they are to be based does not meet the demands of biometrics in any way. Will the Minister say how many of these remote video links have been established and are operational? The whole scheme is a condemnation of an ill thought out, half-baked white elephant.