Identity Documents Bill

I apologise to the hon. Lady. If she wishes to associate herself with such a ridiculous proposal, I am happy for her to do so. The proposal would mean that cardholders would run the risk of their card's usefulness diminishing even further over time because of the very small number in circulation. That would be likely to result in little or no future engagement or investment by travel operators, carriers and other agencies in accepting ID cards. The provision would give cardholders the false hope that their ID card would continue to be useful, if they had found it useful in the past. I recognise that the amendment to retain the national identity register has been tabled as a consequence of the proposal that ID cards should remain extant for 10 years. The national identity register sits at the heart of our opposition to the whole scheme. We do not believe that it is the role of the state to gather huge amounts of personal and biometric information about its citizens unless there are proportionate and necessary reasons for doing so. Such reasons could involve the prevention and detection of crime, or national security and safety, but part of the underlying problem with the ID card scheme has always been that its purpose was ill defined, with the reason behind its introduction moving over time from dealing with terrorism to accessing local services. The national identity register is nothing but a database containing data on individuals who have, by choice, applied for an ID card. The holding of such data represents a significant intrusion on the privacy of the individual. Scrapping the scheme and destroying the national identity register are major steps towards returning power to the public and reducing the intrusion of the state. We are opposed to building up banks of data that neither serve a specific purpose nor deliver a specific outcome. The national identity register fails on both counts. I have dealt in some detail with all the new clauses and amendments tabled by Labour Members. Each of them fails on practicality, and many of them fail because they would create an extra charge on either the public purse directly, or the citizens of this country indirectly. They all fail, however, because behind them lies the desire to intrude far too much on the private lives of people that was at the heart of the previous Labour Government. As a civil libertarian, I genuinely hope that the future Labour party will reject that in its entirety.