Identity Documents Bill

I feel honoured, Mr. Deputy Speaker, to be the subject of your first pronouncements from the Chair. It will be a pleasure to serve under you. We on the Labour Benches will not vote against the Bill on Second Reading. Although we do not think the general election was in any way a referendum on ID cards, we accept that the Conservatives and the Liberal Democrats have a mandate to abandon the measure. We believe that the 15,000 cards already in use should continue to be a legitimate form of identity, and that those citizens who have purchased them should not be treated in the unfair and arrogant way that the Home Secretary proposed: it is arrogant to punish the public because the Government believe that the public were duty bound to presume a Conservative victory at the general election. That is constitutional nonsense and I have never heard anything so arrogant from a political party in my life. We think a version of the national identity register must continue to exist in some form, and that second generation biometric passports need to go ahead. However, we will pursue those arguments in Committee and at other stages of the Bill's passage. In recent times, my party has been consistently in favour of an identity card scheme, the Liberal Democrats have been consistently opposed and the Conservatives have been inconsistent to the point of perversity. The Bill before us to abandon a voluntary identity card scheme, which the right hon. Lady says is intrusive, bullying and unBritish, was in the first semi-Conservative—I suppose we could call it—Queen's Speech for almost 14 years. The irony is that the previous Queen's Speech under a Tory Administration, in November 1996, included a Bill to introduce a voluntary ID card scheme, following extensive public consultation by the then Home Secretary, Michael Howard, who said that the potential benefits fell into two categories. It is worth repeating them to the House. This was a Conservative Government, proposing a Bill at the Queen's Speech—[Interruption.] ““Fifteen years ago,”” says the Minister for Immigration. We will get on to what has changed in the almost 15 years since 1996, and how the problems that led that Conservative Government to put forward an ““unBritish, bullying and intrusive”” Bill have actually worsened in the ensuing period. However, Michael Howard summed up the benefits succinctly, noting first, the"““direct benefits to the individual holder (e.g. through use of an identity card as a travel card or to provide reliable proof of identity including for commercial transactions)””;" and, secondly,"““the wider benefits to all citizens, (e.g. by reducing the level of certain crimes or by providing more efficient or less costly provision of state services).””" That description of the benefits is as accurate today as it was then. The consultation under the Conservative Government found that 64% of the public supported ID cards, with 36% opposed, and the last Tory Government to be elected to power in their own right—perhaps the last in more ways than one—proceeded to include the measure in the Gracious Speech.