Identity Documents Bill

I cannot give advance assent to a proposition that I have not seen in writing, so I cannot concede that point to the noble Lord. Might I continue? It is the case that transport cards are issued by a number of countries for use with other countries where there is a bilateral or multilateral agreement, and there is a set of standards issued by ICAO that were adopted under a non-binding conclusion by the EU in 2005. It may be that the previous Administration chose not to invest in passport cards; they could have done so then. That might have been because of the work and the level of investment on ID cards themselves. Another possibility at that stage would have been consideration of the use of vignettes. The ability to store the equivalent of a vignette in the passport card is under development, and we will wait to see how that progresses. At this stage, though, given that none of that base was laid by the previous Administration, we do not think it is possible or cost-effective to invest in passport cards as a priority. My final point is again on costs. I appreciate that the amendments aim in effect to pass the data currently on the NIR to the passport database. As I have indicated, there is no existing provision, nor is it appropriate, for the IPS to establish a new database. The amendment also fails to recognise that it will be necessary to deal with lost or stolen cards that would have to be replaced. Once this thing is working, you cannot just say, ““Well, if you lose your card, that’s too bad””; it has to be a living system. Issuing replacement cards would require an infrastructure to be in place. Given what was said at Second Reading, I asked the IPS to estimate how much that would cost each year. The results are as follows: to maintain the infrastructure and pay service charges to the contractors would cost about £4 million; to replace lost or stolen cards would cost an estimated £500,000; and to maintain basic customer support facilities and appropriate levels of staffing would be another £500,000. Those are all per annum figures. About £5 million over one year—which, in the lifetime of these cards, means 10 years—gives a total of £50 million. I have tried to cover the issues raised by the Opposition. There are others—such as transgendered people having only one card, as they currently do with the passport, and the question, which we will come to, of refunds and consumer protection—which I shall go into in due course. However, even with the amendment, there is a catalogue of problems. Instead, I recommend that the amendment be withdrawn.