Orders of the Day — Identity Cards Bill

House of Commons, 20 December 2004.

Sylvia Heal (Deputy Speaker, Halesowen and Rowley Regis)

I inform the House that Mr. Speaker has selected the amendment in the name of the right hon. and learned Member for Sleaford and North Hykeham (Mr. Hogg).

Charles Clarke (Labour, Norwich South)

I beg to move, That the Bill be now read a Second time.

The discussion is an important milestone in the lengthy dialogue that the country has had on identity cards. The debate is of long standing, but it has increased in intensity in the aftermath of the terrorist atrocities in the United States on 11 September 2001. However, the Bill needs to be considered on broader issues than matters of national security alone.

In preparation for the legislation, we have had a six-month public consultation exercise, an inquiry by the Select Committee on Home Affairs and further consultation on a draft Bill. The Government listened carefully to the many comments that were received. Changes have been made both to the Bill that we are debating and the plans for delivering the scheme.

I assure the House that the Government and I will continue to listen to and act on constructive comments and proposals as the Bill goes through its various stages, but I want to emphasise that, both in principle and in practice, the case for it is in my opinion very strong. Quite apart from the security advantages, there will be enormous practical benefits. ID cards will potentially make a difference to any area of everyday life in which one already has to prove one's identity. Examples are opening a bank account, going abroad on holiday, claiming a benefit, buying goods on credit and renting a video. The possession of a clear, unequivocal and unique form of identity, in the shape of a card linked to a database holding biometrics, will offer significant benefits of various types.

Moreover, the help that the cards can offer in tackling fraud will save tens of millions of pounds of taxpayers' money. Some £50 million a year is claimed illegally from the benefit systems alone through the use of false identities—money that could of course be far better spent on other public services.

Richard Allan (Liberal Democrat, Sheffield, Hallam)

The Home Secretary says that £50 million has been claimed in benefits because of false identities. What would it cost the Department for Work and Pensions to implement an identity card checking system? I believe card readers will cost between £250 and £750 each.

Charles Clarke (Labour, Norwich South)

I shall deal with the costs at the appropriate point in my speech, but I hope that it is clear to everyone that fraud in the benefits system and other public services is unacceptable and that we should do whatever we can to deal with it as effectively as possible.

Gwyneth Dunwoody (Labour, Crewe and Nantwich)

Those who succeed in repeatedly creating fraudulent credit cards are clearly very efficient at it. Is my right hon. Friend absolutely certain that the first cards on the market will be the genuine ones, not those that are fraudulently produced?

Charles Clarke (Labour, Norwich South)

I am. Perhaps I could confirm that by making another point. Credit card fraud has been a major issue. When I was first a Home Office Minister, I chaired a meeting of all the companies concerned and the various police agencies, which led to the PIN system that is now being introduced throughout the country. That had to be introduced because existing credit card security simply was not adequate and led to hundreds of millions of pounds worth of fraud. The biometric card that we propose is a further refinement that will enable things to be dealt with far more effectively.

Peter Lilley (Conservative, Hitchin and Harpenden)

May I help the Home Secretary answer the question of the hon. Member for Sheffield, Hallam (Mr. Allan)? The DWP said that there would be 4,500 identity checkers, each costing a minimum of £250. That means that £1.1 billion would have to be spent to save between £20 million and £50 million a year. If there is depreciation over 10 years, it will cost £100 million a year to save between £20 and £50 million. Does the Home Secretary consider that a good deal?

Charles Clarke (Labour, Norwich South)

I do not accept the figures given by the right hon. Gentleman or by Liberal Democrat Members. As I have said, I will come to the costs later.

Alex Salmond (Scottish National Party, Banff and Buchan)

The Home Secretary helpfully listed services for which he thought identity cards would be useful. The Scottish First Minister has said that identity cards will not be compulsory in Scotland for access to Executive services. Does that mean that they will be compulsory in Scotland, or not?

Charles Clarke (Labour, Norwich South)

It means exactly what the First Minister said, which is that the system in Scotland will decide how the cards would be used for access to services there. That decision will be made by the Scottish Parliament and I am sure that the hon. Gentleman's parliamentary colleagues—if they are still working with him—will make their voices heard.

Mike Hancock (Liberal Democrat, Portsmouth South)

rose—

Charles Clarke (Labour, Norwich South)

I shall make a bit more progress and then give way to another Liberal Democrat.

The point that I want to emphasise in considering this question is that the drive towards secure identity is happening all over the world. For example, under current plans, from next autumn, British tourists who need a new passport will have to have a biometric one to visit the United States, or a biometric visa instead. We will rightly have to bear the costs of introducing the new technology to enhance our passports in any case, but I believe that we should take the opportunity of that investment to secure wider benefits, such as those that I have just set out.

The security issues here are critical and they need to be faced up to by those who oppose the introduction of the scheme. A secure identity scheme will help to prevent terrorist activity, more than a third of which makes use of false identities. [Interruption.] A third of terrorist activities make use of false identities and we need an identification process to deal with that. It will make it far easier to address the vile traffickingin vulnerable human beings, which ends in appalling tragedies, and the exploitative near slave labour or forced prostitution that exists as a result of the traffic in people. It will reduce, as we have just discussed, identity fraud, which now costs the United Kingdom more than £1.3 billion every year.

David Winnick (Labour, Walsall North)

Does my right hon. Friend recognise that his predecessor, when giving evidence to the Home Affairs Committee, conceded that identity cards, including biometric ones, would not have prevented the kind of atrocities that we saw, tragically, in Istanbul and Madrid, and therefore there are high expectations, with regard to terrorism and many other factors, that in practice are not likely to be realised?

Charles Clarke (Labour, Norwich South)

My right hon. Friend the Member for Sheffield, Brightside (Mr. Blunkett), in his evidence to the Select Committee, simply emphasised the straightforward point that there is no panacea, no rabbit that can be pulled out of the hat, in the form of identity cards or anything else, that will solve all the issues of international terrorism. The issue is whether such measures will improve our capacity to deal with international terrorism. My right hon. Friend said that they will, and that is what I say.

Mike Hancock (Liberal Democrat, Portsmouth South)

Now that the Home Secretary has confirmed that everyone in the United Kingdom will have to have an identification card, when will he decide to make it compulsory to carry it, so that, if it is to be effective, it can be used and challenged on the day?

Charles Clarke (Labour, Norwich South)

That proposal is specifically excluded by the legislation. I shall come to precisely that issue later. It is one of the myths about the proposal that the Liberals continue to perpetuate without any foundation at all.

Nick Palmer (Labour, Broxtowe)

Since I introduced this proposal as a private Member's Bill some years ago, I have had overwhelming support from my constituents and many others around the country. Will my right hon. Friend confirm that the Spanish police have said that identity cards have been helpful in investigating both the identity of the victims and the identity of the killers in the Madrid bombing?

Charles Clarke (Labour, Norwich South)

I pay tribute to the pioneering nature of my hon. Friend's contribution to these discussions and confirm that security forces in countries throughout the world recognise that a system of identification of this kind will help them in the challenges that they face, which are very serious. The question that we have to face is whether we will help them to face those challenges. I acknowledge that there are difficult problems, but I make it clear that I am not arguing that ID cards will somehow solve the issues and prevent the tragedies that arise throughout the world, but I do argue that they will help to solve them, and that is why we should support them.

Francis Maude (Conservative, Horsham)

It is easy to see how all the benefits that the Home Secretary refers to could flow from a fully compulsory identity card scheme where citizens are required to carry those cards at all times, although most of us, I suspect, would find that objectionable. It is very, very hard to see how anything more than tangential, minimal benefits flow from the kind of voluntary scheme that he is proposing, which many of us see as an expensive waste of time.

Charles Clarke (Labour, Norwich South)

With respect to the right hon. Gentleman, I simply do not think that that assertion is correct. The police themselves are very clear that having a national identification base of the kind that is set up in the scheme will lead to serious policing advantages for them and that is the basis of the argument with which they are principally concerned. We are also clear, as we have already said, that we will not require people to carry cards in that way because we do not believe that it would have significant policing advantages of the kind that the right hon. Gentleman suggested.

Francis Maude (Conservative, Horsham)

I am grateful to the Home Secretary for giving way again.

The suspicion that many of us have and the reason why we feel that the police are so enthusiastic about this is that it is an incremental process. First, there will be a voluntary scheme. Gradually, as the money will have been spent on it, it can then be argued that the only way of getting value for that money is by introducing compulsion, which will then mean carrying the card at all times. It is a salami-slicing process, which is why so many people are very suspicious about it.

Charles Clarke (Labour, Norwich South)

I have no sympathy with the "thin end of the wedge" argument. People may have argued when national registration of births was introduced in 1837 that they would at some time arrive in a society in which everybody operated in a "1984" type of world. That is nonsense; it simply has no substance. The question of how the scheme develops will depend on what this Parliament does as we go through the process of saying how we should take it forward. I can raise any fears that one likes, but they will have foundation only if Parliament decides to surrender all responsibility with regard to how the matter develops. The Bill sets out a series of parliamentary systems of scrutiny and approval that must be gone through if the ID card system is to develop in any particular way.

Roger Gale (Conservative, North Thanet)

The Home Secretary is trying to have it both ways. On the radio at lunchtime, the Minister for Citizenship and Immigration said that this was a voluntary scheme, not a compulsory one. That is literally the case, although clauses 6 and 7 allow the Home Secretary to introduce a compulsory scheme. The Minister was than asked how the scheme would be of value to the police if it was not compulsory. Frankly, he did not have an answer. What he said was that there will be a biometric register. Will it include everyone? Otherwise, how will it help people like me, who go out on the streets as a policeman?

Charles Clarke (Labour, Norwich South)

Let me be very clear. If there are hon. Members who are opposed in all circumstances to a compulsory system, they should vote against the Bill. The measure sets out clearly a process that could lead to a compulsory system at the end, but it does it by a process of voluntary change in taking the matter forward. That is the right process of reform; it is perfectly reasonable, and it is the way we should go. If the hon. Gentleman says that in no circumstances that he can ever foresee should there ever be a system of compulsion, he should certainly vote against the system.

Jeremy Corbyn (Labour, Islington North)

Since the Home Secretary and others have made a strong case that the introduction of identity cards will somehow or other protect us from terrorism, can he explain exactly how it will do so? Since there is a very narrow gap between official identity and the production of fraudulent identity, what evidence does he have that even biometric recognition itself will not be tampered with, making the card utterly useless after a very short period?

Charles Clarke (Labour, Norwich South)

On the second point, I simply do not accept that view. We have had a series of increasingly sophisticated means of identifying and recognising people's individual characteristics. As all experts will acknowledge, having the biometric measure is superior to not having it. As I said to my hon. Friend the Member for Crewe and Nantwich (Mrs. Dunwoody) with regard to personal identification number schemes for credit cards, the numeric system is superior to what existed before, but it is not as good as a biometric system. The question that we face is: do we follow the process of trying to get superior systems and carry the matter forward on that basis?

On the point about terrorism, I hope that there will be no dispute about the fact that there are people who try to mislead about their identity and history as they conduct their terrorist activity in their terrorist organisation. A system that identifies people more effectively will be more successful at tackling terrorism.

Patrick Cormack (Conservative, South Staffordshire)

As there is such widespread concern about this issue even among those like me, who, broadly speaking, support the right hon. Gentleman, does he not concede that it is important that we try to command as much support as possible both within the House and outside and that the Bill is as carefully drawn as possible and scrutinised in as detailed a manner as possible? Will he therefore accept the proposition on the Order Paper that it should go to a Joint Committee of both Houses?

Charles Clarke (Labour, Norwich South)

I agree with everything that the hon. Gentleman said except the last clause. There should be proper scrutiny; Parliament has developed very effective methods of scrutiny of these questions, and it will exercise them. That is the way for us to proceed.

Richard Shepherd (Conservative, Aldridge-Brownhills)

Will the Home Secretary give way?

Charles Clarke (Labour, Norwich South)

Not at the moment.

I repeat what I said earlier: we have already considered a draft Bill and had a public consultation exercise, and the Home Affairs Committee has already looked at the matter. The policy comes not out of the blue sky, but after a lengthy public consultation.

Jean Corston (Labour, Bristol East)

Today's front-page report in The Guardian that the Government have withheld information from the Joint Committee on Human Rights is entirely false. The Committee will examine the Bill as part of its normal scrutiny process. We will write to the Government on any issues of concern that arise on human rights. If the past is anything to go by, we will have an amicable and proper exchange—all such exchanges are, of course, published.

Two years ago, I conducted a consultation with 100 organisations in my constituency on the Government's consultation on identity cards. [Interruption.] The overwhelming majority of respondents were in favour. [Interruption.] One of the organisations representing ethnic minority women was particularly—

Sylvia Heal (Deputy Speaker, Halesowen and Rowley Regis)

Order.

Jean Corston (Labour, Bristol East)

One of the organisations representing ethnic minority women was particularly in favour. [Interruption.] It said that ethnic minority women do not have access to their passports, do not hold bank or building society accounts and need identity cards.

Charles Clarke (Labour, Norwich South)

I accept the second part of my right hon. Friend's remarks. Identity cards have popular support, but it is important to emphasise that the Government's case does not rest on the fact that the legislation has popular support, because the legislation is merited in its own terms.

I am grateful for my right hon. Friend's remarks about the report in The Guardian. I assure her Select Committee that the Government will fully co-operate as the Committee seeks to inquire further.

It is frustrating that so much of the identity cards debate centres around matters that the Government are not proposing and, in some cases, have never proposed, and I should like to address some of those myths. In my opinion, it is entirely false to claim that ID cards will erode our civil liberties, re-visit "1984", usher in the Big Brother society or establish some kind of totalitarian police state.

Bill Cash (Conservative, Stone)

rose—

Charles Clarke (Labour, Norwich South)

The hon. Gentleman is brandishing a book by George Orwell. I shall give way to allow him to explain exactly where the issue is resolved in George Orwell.

Bill Cash (Conservative, Stone)

The Secretary of State claims that the matter has nothing to do with "1984". In that case, will he repudiate the statement by the Information Commissioner, Richard Thomas, that the proposals will amount to a "sea change" in the relationship between the individual and the state?

Charles Clarke (Labour, Norwich South)

I will repudiate the Information Commissioner's remarks. I do not accept that identity cards will change the relationship between the citizen and the state as fundamentally as the Information Commissioner suggests. The relationship between the citizen and the state was not transformed in 1837 when people in England and Wales were required to register the birth of a child, which is the example that I gave earlier, or on any of the many other occasions since then when means of identification have been introduced by statute. There are issues about the relationship between the individual and the state, but, in my opinion, they are not about this Bill and ID cards.

We are clearly moving towards a compulsory ID card scheme, because we believe that the state has a duty to protect its citizens from the misuse of their identities and to give them a means to interact simply and securely with public services. However, we are not looking to create a new culture of identification in which people are asked to confirm their identity more frequently than they are now. I must also make it clear that we have never proposed and do not propose a scheme under which it would be compulsory to carry a card. That was ruled out in the 2002 consultation paper and again in the draft Bill, and clause 15(3) of this Bill still rules it out.

Jim Sheridan (Labour, West Renfrewshire)

The Secretary of State has already mentioned the effect that ID cards will have on vulnerable workers, indigenous or otherwise, in this country. His predecessor offered great support to the Gangmasters (Licensing) Act 2004, which registers and licenses employers. If it is right to register and identify employers, why is it wrong to register and identify employees?

Charles Clarke (Labour, Norwich South)

I strongly agree. One of the most important humanitarian motives for supporting the Bill should be that it is one of the most effective means of attacking the people trafficking that leads to near-slave labour in many parts of this country. ID cards will help us to do that, and those who oppose the Bill need to face up to that fact.

David Taylor (Labour/Co-operative, North West Leicestershire)

The Secretary of State is attempting to reassure the House that this will not alter the fundamental relationship between citizens and the state, but how about those of our fellow citizens who suffer from mental ill health or lack of mental capacity? As the National Association of Citizens Advice Bureaux has pointed out, those people are especially dependent on benefits. Cards could be used as a passport for access to benefits, and they might find themselves effectively locked out of an increasingly authoritarian and administratively complex system and be deterred from claiming that on which they depend for a reasonable life.

Charles Clarke (Labour, Norwich South)

All I can say is that I understand the abuse to which my hon. Friend refers, and it is true that the issue needs to be addressed. In fact, ID cards enable us to attack that problem better and more effectively than the means of identification that exist at the moment. Whether people have mental health problems or whatever, a simpler, clearer system of identification for dealing with such issues will be more effective for those individuals, let alone for society as a whole.

Simon Hughes (Liberal Democrat, North Southwark and Bermondsey)

Will the Secretary of State deal with an apparent failure of logic in his case? We are opposed to ID cards; he is in favour. If a police officer tracks down a criminal, terrorist, hijacker or trafficker and they do not have a card with them, how does the fact that they have to possess a card but can produce it a week or two weeks later aid the police officer in identifying the person in front of him? It is just not logical.

Charles Clarke (Labour, Norwich South)

I am sure that the hon. Gentleman will want to serve on the Committee that considers the Bill in order to raise those questions. I stress to him that it is the clear opinion of the police and all the other security services that the passage of the Bill will make the identification of people easier from that point of view.

David Trimble (UUP, Upper Bann)

The right hon. Gentleman clearly hopes that the identity card system will be comprehensive in covering every citizen in the United Kingdom. However, has he given any thought to the fact that we are part of a common travel area that involves the whole of the British isles, and that consequently his identity card system will not be effective unless some arrangement is made for it to cover the whole of the common travel area?

Charles Clarke (Labour, Norwich South)

We have certainly taken that into account, and the fact that we are part of a common travel area is fully addressed.

Perhaps I could deal with the question of devolution at this point. We will have a common identity card on a UK-wide basis and cards will be issued UK-wide. Provisions requiring people to register for cards will apply UK-wide. Any requirement to use cards under clauses 15 to 17 for services that are the responsibility of the Westminster Parliament will be a matter for this Parliament. However, where services are devolved, it will be a matter for the relevant devolved authority. Transport security is a matter that operates in the European area.

Nick Gibb (Conservative, Bognor Regis and Littlehampton)

The answer that the Home Secretary gave to the hon. Member for Southwark, North and Bermondsey (Simon Hughes)—that the police say that it is a good idea—is simply unacceptable in this House. If a police officer approaches someone he suspects of illegal activity and that person refuses to produce an identity card or does not have one, how will this system help the police officer in those circumstances; or will the refusal to produce an ID card simply become an excuse and a reason for arrest?

Charles Clarke (Labour, Norwich South)

Let me be absolutely clear. The powers of the police in the cases that are being described will be the same after the passage of the Bill as they were before it. That is because the Bill is not about extending police powers in relation to the individual in the way that the hon. Member for Southwark, North and Bermondsey fears and about which he asks questions. The establishment of a national identification register will enable the police to carry out their current duties more effectively. That is a powerful case for doing it.

Alex Salmond (Scottish National Party, Banff and Buchan)

The Home Secretary mistook my point. I was trying to show the emptiness of the suggestion by the First Minister of Scotland that somehow ID cards would not be compulsory because they were not being applied to Executive or devolved services. Does the Home Secretary, who is a much more sensible person, agree that, if a card is necessary, for example, to access one's pension, it means it is compulsory, even if it is not necessary for going to the doctor?

Charles Clarke (Labour, Norwich South)

I am sorry if I have not been clear to the hon. Gentleman. The whole point is that, ultimately, the scheme will be effectively compulsory. However, for services that are devolved to the Administration in Scotland or wherever, the decisions will for the devolved institutions. He mentioned pensions, which is not a devolved matter and therefore one for the UK Parliament. Let me be clear: services that are devolved will be, as they are now, matters for the devolved Administrations.

Chris Bryant (Labour, Rhondda)

One of the arguments—[Interruption.]

Sylvia Heal (Deputy Speaker, Halesowen and Rowley Regis)

Order. The level of noise in the Chamber is rising all the time.

Chris Bryant (Labour, Rhondda)

Many people in the emergency services, not only the police, argue for ID cards because they would make it much easier to identify people who had been in road traffic accidents. They also say that it would be useful if the ID card could include, on a voluntary basis, some medical record, of, for example, blood type. Is my right hon. Friend still open to that voluntary option?

Charles Clarke (Labour, Norwich South)

The Bill makes it clear that medical records are not included. There may be arguments in favour such as those that my hon. Friend makes, but we will not include such a provision in the Bill because we believe that its purpose is precisely as indicated previously.

The Bill has no power to require the production of an identity card to the police. The scheme will allow the police to check the fingerprints of those whom they are already entitled to fingerprint, such as those under arrest, against the records that are held on the national identity register. We all carry our biometric information with us and there is therefore no need for people to have a card in their possession for the police to make that check.

The Bill sets limits on the information that can be held on the register. Unless the information fulfils the requirements of clause 1(5) and schedule 1, it cannot be held on the register and no criminal convictions, medical records or bank details would be on the database. We will not allow other organisations to have access to the database. We may choose, with Parliament's agreement, to provide specific information on request and subject to proper authorisation, but that is different from what our critics allege.

Kate Hoey (Labour, Vauxhall)

It is clear from what the Home Secretary says that, for everything to work, the technology will have to be superb. Is he confident that we can deliver that? Will he give an assurance that Capita, which destroyed lives in my constituency when it tried to operate the housing benefit system, will not be allowed anywhere near the system that we are discussing, should the Bill, which I oppose, be passed?

Charles Clarke (Labour, Norwich South)

There is a Luddite tendency in the House that opposes technology and information and communications technology on the basis that a variety of mistakes has been made in the past. That is a legitimate position but I do not support it. The use of technology can be a major asset in terms of many aspects of my current responsibilities. If I am asked whether we should be more effective in our management, the way in which we carry through the provisions, the conduct of our tender processes and so on, I reply that we can and should be. However, if I am asked to exclude any possibility of using modern technology to advance our ability to deal with such matters, I shall not. I shall not exclude any bidder from any process. The requirement is to have a proper process that is properly tendered and carried through.

Win Griffiths (Labour, Bridgend)

Given that schedule 1 provides for the possibility of holding 27 or more pieces of information about an individual on the register, what guarantees can my right hon. Friend give that the system will be hacker-proof?

Charles Clarke (Labour, Norwich South)

Again, the position is as I have just stated. I think we are in a position to say that we can create a secure system. If we could not do so in the way that has been suggested, I would agree that the Government were behaving wrongly in coming forward with that proposal. I do not deny the point made by my hon. Friend and by my hon. Friend the Member for Vauxhall (Kate Hoey)—issues arise in relation to these questions and they need to be properly dealt with—but I am not prepared to take the view that we should simply stop any progress in those areas because of those issues.

Martin Linton (Labour, Battersea)

Is not the point about the answer to the question asked by the hon. Member for Southwark, North and Bermondsey (Simon Hughes) that an identity card will not help the police to decide whether to arrest somebody, but once somebody is arrested it will be possible quickly to establish beyond doubt that person's identity because of the biometric information the police will have from the fingerprint? That will also act as a deterrent, as people will know that the police have access to an instant means of verifying their identity.

Charles Clarke (Labour, Norwich South)

My hon. Friend is entirely correct, and that is why I gave the example of using fingerprints in this context—a power that already rightly exists for the purposes of law enforcement.

Charles Clarke (Labour, Norwich South)

I shall give way once more and then make a little progress.

Mark Oaten (Liberal Democrat, Winchester)

Will the Home Secretary give the House a guarantee that individuals will have access to and be able to see what is held about them on the database?

Charles Clarke (Labour, Norwich South)

There is a specific provision to deal with precisely that point.

Douglas Hogg (Conservative, Sleaford and North Hykeham)

Will the Home Secretary help me on one point? Clause 1(6)(c) provides that the individual is apparently required, if he has died, to state the date of his death.

Charles Clarke (Labour, Norwich South)

Under the Government's proposals, people will be able to live on after the point of death and do just that in every respect.

Charles Clarke (Labour, Norwich South)

I shall give way once more; I have given way on more occasions than I intended.

Simon Thomas (Plaid Cymru, Ceredigion)

I am grateful to the Home Secretary for giving way. As I understand it, the main point of his argument today is that this measure does not represent a significant erosion of civil liberties in this country. He knows that many Members, on both sides of the House, disagree fundamentally with him. Will he at least address the fact that all 11 western European countries with compulsory ID card systems, which he has admitted that this proposal is, have a written constitution and a Bill of Rights? In the context of the development of the constitution in this country—checks and balances that are not written down, but enshrined in case law—what comfort can he offer to people who believe that this measure represents a significant shift away from the rights of the individual in favour of those of the state?

Charles Clarke (Labour, Norwich South)

The comfort I can offer is to study carefully the content of the Bill. Going through it as I have sought to do in my general introduction thus far, the fact is that we are not extending the rights of the state vis-à-vis the individual through these measures. We are producing a significant change, which will allow a state of affairs whereby people's identity can be more clearly known. The effect of that approach will be to improve services, improve security and improve the public conduct of life in a variety of different ways. I argue that this Bill is an enhancement, not an inhibition, of civil liberties.

If the hon. Member for Ceredigion (Mr. Thomas) wants to invite me to go down the path of a written constitution, I will not follow him. I do not think that that is the right way to proceed. On the other aspects, I believe that we are in the right place.

I want to conclude by going through the central clauses very rapidly. First, on the national identity register and its statutory purposes, the key is set out in clauses 1 to 3 and schedule 1. It is the secure record of identity that is important, not the card itself. That is a vital aspect to understand in the overall proposals. The statutory purposes cited in clause 1(3) show that ID cards are, first, to provide people with a convenient method of proving their own identify and, secondly, to help to verify people's identity when that is in the wider public interest. National security will be improved, illegal working attacked more effectively, immigration controls enforced more directly, and crime prevented and detected more effectively. It is also important that the register is accurate and remains so. Those points have been raised in the debate and clause 11 requires that to be the case.

Gordon Prentice (Labour, Pendle)

I support the Bill—my right hon. Friend will want to know that—but under clause 5 it will fall to an individual to give details of his or her address, previous addresses, time spent at previous addresses, tenancies and so on. What sanction will be applied to an individual who does not inform the national register of all those changes? The Law Society reminds us that about 40 per cent. of the population in London change address every year.

Charles Clarke (Labour, Norwich South)

We have made it clear in the Bill that civil sanctions, not criminal sanctions, are the way to operate, and that is what would apply in those circumstances.

John Denham (Labour, Southampton, Itchen)

On that same point, will my right hon. Friend give serious consideration to the recommendation of the Home Affairs Committee that if addresses are to be included, there should be a responsibility on landlords, as well as individuals, to contribute to the registration of addresses? That is standard practice in Germany, it is one of the things that makes the German system work efficiently, and it does not cause difficulties.

Charles Clarke (Labour, Norwich South)

I reassure my right hon. Friend that we will consider that. The system that we have at the moment, and that we are suggesting in terms of addresses, is similar to the system that currently operates for driving licences, and enables—[Interruption.]

Sylvia Heal (Deputy Speaker, Halesowen and Rowley Regis)

Order. The problem is that, again, there is far too much loud conversation taking place in the Chamber.

Charles Clarke (Labour, Norwich South)

Then let me speak directly to Conservative Members, Madam Deputy Speaker, to conclude what I have to say.

The Bill is important for the future economy and security of our society. It is important to get it right. I am delighted that the shadow Home Secretary and the leader of the Conservative party have decided to support it, which is the right thing to do. I say to every Conservative Member, as I do to Liberal Democrat Members, that they, like all of us, must face up to our responsibilities in the modern world to take forward the system in the right way.

Robert Marshall-Andrews (Labour, Medway)

Will my right hon. Friend give way?

Charles Clarke (Labour, Norwich South)

We can turn our backs and say that we take no account of these areas—

Sylvia Heal (Deputy Speaker, Halesowen and Rowley Regis)

Order. Would the House please come to order?

Charles Clarke (Labour, Norwich South)

I will not give way, even to my very good hon. and learned Friend the Member for Medway (Mr. Marshall-Andrews). I have discussed with him outside the House how we will conduct our relationship in the future as we have done in the past.

This legislation is a critically important development for the security of this country. I hope that every Member of the House will examine carefully their motivations and approaches to this issue. I repeat what I said earlier: as the Bill goes through its parliamentary stages, we will consider every constructive suggestion, such as those from the Select Committee, in the most positive way, to see how we can improve the quality of this legislation. What I will not do is accept that the principle is wrong. The principle is right. I urge the House to give the Bill a Second Reading.

David Davis (Conservative, Haltemprice and Howden)

May I start by reiterating my welcome to the new Home Secretary? He will perhaps be pleased to hear that not all our debates are quite this exciting.

The Home Secretary inherits a difficult job: one that always requires a keen sense of the balance between the interests of the citizen and the role of the state. It is the first duty of the state to protect the lives of citizens, but the duty to protect life must be balanced by the duty to protect our way of life. Nowhere is that more evident than in the debate about identity cards that we have just heard.

As I said in the debate on the Queen's Speech, I would not have countenanced ID cards before 11 September. After that, however, I accept that we must consider them. After 11 September, it is incumbent on all of us to examine carefully any measures that might enhance the nation's security. Identity cards introduced properly and effectively may help to do that.

None the less, it is worth remembering that the Bill will not see ID cards introduced to Britain tomorrow. Indeed, the Secretary of State for Trade and Industry has acknowledged that the process is going to take "many, many years". This legislation merely establishes the framework necessary for their introduction. It is vital for us to consider that framework carefully and to get that consideration right.

Alex Salmond (Scottish National Party, Banff and Buchan)

rose—

Bill Cash (Conservative, Stone)

rose—

David Davis (Conservative, Haltemprice and Howden)

I will give way to the hon. Member for Banff and Buchan (Mr. Salmond).

Alex Salmond (Scottish National Party, Banff and Buchan)

A wise choice. What the right hon. Gentleman has said so far about considering ID cards sounds more like an argument for an abstention than an argument for backing them. Can he tell us about the shadow Cabinet battle, and the suggestion in scurrilous elements of the press such as The Daily Telegraph that it was decided by not wanting to be outflanked by the Prime Minister on the security agenda, as opposed to being decided on a matter of principle or concerns about the prohibitive cost? Can he deny that report?

David Davis (Conservative, Haltemprice and Howden)

Very easily. If I were the hon. Gentleman, I would not listen to the scurrilous press. As usual, he is getting ahead of himself, which is not unusual for a Scot Nat—even if he is still here, whereas the rest of his party has gone elsewhere.

Simon Hughes (Liberal Democrat, North Southwark and Bermondsey)

rose—

David Davis (Conservative, Haltemprice and Howden)

I shall give way again in a moment. I was just about to reach the point that the hon. Member for Banff and Buchan (Mr. Salmond) asked about. This is why the official Opposition will vote for Second Reading—to allow full scrutiny to take place; it is also why we have tabled an amendment to refer the Bill to a Joint Committee of both Houses. That would enable proper non-partisan examination to take place, and give the Bill the breadth and quality of scrutiny that it deserves.

The Bill is therefore a necessary first stage in the process of a fuller and more open debate.

John Gummer (Conservative, Suffolk Coastal)

rose—

Bill Cash (Conservative, Stone)

rose—

Simon Hughes (Liberal Democrat, North Southwark and Bermondsey)

rose—

David Davis (Conservative, Haltemprice and Howden)

I shall give way to the hon. Member for Southwark, North and Bermondsey (Simon Hughes).

Simon Hughes (Liberal Democrat, North Southwark and Bermondsey)

I am grateful to the right hon. Gentleman—[Interruption.]

Sylvia Heal (Deputy Speaker, Halesowen and Rowley Regis)

Order. Again I ask the House to come to order.

Simon Hughes (Liberal Democrat, North Southwark and Bermondsey)

If, at the end of whatever Committee process we have, the Government use their majority on Report to ensure that the Bill remains unchanged, how will the Tory party vote on Third Reading?

David Davis (Conservative, Haltemprice and Howden)

We shall make a judgment, and if the Bill has not changed at all, that judgment will be pretty sceptical. We shall make a judgment on the five tests that I shall explain in a minute—[Interruption.] All of them, not just one of them. That is critical to the judgment of the whole position.

John Gummer (Conservative, Suffolk Coastal)

rose—

Bill Cash (Conservative, Stone)

rose—

David Davis (Conservative, Haltemprice and Howden)

I do not know whom to give way to first. I think I shall give way to my right hon. Friend the Member for Suffolk, Coastal (Mr. Gummer).

John Gummer (Conservative, Suffolk Coastal)

Does my right hon. Friend agree that the problem for those of us who do not oppose identity cards is that the Government are no longer trusted with anything so serious, so we need some system to ensure that so large a change is not in the hands of a Government who have not shown themselves to be worthy? Is not the Joint Committee a crucial step in making this a wholly parliamentary decision, not a Government one?

David Davis (Conservative, Haltemprice and Howden)

My right hon. Friend makes an excellent point, to which I shall return when I talk about privacy and civil liberties. I do not agree with the Home Secretary that this is not a matter of civil liberties. There is an important balance here that we have to strike.

There are several other reasons why the Bill deserves detailed consideration.

Patrick Cormack (Conservative, South Staffordshire)

My right hon. Friend will know that I am grateful that there is a motion on the Order Paper to send the Bill to a Joint Committee, but what shall we do if the Government refuse to heed that good advice, and then move the ridiculous programme motion that obliges us deal with the Bill under a guillotine before the end of January, although we do not come back from the recess until 10 January? That places many of us who are not doctrinally opposed to the Bill in a difficult position. I am speaking not only to my right hon. Friend but, through him, to the Home Secretary, whom I am asking to think again about the appalling answer that he so dismissively gave me when he said that he would not consider a Joint Committee.

David Davis (Conservative, Haltemprice and Howden)

I take my hon. Friend's point, and I shall also make my own observation to the Home Secretary, who said—properly, in my view—that he was willing to take on board all the advice available from all parts of the House. I therefore hope that he will allow enough time for that to happen. One way of doing so—indeed, a very good mechanism for doing so—would be the Joint Committee.

David Davis (Conservative, Haltemprice and Howden)

No, no. If I may make some progress—

John Bercow (Conservative, Buckingham)

rose—

Alex Salmond (Scottish National Party, Banff and Buchan)

rose—

David Davis (Conservative, Haltemprice and Howden)

As ever, the Scot Nat wants more than his share. I shall give way to my hon. Friend the Member for Buckingham (Mr. Bercow).

John Bercow (Conservative, Buckingham)

Given the real danger of function creep—a danger underlined by the fact that no fewer than 25 of the 45 clauses in the Bill provide the Government with order-making powers to extend its provisions—does my right hon. Friend not share my deep disappointment that clause 25, relating to the appointment of the national identity scheme commissioner, makes it clear that the report that the commissioner submits can, and probably will, be doctored by the Secretary of State before being presented to Parliament? Does that not underline our anxiety that the commissioner will prove to be but a craven lickspittle of the Government?

David Davis (Conservative, Haltemprice and Howden)

My hon. Friend offers me an attractive option, because I have a prejudice in favour of the commissioner reporting to the House rather than to the Government, just as the Comptroller and Auditor General and the ombudsman do. That would be a better arrangement, because it would give us more control over something that will affect civil liberties. Something else that my hon. Friend reminds me of is the fact that he is now raising a matter that is addressed about four fifths of the way through my speech, so I must make some progress before I take any more interventions.

There are several other reasons why the Bill deserves detailed consideration. The use of biometric technology is set to become widespread over the next few years. It is worth considering putting it to use within a statutory framework—something that the Bill allows us to do. Similarly, in recent years it has become both legally and technically possible to pass large quantities of data about British citizens around government—indeed, for any arm of government to know more about any individual than at any time in history. That is already the case. Those data, plus the national identity register, are of more importance for privacy than the card itself, which is almost irrelevant in that respect. An important part of the Bill must be to put statutory control on the use and deployment of existing data.

John Robertson (Labour, Glasgow Anniesland)

Would the right hon. Gentleman bring in some kind of legislation to stop the use of supermarket loyalty cards, which can tell people what food we buy, when we buy it and when we eat it?

David Davis (Conservative, Haltemprice and Howden)

Such cards are entirely voluntary, and people can decide how much information to provide, which is not the case with the state. As I shall say later in my speech, the use or misuse that the state can make of such data is much more serious than what any commercial concern can do with it.

Identity cards already exist in practice, as passports and driving licences, and already, for asylum seekers, as application registration cards. It is worth considering the introduction of the framework that encompasses them all. We must ask ourselves whether ID cards are a necessary fact of life in the post-9/11 world. We must accept that the modern world, with its increasing use of new and emerging technologies, requires new safeguards and frameworks to govern how information is used, particularly by the state.

Martin Linton (Labour, Battersea)

Does the right hon. Gentleman not accept that many asylum seekers—certainly those I speak to—find application registration cards a great boon, and a quick and painless way of establishing their identity and their entitlement to benefits? The people who receive such cards largely welcome them, because in the past they had to use a tatty old Home Office form, which could not be used for two purposes at the same time. It was a great advantage to them when the new cards were introduced.

David Davis (Conservative, Haltemprice and Howden)

The hon. Gentleman may be right, but that highlights a point that I shall come to in a moment—the importance of being very clear about what the cards are for. An entitlement card is different from other sorts of card.

Richard Shepherd (Conservative, Aldridge-Brownhills)

Will my right hon. Friend give way?

David Davis (Conservative, Haltemprice and Howden)

All right, but this must be the last intervention for a while.

Richard Shepherd (Conservative, Aldridge-Brownhills)

My right hon. Friend, like many others, has used the phrase "post-9/11". 9/11 was a profound and direct assault on the United States, yet although it has the same common law traditions as we do, that country has no intention of introducing identity cards. Does that not affect my right hon. Friend's judgment in such matters?

David Davis (Conservative, Haltemprice and Howden)

Yes, it does, but the use of driving licences as straightforward identification in the United States is common. The vast majority of Americans carry driving licences—photo ID—so there is a distinction. We start from different positions. [Hon. Members: "We've got driving licences."] We do not have photo ID yet. We have to consider this matter from where Britain is, and we shall consider it very critically throughout the passage of the Bill, as hon. Members will gather in a minute.

Kate Hoey (Labour, Vauxhall)

Will the Minister give way?

David Davis (Conservative, Haltemprice and Howden)

I am not the Minister—but I will give way.

Kate Hoey (Labour, Vauxhall)

I must correct the right hon. Gentleman. We are talking about the United Kingdom, and many of us who are citizens of it who come from Northern Ireland have had photographic driving licences for many years.

David Davis (Conservative, Haltemprice and Howden)

The hon. Lady is of course exactly right—I shall return later to the question of the purpose for which such identification was required—but the simple truth is that such licences are not universal. What we are arguing about today is whether we should adopt such a system for the entire United Kingdom.

Incidentally, the Home Secretary did not deal properly with the issue of the common travel area, which is a critical weakness of the proposal. Unless Eire adopts a system of its own that is compatible with ours, we will have a weakness in that regard.

Des Browne (Labour, Kilmarnock and Loudoun)

rose—

David Davis (Conservative, Haltemprice and Howden)

I will give way to the Minister if he has some information for us.

Des Browne (Labour, Kilmarnock and Loudoun)

I am grateful to the right hon. Gentleman. He will be aware that only last week, the European Union agreed to introduce biometric travel documents throughout the EU. Over time, that will address—as, of course, will this system—the very point that was so appropriately raised by the right hon. Member for Upper Bann (Mr. Trimble).

David Davis (Conservative, Haltemprice and Howden)

I thank the Minister for giving us that information.

The Home Secretary rightly made much of the views of people such as the police, who tell us that ID cards will help them to wage a war on crime; indeed, the security services also tell us that they are a useful weapon against terrorism. So when the Minister winds up, will he tell us whether the security services or the police have made a formal request that ID cards be implemented? This is an important issue and if they did make such a request, we need to take it very seriously.

Nick Palmer (Labour, Broxtowe)

Will the right hon. Gentleman give way?

David Davis (Conservative, Haltemprice and Howden)

Not at the moment; I must make some progress.

Against that, we must address—

Des Browne (Labour, Kilmarnock and Loudoun)

Will the right hon. Gentleman give way?

David Davis (Conservative, Haltemprice and Howden)

Of course.

Des Browne (Labour, Kilmarnock and Loudoun)

I am very grateful. Both the security services and the police have said that the single most important thing that we could do to interdict terrorism is to introduce a secure form of identity into the United Kingdom. I know that the Leader of the Opposition was very impressed by that advice, as was I. I do not understand what the right hon. Gentleman means by a "formal request", and if I am to answer him in the wind-up, perhaps he ought to explain. Once the police and the security services tell us their views on this issue, they do not need further to inform us formally.

David Davis (Conservative, Haltemprice and Howden)

A "formal" request is just that. Did the police and the security services write to the Minister or the Home Secretary asking them to introduce ID cards? If not, different issues arise, which I might discuss later.

I turn to our five tests, the first of which is clarity of purpose. One of the main objections to the 1940s wartime identity card was mission creep: at the outset, the card had three distinct purposes; it ended with 39. In the debate leading up to the Bill and in the response to the consultation process, the Government claimed that a national identity card is needed to allow access to benefits and services; to provide proof of age; for voter registration, crime reduction and immigration purposes; to tackle terrorism, money laundering, people trafficking and identity fraud; and to provide access to private services. It is important to know which of these is the priority, since different services and purposes demand different types of card. Entitlement cards, for example, do not have to be universal—as was pointed out earlier—nor do they have to be carried.

On the other hand, it is difficult to see how a card that does not have to be carried will be effective against terrorism or illegal immigration. Are we to ask Mr. bin Laden to turn up at his local police station within three days to show his card? Obviously not. So the Government must make clear the specific purposes for which an ID card is required, and in particular, which of those purposes are the priorities. Otherwise, it will be very difficult to assess them. Where no individual purpose is specified, it must be made clear that an ID card is not a requirement.

Secondly, as some Labour Members have pointed out, we must be clear about the technology's capabilities. Biometrics technology is not infallible. Fingerprints and iris scans cannot always easily be taken, and the technology can be fooled. The system must be robust from start to finish—from the card and biometric reader, through the communication system, and into the central computer, database and software. It must be impossible for a virus to enter the system. It is easy to conceive a virus that causes the database to give the wrong responses when a particular biometric—such as a fingerprint—is entered, or that conceals the existence of duplicate identities, thus corrupting the system's two key purposes. It is vital to this project's progress that the public and the authorities be clear about the technology's weaknesses, as well as its strengths.

Robert Marshall-Andrews (Labour, Medway)

Perhaps I might make to the right hon. Gentleman the point that I would have made to the Home Secretary, had I been given the opportunity. Will the excellence of biometric testing not create precisely the trap—I know that many police officers feel this way—that we are seeking to avoid? All existing identification methods are imperfect; indeed, most ID card systems in most countries are acknowledged to be imperfect and are created to be so. If a card is forged, biometric technology will provide what appears to be incontrovertible proof of identity, thus giving criminals and terrorists the access that they would otherwise not have.

David Davis (Conservative, Haltemprice and Howden)

That is a powerful point, and it is one reason why the technology has to be very effective. One problem is that the presumption so far has been that the technology is perfect. It is not, so we need to build in fail-safes, as is done with other such technologies. As I said, the system must work throughout—from the reader through to the software. No one writing about this issue outside the technical journals has so far addressed the question of what will happen if somebody who is serious about defeating the system, which will have tens of thousands of access points, makes a virus attack on it. We have to make the system foolproof.

Bill Tynan (Labour, Hamilton South)

Does the right hon. Gentleman not accept that biometrics is the best and securest technology available, or is he aware of another technology that would deal with the problems that he describes?

David Davis (Conservative, Haltemprice and Howden)

Frankly, I expect the Government, rather than this House, to check their technical information. Biometrics encompasses a whole range of technologies, such as fingerprint technology and iris reading, both of which can be fooled. It could also encompass DNA technology—that is too slow, however—and facial recognition. I suspect that the Government will have to run at least two completely different systems in order to reduce the odds of being defeated. If the hon. Gentleman will forgive me, his question is one for the Minister to answer, not me.

Mark Oaten (Liberal Democrat, Winchester)

The issue is not just the effectiveness of biometrics, but the root or "seed" documents by which people obtain such information. If a terrorist were to bring in a false birth certificate, it could easily be accepted; as a result, they would have an identity linked to that document. How do we overcome that problem?

David Davis (Conservative, Haltemprice and Howden)

The hon. Gentleman is right, in that that is one of the weaknesses with which the Government must deal; however, it is not an insuperable problem. The primary difficulty is with some European ID cards, rather than British ones. Indeed, in a letter to the previous Home Secretary, the Foreign Secretary pointed out that some ID systems are more easily fooled than others. We will simply have to ensure that our standards are high, but that is not the greatest problem. The difficulty is that certain foreign cards could stand in for British ones.

Des Browne (Labour, Kilmarnock and Loudoun)

Part of the problem is that a significant number of the Members who have contributed to this Second Reading debate clearly have not read the Bill. The right hon. Gentleman will doubtless be able to point out to the hon. Member for Winchester (Mr. Oaten) that clause 11 deals with the very point that he raises. The hon. Gentleman is running yet another red herring by saying that people can come into this country with false identities. The Bill allows for the verification of information on such people against other databases—secure ones—before they can get on to the register.

David Davis (Conservative, Haltemprice and Howden)

I will allow the Minister to intervene on me again—if he wants to tell me that the three-month period allowed for European citizens who come here has now been rescinded.

Des Browne (Labour, Kilmarnock and Loudoun)

The right hon. Gentleman is extremely generous in allowing interventions. Given the number of Members who want to speak in this debate, I suspect that I will not get a significant amount of time in which to wind it up. As he well knows, the Government signed up to the principle that we cannot require from EU citizens such registration until they have been in the country for more than three months. So the overall legal framework within which we operate requires us to observe that three-month window. If it did not, we would not have been prepared to go down this route, for obvious reasons. That is why we argue in Europe for biometric ID cards, which is what these people used to travel into the country. Biometrics in respect of people outwith the European free travel area are going to become almost compulsory for travel around the world.

David Davis (Conservative, Haltemprice and Howden)

The hon. Gentleman has made my point for me. As the Liberal spokesman said, one of the main problems is access to the system. If such access is easier in other European countries than it is here, and people can come here for three months, that will have to be dealt with. Simple agreement on Europe-wide biometricsis not enough; there will have to be agreement on standards of access, which must be sorted out.

David Davis (Conservative, Haltemprice and Howden)

I want to make some progress.

Bill Cash (Conservative, Stone)

Will my right hon. Friend give way?

David Davis (Conservative, Haltemprice and Howden)

In a moment. I promise that I will give way to my hon. Friend next time.

The debate that we have just had rather highlights my next point, because the question is whether the Government have in place the organisation necessary to introduce the scheme. We know that what they are proposing is one of the most ambitious technology projects that the country has ever seen. We also know that the Government have an abysmal record—I am not making a political point, because most Governments have an abysmal record—in overseeing large-scale projects, as with the millennium dome and new software for the Child Support Agency and for passports.

Only a couple of weeks ago, the national fingerprint identification system collapsed for five days—and that had the complexity of a pocket calculator by comparison with the national identity register. We have to address the issue of how to deal with the matter. I suspect that the Government will put it out to tender and we are going to have to think very hard about that process. I do not see the Chairman of the Public Accounts Committee in his place, but I hope that he contributes to the debate because I would be interested to hear what he has to say. I promised to give way to my hon. Friend.

Bill Cash (Conservative, Stone)

Will my right hon. Friend reflect on the fact that Australia had an opportunity to adopt identity cards—initially with considerable enthusiasm? Yet when the facts were known to the people of Australia, there was massive opposition to it and the whole proposal was dropped. Does he not think that, given the interaction of the proposals with the criminal law and the social security system within the EU, there is a real likelihood that the whole process will, through the legal framework of the justice and home affairs system, lead to a Europe-wide identity system enforceable through those laws by the European Court of Justice? Does he not regard that as an extremely dangerous prospect for 450 million people, quite apart from people in this country?

David Davis (Conservative, Haltemprice and Howden)

I thank my hon. Friend for his intervention. On Australia, it took place some time ago in the 1980s and the backdrop was a little different. As to the EU, I do not know the answer to his question, but it is precisely the complex interaction between the legal and technical problems that makes me think that this is a perfect project for examination by a Joint Committee, not just by the House of Commons on a limited programme.

Andrew MacKinlay (Labour, Thurrock)

The shadow Home Secretary and the Minister for Citizenship and Immigration dismiss too readily the problems mentioned by the right hon. Member for Upper Bann (Mr. Trimble). The common travel area with the Irish Republic is quite different from our relationship with France, Germany and other countries. A person in County Louth can travel each day to Belfast and someone from Donegal can travel to Derry, but they are required under the Bill to have a pass or passport. They may not have an Irish Republic passport, but they can still travel. What is going to be done to deal with that problem, given that it is an open border that must, for a variety of sensible logistical reasons, remain so?

David Davis (Conservative, Haltemprice and Howden)

All I can say is that the hon. Gentleman should have addressed that question to the Home Secretary rather than to me. [Interruption.] I do not recall accepting excuses. I have said throughout that we must have proper tests and that problems must be dealt with. It may be possible to deal with that problem: we may need a new arrangement for the common travel area, though it would be a large change to carry through.

My fourth test is the cost-effectiveness of the scheme. The introduction of the Bill saw the cost of the ID card scheme almost double overnight, from £3 billion to £5.5 billion. Given the time scale and the cost, the Government should not lose sight of the cheaper and quicker methods that could be put in place now to deal with some of the problems that ID cards seek to combat—having proper embarkation controls at British ports, for example, which is something that the next Conservative Government will put into effect as soon as possible. An end to fraudulent visa claims and taking action to control immigration are other examples. All those would address some of the problems that the Government propose to tackle with identity cards, and all of them are part of the next Conservative Government's manifesto commitments. They are the sort of cost-effective actions that the British people want to see happen here and now.

Julian Brazier (Conservative, Canterbury)

My right hon. Friend is generous in giving way and he is making a powerful and cogent speech—[Interruption.] Does he agree that the welcome measures in our manifesto—on keeping embarkation records and proper entry and exit records—would be well underpinned by the proposed system if it could be made to work?

David Davis (Conservative, Haltemprice and Howden)

I would go further than that and say that such an arrangement would be a necessary aspect of the system. If the Government are to argue that immigration controls are a high-ranking priority, as I think that they will, embarkation controls and better border controls will be a necessary component.

Alex Salmond (Scottish National Party, Banff and Buchan)

rose—

David Davis (Conservative, Haltemprice and Howden)

I am not giving way to the hon. Gentleman.

Gordon Prentice (Labour, Pendle)

Was it not the right hon. Gentleman's Conservative Government who scrapped embarkation controls in the smaller ports?

David Davis (Conservative, Haltemprice and Howden)

If I recall correctly, it was embarkation controls for the EU, which were no longer legal. It was the present Government who scrapped them for the rest of the world. I want to make some progress now.

Finally, we must examine the very real concerns about civil liberties, which were dismissed far too easily by the Home Secretary. That goes to the heart of the concerns expressed by so many Members on both sides of the House, including some members of the Cabinet, so it is right and proper to discuss them. I think that the Home Secretary was wrong in his article this morning to call those who are concerned about civil liberties "woolly". That is erroneous and does not help the progress of the Bill.

The scheme proposed today will involve the establishment of a national identity register, the use of the latest technology and the gathering of information on millions of people. That register will be the hub that allows access and collation of vast amounts of data on individuals from many Government databases.

One issue that has arisen today concerns legal advice from the Attorney-General about data and privacy. In the interest of informed debate on this matter, will the Home Secretary publish the advice from Lord Goldsmith, which would be advantageous for debating the arguments about privacy? In practical terms, any database at the heart of the national identity register must be secure. People who misuse the data, particularly Government officials, must face stiff penalties. At the moment, the Bill has smaller penalties for civil servants than for anyone else, which is the wrong way round.

We know that unscrupulous people somehow managed to get at information on the police national computer about the Driver and Vehicle Licensing Agency, and we know that the Pentagon and Microsoft have both been hacked into. The proposed system has to have tens of thousands of access points, so it must be rendered more secure even than Microsoft has so far managed with its own headquarters.

Parliament must oversee the nature of the data used on the cards and must control who has access to them—the point made by my hon. Friend the Member for Buckingham (Mr. Bercow) at the outset of my speech. Those are the sort of safeguards that we want to see in place, especially when, to be frank, we know that the Government sometimes have no concern for people's privacy or civil liberties whatever. This is a Government who regularly smear their opponents—a Goliath who have tried to steamroller Pam Warren from the Paddington Survivors Group, who savaged the 94-year-old pensioner Rose Addis, who spat out the press officer Martin Sixsmith and who rubbished the reputation of David Kelly.

In an ideal world, we would not need identity cards. Sadly, our world is not ideal, but increasingly dangerous. Today we accept that it is necessary to legislate for the possible introduction of ID cards. It is necessary to put the structure in place. Many people believe that they will be a useful weapon in the fight against crime, fraud and international terrorism. It is right that we listen to those people and support the principle that the architecture for their introduction should be put in place, but it is also right that we ensure that the proposals are scrutinised very carefully, so that we achieve the aims of the Bill at minimum cost and minimum incursion on people's liberty and privacy. That is why we will support the Bill—[Interruption]—but it is also why I commend the motion to refer the Bill to a Joint Committee of both Houses.

Michael Lord (Deputy Speaker, Central Suffolk and North Ipswich)

Order. I remind the House that Mr. Speaker has placed an eight-minute limit on Back Benchers' speeches, which applies from now.

John Denham (Labour, Southampton, Itchen)

I welcome the speech made by my right hon. Friend the Home Secretary, and I welcome him to his job. He referred to the report of the Select Committee on Home Affairs. I hope that hon. Members who scrutinise the Bill in Committee will find our report, and the minority reports, a helpful guide to pretty much all the major issues that need to be looked at in detail. I am already grateful to the Government for taking on board at least some of the changes highlighted in the Select Committee's earlier report, particularly in terms of making the aims of the Bill more precise. There have been some changes—not yet enough—to the powers of the commissioner and in the bringing in of the Government's chief scientific officer to advise on the state of development of biometrics. All those are important safeguards.

From the discussion so far, it is fairly clear that not all right hon. and hon. Members have yet read the Bill in any great detail. I hope that will change in the weeks to come, and I should like to highlight a few important issues.

In my view, there is no doubt that introducing a national identity register—that is what we should focus on, rather than the cards themselves—brings a change in the relationship between citizen and state, not least because there is a formal requirement to provide one's biometrics to a state register. Nothing like that exists on citizens at the moment, and there are other, perhaps less intrusive, requirements to provide changes of address and other information.

That, I think, is the only fundamental change in the relationship between the citizen and the state. In the debate so far, it has been hard to understand exactly what it is that the Bill's opponents are seriously worried about. Everyone talks about the Bill as though it were some terrible step into the unknown, but one never hears a precise example of what people are actually worried about, other than the point of principle, which is an arguable one.

In truth, even if all the data on the new national identity register became freely available, which will not happen and which is not what is proposed, there would be less intrusive information, less private information and less damaging information available through that than is routinely available today to the police, the security services and a whole variety of private companies from telephone companies, credit card companies, store card companies and the like. The fears behind the civil liberties argument, other than those on the principle itself, are, in my view, greatly overstated.

The question, as the Select Committee said, is whether the potential gains of the system outweigh those fears. To some extent, that depends on individual assessments.

Robert Marshall-Andrews (Labour, Medway)

As my right hon. Friend asked for a concrete example, may I give him one? If the Bill goes through in its present form, it will undoubtedly be possible for the Secretary of State to initiate not primary but secondary legislation—that being the important thing—to add, for instance, criminal convictions to the data stored. That is one concrete example that is undoubtedly right and that causes me and a lot of other people great concern.

John Denham (Labour, Southampton, Itchen)

That issue can be addressed in Committee. I see no reason to do what my hon. and learned Friend suggests. In fact, all criminal convictions are already immediately accessible on the police national computer. It is hard to see why the Government would wish to do that. If somebody is, for example, taken to a police station and arrested, and if the police identify that individual using the national identity register—that is, after all, what it is there for—it will take a mere matter of seconds to establish whether that person is also on the police national computer. I do not see that as a fundamental objection.

It seems to me that the reason for the card is this: if we believe, as I do, that terrorism is a significant threat; if we believe, as I do, that the facts of illegal immigration, illegal working and abuse of access to public services are not only major issues in their own right but significant social issues for our society, because people perceive all that as being unfair, unchallenged and something that should be dealt with; and if we see criminal identity fraud as a problem, we need to listen to the agencies who tell us, as they told the Select Committee, that having a robust system of personal identity will, in the words of the famous Sir Robert Mark, when talking about motor car tyres, make a "significant contribution" to solving the problem.

That is what the Select Committee was told. It was not told that terrorism would be abolished, nor that identity fraud would disappear, nor that there would be no benefit abuse, nor that there would be no illegal working. It was told that because it would be easier to tackle points of identity, a robust identity system would be desirable. That is why, in principle, the Bill should go ahead.

I will give way very briefly to the hon. Member for North Thanet (Mr. Gale). I realise that it will cost me time.

Roger Gale (Conservative, North Thanet)

I am most grateful. The hon. Gentleman asks why some of us are concerned about the Bill. The Home Secretary has proposed legislation that, potentially, brings together a failed Child Support Agency system, a failed Inland Revenue tax system, a failed health records system, and a failed police records system. He is talking about spending billions of pounds—

John Denham (Labour, Southampton, Itchen)

indicated dissent.

Roger Gale (Conservative, North Thanet)

It is all right; you have injury time.

The Home Secretary is talking about introducing technology that will be outdated by the time it is of any use. As if that is not bad enough, he is asking the House to consider the Bill in six sittings of a Committee. A lot of people on both sides of the House would go with the Bill if the Home Secretary were prepared to submit it to a Joint Committee of both Houses.

John Denham (Labour, Southampton, Itchen)

Having dealt with the point of principle, let me come to procurement, which is important. We do not conclude, as a House, that we should not have a Child Support Agency because we have had problems with the computer, or that we should not have a pensions system because we have had problems with the system. The critical thing is to get it right.

I will say to the Home Secretary that we need to adopt a more open procurement system, with more scrutiny and challenge to each component of that system than is so far apparent. That is what has been done in Italy, and that is why procurement in Italy has been more successful than our track record shows we have been. I hope that my right hon. Friend and his ministerial colleagues will look at the procurement system, which was raised by the Select Committee as a matter of considerable concern.

I want to touch briefly on a few more issues that the Government need to deal with to get things right. On cost, it is important that the Home Secretary, in seeking, understandably, to minimise, or at least not to overstate, the cost of the system to central Government must not assume that others will readily pick up the cost of the card reader system, the infrastructure system and so on. We should listen to the Local Government Association. When it gave evidence to the Home Affairs Committee, it saw the value of having the system but was worried about the costs that it would have to pick up to make use of it.

The infrastructure costs to support the register are critical to the success of the system. Forgery need not be a problem, provided there is an adequate infrastructure of card readers and that they are used regularly enough. There is a cost to that, although it is nothing like the mathematically erroneous £1 billion mentioned earlier. The Government will need to give detailed costings as quickly as possible.

David Taylor (Labour/Co-operative, North West Leicestershire)

Will my right hon. Friend give way?

John Denham (Labour, Southampton, Itchen)

No, I have given way twice.

One of the areas that we need to consider further is oversight. There has been a welcome broadening of the powers of the commissioner, but he still lacks adequate recourse for an individual who fears that his or her records have been wrongly accessed or used. That recourse needs to be made clear and explicit in the Bill. I also share the concerns of the hon. Member for Buckingham (Mr. Bercow) about the mechanism for reporting via the Secretary of State rather than through more open reporting.

None the less, issues of procurement, biometrics and oversight are things that we should be able to get right as the Bill passes through Parliament. My basic point is that we have a series of problems in our society with which a robust system of identity would help us enormously. An ID card and national identity register would enable us to do that. The fears expressed are, as we have just seen, vague and ill stated. The Bill should go ahead tonight so that we can work on the detail.

Mark Oaten (Liberal Democrat, Winchester)

I shall start, because I did not have a chance to do so at Home Office questions, by welcoming the new Home Secretary. I will not take offence at the woolly liberal comments, although they suggest that it is business at usual at the Home Office in terms of the attitudes towards us. I also acknowledge that the Home Secretary, with the support of the shadow Home Secretary, is about to introduce what will clearly be one of the most popular measures that we have seen in this country.

With 80 per cent. in favour of ID cards, I recognise that it will be a very popular measure. The difficulty is that I do not sense that level of support for ID cards when I talk to people; nor has that level of support come across in this debate. One of the problems is that initially people are attracted to the idea. Nearly everybody whom I speak to about it says at first, "Well, I have nothing to hide. What's wrong with carrying a card?" I happily and freely admit that I also took that view for many years, to such an extent that I supported a private Member's Bill on the issue a couple of years ago. I supported it because at the time I did not have a problem with the issue. I entirely acknowledge that. However, the difficulty arises when one starts to look in more depth at some of the issues. That is why I changed my mind and why I am convinced that by the time the Bill has passed through both Houses, and after proper debate, the Government—with Conservative support—will have introduced one of the most unpopular measures that we have seen in this Parliament.

Des Browne (Labour, Kilmarnock and Loudoun)

I do not want to rake over old coals, but the hon. Gentleman has got off lightly on this issue for far too long. It cannot be the case that the hon. Gentleman supported ID cards to the point where—[Interruption.] As a matter of fact, that assertion is not correct. [Hon. Members: "Which one?"] That I was a member of CND. I never was. The hon. Gentleman cannot have been persuaded not only to support ID cards in principle, but to vote for them in the House on the basis that we had nothing to fear from them. He must have had other reasons for supporting the principle of identity cards. Before we accept that he has properly changed his mind on the issue and has not just fallen in—

Michael Lord (Deputy Speaker, Central Suffolk and North Ipswich)

Order. The Minister will have the opportunity to wind up at the end of the debate, provided there is time. Many Back Benchers want to contribute to the debate and he should leave his intervention there.

Mark Oaten (Liberal Democrat, Winchester)

I will happily rehearse why I have changed my mind. I am concerned about the cost implications and the civil liberty implications. I am not convinced that ID cards will work in relation to terrorism and I do not believe that they will help to tackle benefit or health fraud. It is a completely flawed system and now that I have seen the detail I fundamentally oppose the Bill.

Alex Salmond (Scottish National Party, Banff and Buchan)

I welcome the hon. Gentleman's change of mind. My goodness me, it is not as though the Minister for Citizenship and Immigration has never taken orders from a higher authority. Be that as it may, did the hon. Gentleman detect from the Conservative spokesman, as I did, a lack of enthusiasm for the Bill? When the hon. Member for South Staffordshire (Sir Patrick Cormack) asked what would happen if the proposal for a Joint Committee was not accepted by the Government, we did not appear to get an answer. Did the hon. Gentleman hear it?

Mark Oaten (Liberal Democrat, Winchester)

I was fascinated by the shadow Home Secretary's speech. It was an extremely good speech against ID cards, right up to the final line, in which he urged support for the Bill in one sentence only. I say to the Conservatives that I understand why their leader is nervous so close to an election. He wants to show that he is tough on crime and he does not want to be attacked for being soft on those issues. However, every now and then in politics, instead of chasing the 80 per cent., one has a duty to speak up for the 20 per cent. There is also a duty to try to argue one's case and convince the 80 per cent. that they are wrong. The Conservatives might get more respect if they tried to change views rather than following opinion polls all the time—

Martin Linton (Labour, Battersea)

Will the hon. Gentleman give way?

Mark Oaten (Liberal Democrat, Winchester)

No, I have not finished with the Conservatives yet. The five tests are a fig leaf. They are as meaningless as the Chancellor's five tests on the euro. The shadow Home Secretary answered virtually all his tests, yet he concluded that they were still wanting. If the Conservatives end up supporting the Bill, they will have to demonstrate that all the tests have been met. They will struggle to do so as much as the Home Secretary will struggle with the tests.

Martin Linton (Labour, Battersea)

Will the hon. Gentleman be more explicit about when he underwent his Damascene conversion? I remind him that he supported a ten-minute Bill on ID cards that went much further than the Government's Bill and would have required that an ID card be carried at all times. Did he change his mind around the time that he accepted a Front Bench job?

Mark Oaten (Liberal Democrat, Winchester)

I have explained that matter and now I wish to deal with the issues as they stand. I shall take the House through the process I have gone through to reach my position. Sometimes in politics things are wrong because they are wrong in practice—they just cannot be done in practical terms. Sometimes in politics things are wrong in principle. Uniquely, ID cards are wrong in practice and in principle. That is why I have come to the conclusion that they are wrong. I shall address the issues of effectiveness, the implications of the database, the cost and the impact, which we have not discussed so far, that the proposals will have on minority and ethnic minority groups in this country.

The Home Secretary gave several reasons why we must have these cards. I shall start with terrorism, because I acknowledge that there is a serious threat. It is an attractive argument for ID cards because we all want to do what we can to ensure that our country is safe. The Government's argument is that 35 per cent. of terrorists use false or multiple identities. I know that they are not arguing that that means that an ID card system would cut terrorism by a third, but there are problems with the Home Secretary's proposition. The first is that terrorists are capable of carrying out atrocities without changing their identity. The terrorists who hit New York and Madrid all travelled under their own identities. The London nail bomber, David Copeland, made no attempt to disguise his identity, and nor did Richard Reid, the so-called shoe bomber. Sadly, knowing who someone is does not tell us what they are thinking or what they are about to do. Having the information about identity will not stop determined terrorists, because atrocities have been committed by people who have not changed their identity.

What of those individuals who do try to change their identity? I come back to the point I raised in my intervention in the shadow Home Secretary's speech, which is how to ensure that terrorists do not enter the country on a false identity. The problem is that terrorists could arrive in the country with false root or seed documentation. When they register, the false information is used to issue them with an ID card. They can then go around with an identity that they have created specifically in this country. That could be overcome if there was an international system to check whether people were using different identities in different countries, as long as they moved within G8 or EU countries that had the same level of biometric testing. However, the reality is that most such individuals will come from the very countries that will not have such technology. They will be able to dash back and forth between their original country and this country without being caught.

Martin Linton (Labour, Battersea)

Does the hon. Gentleman accept that if it were possible for someone to fake an identity and obtain an ID card, the use of biometrics would make it impossible for them to register under any other name? The whole problem of multiple identities would still be addressed, even if what he says were true.

Mark Oaten (Liberal Democrat, Winchester)

The hon. Gentleman entirely misses my point. I acknowledge that it would be difficult to create multiple or false identities for someone who was moving between England, Germany or France, or other countries that have the ability to test the iris. Such people could not change their identity because the iris would give them away. However, terrorists will not be moving between those countries: they will come from countries that do not have the biometric testing ability, and that is the loophole.

The Government's second reason for introducing the Bill is benefit and health fraud. The Home Secretary advanced some strong arguments about the card's impact on such fraud, but a vast amount of the health and benefit fraud that occurs in the UK has nothing to do with identity. Only about 5 per cent. involves individuals pretending to be somebody whom they are not; most fraud is somebody saying they have a back problem when they do not, or somebody claiming benefits when they are working on the side. That is where the problem lies, and the Government's figures do not stack up to suggest that there is a major problem.

We received no answers from the Home Secretary about how the process would work. Will there have to be reading equipment in every post office, every benefit office, every hospital and every GP practice? Will the equipment be installed throughout the country, or will we target only certain inner-city areas? Who will operate it? Will it be the GP, the practice nurse or the person behind the post office counter? What kind of training will they have to be given to use all that equipment? What will happen if the equipment breaks down? Who will make the choice about who is to be asked to show their card? Making that choice will put pressure on some individuals.

I am a hypochondriac and I visit my GP all the time, so people at the surgery know who I am and would not need to ask for my ID card. However, they will have to decide whose card to ask for, and that kind of choice will put them in the front line. I do not think they want that job. In those circumstances, what will happen to people who do not have their card with them? Will they be turned away from medical treatment?

Jon Owen Jones (Labour/Co-operative, Cardiff Central)

Is it the policy of the hon. Gentleman's party that people who turn up for services—whether for health or something else—should be treated regardless of their entitlement?

David Heath (Liberal Democrat, Somerton and Frome)

Yes, if they are sick.

Jon Owen Jones (Labour/Co-operative, Cardiff Central)

So that is the policy. I am grateful to learn that. Anyone who comes into the country on a visitor's visa can be treated, regardless of entitlement.

Mark Oaten (Liberal Democrat, Winchester)

If the hon. Gentleman thinks that I shall go down the Daily Express and Daily Mail route of trying to pretend that our health service is being burdened by scroungers coming to this country, he is wrong. I will not go down that route.

Simon Thomas (Plaid Cymru, Ceredigion)

The hon. Gentleman might be interested to know that, under the Bill, the National Assembly for Wales can make its own decision about whether to ask for ID cards for the health service. What is more, the Labour National Assembly Government have said that they will not do that.

Mark Oaten (Liberal Democrat, Winchester)

I am delighted to hear that. I am not sure whether it is an invitation to go to Wales for health care.

The Government claim that illegal working is another reason that we need ID cards. I accept that there is a problem; anybody who saw the tragedy at Morecambe bay realises that something must be done about illegal working. There are, however, existing powers to handle illegal working and the problem of immigration. The Government have set up powers whereby the police can check individuals' working papers, although, in 2002, only two individuals were prosecuted for employing an illegal immigrant. The reason that there were only two is not because those individuals did not have documents that could be checked—they must have those documents—but because it was not a policing priority and it was almost impossible for the police to find their whereabouts. How on earth would an ID card make any difference at all?

Adrian Sanders (Liberal Democrat, Torbay)

On the point made by the hon. Member for Ceredigion (Mr. Thomas), my constituency attracts an enormous number of tourists from Wales. They might come to my constituency without their ID card, not expecting to need medical treatment. If they had an accident, would they have to return to Wales to receive treatment?

Mark Oaten (Liberal Democrat, Winchester)

Let us hope that the accident is not serious.

John Denham (Labour, Southampton, Itchen)

Has the hon. Gentleman considered the possibility that one reason that enforcement action against those who employ illegal labour is too low—in my view—is the recognition that the limitations of currently available documents make it difficult for employers to be certain? If there was a gold standard of identity, provided by a national identity register, implementation would be much easier for employers and it would be much easier to come down hard on people who continue wrongly to employ illegal labour.

Mark Oaten (Liberal Democrat, Winchester)

I respect the views of the Chairman of the Select Committee, but I suspect that those who genuinely want to find the documents will find a way forward. The difficulty is that far too many employers do not care one iota and it will not make a blind bit of difference to them whether people have an ID card or a set of documents.

Mark Oaten (Liberal Democrat, Winchester)

I want to move on to a second point about illegal working. I have dealt with the practical issues, where I do not think that the card will make a difference. There are also civil liberties concerns about how it will work in practice. The detail of the regulatory impact assessment states:

"As pressures grow on public services, service providers will have to bring in complex procedures for checking a range of documentation as the old assumption that if you are here you are probably here legally is no longer acceptable. There are also cultural problems about getting service providers to ask only certain groups for proof of identity for fear of being accused of discrimination."

That is important: only certain groups will be asked for proof of identity.

That is extraordinary. In their RIA, the Government admit that it is the intention to ask only certain groups for proof of identity. I have to tell the Minister and the Home Secretary that the problems will not just be cultural; there will be serious legal problems if that is indeed what the Government propose to do. Linking illegal working and ID cards will lead—bluntly—to people who do not look British being stopped.

I want to turn to our other concerns about the Bill. The cost of the measure is the most complex thing to debate, because the figures keep changing and we have received little information about the costs from the Home Office. I accept that the Liberal Democrats cannot have it all ways on costs. We support the principle of changes to passports to keep us in line with the requirements of our international obligations. It would be disingenuous for me to lump all the costs together, but what I have tried to do, and will try to do in the debates ahead, is to separate the elements where we believe that the Government are going too far.

The Government are going too far by having three biometric tests on passports, as well as an ID system. They must give us accurate figures on costings. We believe that the additional costs to be incurred will be about £85 million a year, plus £50 million a year to run the identity checking service, yet, according to the figures the Government have given us to date, they have not costed the full implications of their plans to tackle benefit fraud and health access.

According to Home Office figures, each reader will cost between £250 and £750. A crude multiplication—to cover the various routes for access to health and benefits—gives an extremely high figure. For post offices alone—even in relation to the number that are left; I realise that over the last few years the Government have been trying to shut many of them down—the cost would be £11 million. We need more information about the costs. We do not know what is involved, and we cannot do our job of scrutinising the Bill until we know what the total cost will be. The public believe that there is a black hole in the measure, and we share that view.

Richard Allan (Liberal Democrat, Sheffield, Hallam)

Does my hon. Friend share my disappointment that the Government have failed to publish the Office of Government Commerce gateway review documents? They were produced at public expense and I cannot believe that at this stage they contain anything of a sensitive commercial nature. They should be before the House as we debate this important Bill.

Mark Oaten (Liberal Democrat, Winchester)

I agree entirely. It is unacceptable that for reasons of commercial confidentiality in the procurement process, we as the politicians deciding these matters cannot be given that information, whereas companies making bids can. That is not an acceptable way to proceed.

Bob Russell (Liberal Democrat, Colchester)

Does my hon. Friend find it amazing that all the efforts of the Home Affairs Committee to get answers to those questions were refused point-blank by the Home Office?

Mark Oaten (Liberal Democrat, Winchester)

It is extraordinary and unhelpful; we are being asked to support a Bill and to sign a blank cheque. It is also important to note that there are genuine political issues about where we might spend that money. We might all have different priorities for its most effective use. I would have thought that more police and more intelligence officers to support the system might be more effective in dealing with some of the things that the Government are trying to tackle—not least terrorism.

I am conscious of the fact that many other hon. Members want to speak, so I shall conclude by considering the database itself. The Chairman of the Home Affairs Committee was right to identify the fact that although the database is, in many ways, the key issue, there are two issues to consider: the civil liberty implications and, frankly, the Government's inability to run such systems in the first place.

The Government's track record on IT procurement is awful. The projected cost of the Child Support Agency system was £150 million, but the figure ended up at £450 million. The final cost of the Horizon project—an automated Post Office Counters system—ended up at £1 billion and ran three years late. My particular favourite is the NHS IT programme, with expected costs of £6.2 billion. The actual cost was £18 billion, and the figure is still rising. Of course, recently and more seriously, the national automated fingerprint identification system crashed owing to server software difficulties, causing serious problems for the police.

How will the database be kept up to date? An earlier intervention pointed out the churn on the electoral roll, with individuals moving many times, people changing their addresses and new individuals coming on when they are 18 years old and others being taken off when they die. The scope for error is absolutely enormous, and the track record suggests that costs will get out of control.

The more important point, however, relates to the principles of what is held on the data system. What can happen in 15 or 20 years? How can the information be linked, for example, to CCTV systems that can individually scan faces and recognise them? Do we want to move into the kind of society where people know exactly who is walking up and down the high street? Is there even a possibility that a future Home Secretary may decide to tag on DNA information? What would be the implications of adding on the vast amount of DNA information that is already collected?

David Davis (Conservative, Haltemprice and Howden)

I am listening with interest to the hon. Gentleman. Does he think that such a system is impossible? I do not believe that it is. Surely the introduction of the things that he describes—a rather scary prospect—would all be subject to primary legislation.

Mark Oaten (Liberal Democrat, Winchester)

On the first point, although I am sure that the Government could get the system up and running, their track record suggests that the failure rate will be very high indeed. For example, last year 400 people were turned down for a job because it was said that they had criminal records when they did not. If the error rates that we have seen with existing systems are multiplied to cover a population of 60 million, even if the failure rate is 0.01 per cent., an awful lot of people will have difficulties. So there are serious concerns about the implications of the system.

Simon Thomas (Plaid Cymru, Ceredigion)

Will the hon. Gentleman give way?

Mark Oaten (Liberal Democrat, Winchester)

I am conscious of the fact that other hon. Members want to speak.

Finally, I want to deal with the most farcical element of the Bill: whether the system is voluntary or compulsory. I cannot understand where the Government are heading. Although I would still oppose the system, intellectually it would be a lot better if it were compulsory. That would stack up, and the Home Secretary would have been able to answer the question asked by my hon. Friend the Member for Southwark, North and Bermondsey (Simon Hughes) because the scheme would have included the powers for which the police might be looking.

In my village, my neighbours will have to carry an identity card in a few years' time. I will not have to do so because my passport is not up for renewal until 2012—lucky me—but that is a two-tier system. [Interruption.] The Minister says that people will not have to carry the card, but this is not about whether people have to carry it; it is about whether they must have an ID card in the first place. The problem is that I will not need an ID card, but my neighbours or my wife may have to have one. It will be compulsory for some, but not for others.

We are walking into a system that is, frankly, chaos. Some people must have the card; some must have one at some point in the future; others will never have to have one because they do not have a passport; but, at an unknown point, which the Home Secretary will decide, we will all need a card. That is a complete mess. A two-tier system will be created in relation to the proof of identity that people will have to carry, and the implications of that are wrong.

When the card becomes compulsory—I am sure that that is where we are heading—what will it be like for 80 or 90-year-old pensioners to be told that they have to turn up at registration centres to have their fingerprints taken and their irises and photos scanned because the system has suddenly become compulsory? If the Home Secretary thinks that 80 per cent. of people will still be in favour when the public realise that that will happen, he has got another think coming.

Here we have a £1 billion project that looks set to go over budget, a piece of plastic and a database that will do nothing to tackle terrorism and crime, a system that is neither compulsory nor voluntary and a database that will make the CSA mess up look like a tea party. This is also a debate about changes to our country and to society. If people look like illegal workers or terrorists, they can be stopped. People will have to turn up to centres to have their fingerprints and irises scanned. If they visit a GP or an accident and emergency department, they will have to submit a scan and prove who they are. I urge hon. Members on all sides of the House to reject the Bill. I am afraid that, tonight, a Labour Government, with Conservative support, are turning us from nanny state into a Big Brother state.

David Winnick (Labour, Walsall North)

I disagree strongly with my right hon. Friend the Member for Southampton, Itchen (Mr. Denham). He said that he could not understand why there should be such concern and controversy. I serve on the Home Affairs Committee, which he chairs, and he will know that we have had many disagreements on this. I could not agree with the majority report of the Home Affairs Committee. I made my opposition clear and proposed an amendment or minority report.

If it is true that there were serious disagreements in the Cabinet some months previously and in the shadow Cabinet only last week, I would not exploit that; I would be very pleased. I would think it depressing if either the Cabinet or the shadow Cabinet had agreed on such a serious subject without much controversy. If the press reports are true—members of the Cabinet have not told me about this—there was proper consideration, discussion and apparently disagreement, and I see no reason why not.

I want to make it perfectly clear tonight, as I have done previously, that if I was persuaded that identity cards would help to stop terrorism or undermine it substantially, I would support them, whatever reluctance I may have on grounds of civil liberties, because the safety and security of this country must come first and foremost. But I am not so persuaded.

As I and many other hon. Members have often said, the atrocities in Madrid and Istanbul took place despite the existence of identity cards. When the previous Home Secretary came before the Select Committee and I asked him whether ID cards with biometric details—all that he emphasises—would have prevented such atrocities, he said no.

Martin Linton (Labour, Battersea)

Will my hon. Friend give way?

David Winnick (Labour, Walsall North)

I hope that my hon. Friend will forgive me for not giving way. I am putting what is perhaps a minority point of view among Labour Members.

Surely, if identity cards along the lines proposed would help deter terrorism, the argument would be that they should be introduced much sooner. What will happen between now and their introduction in six or seven years? That makes no sense to me, which is why I am not persuaded that ID cards would prevent the sort of terrorism that has taken place elsewhere from happening in this country. I would be the last person to underestimate the threat of terrorism. We have heard a statement today and my view remains that terrorists will cause much death and destruction, in so far as they can get away with it, and this country will certainly be no exception.

As for the other arguments about ID cards—those on illegal immigration and working—it has rightly been pointed out that there is little evidence, if any, that an ID card scheme would have stopped what happened in Morecambe bay or, if the 58 Chinese who tragically suffocated had survived, as we would have wished, that it would have prevented them from working in this country. After all, in the continental countries that have identity cards under the democratic system—and previously under dictatorships—the problems of illegal immigration and working have not disappeared or lessened because of any ID scheme that happens to exist there.

The Home Office should be much tougher in making it far more difficult for certain employers to employ people who have no right to take employment. Those laws already exist. That is already a criminal offence, and I hope that the Government will be tougher in enforcing those laws and regulations.

The point has been made that, since January 2002, asylum seekers have been given application registration cards, which provide a secure means of recording their details and identity. I do not disagree with that, but why should the rest of us require a form of identification along the lines that the Government are keen to introduce because asylum seekers rightly have such cards?

I am also worried about function creep. It is interesting to note that, when the Information Commissioner gave evidence to the Home Affairs Committee, he made the point that, in 1939, there were three stated purposes for bringing in an identity card:

"for conscription, for national security and for rationing."

He went on to say that, by 1950, there were 39 stated purposes to explain why identity cards were considered necessary. He said that in the early 1950s, towards the end of the system of identity cards,

"the main rationale for identity cards was the prevention of bigamous marriages."

If we have identity cards, the first question that people will be asked by the police, a hospital or their general practitioner will inevitably be, "Where is your identity card?" Some of my hon. Friends may ask what is wrong with that, but I believe that there is a lot wrong with it. It is not necessary because we have done without such cards for more than 50 years. Ministers make the point that the police and security authorities want them to be reintroduced, but if it had been left up to the police, I suspect that identity cards would never have been abolished.

I also have considerable worries about the national identity register and its unique identity register number for all of us. Under the Bill, people who move house will have to register their change of address with the authorities. Some might ask what is wrong with that, but there is no reason why we should have to do so without strong and compelling reasons, especially regarding terrorism. I am yet to be persuaded of such reasons.

Although I wish that I could argue otherwise, there is a lot of public support for identity cards. Opinion polls tell us that there is such great support at the moment because people have high expectations of identity cards and believe that they will resolve such problems as illegal working and immigration. However, that will not happen in practice, and people will be disappointed. Additionally, when people consider the cost of getting the cards, I am not sure that such support will exist.

I shall oppose the Bill tonight because I have no alternative. There is no doubt that the Government will have a large majority, especially with the support of the Tories. However, that is all the more reason why the section of opinion in the country that is opposed to identity cards should be reflected in the House of Commons tonight, which is why I will vote as I shall.

Douglas Hogg (Conservative, Sleaford and North Hykeham)

I beg to move, To leave out from "That" to the end of the Question, and to add instead thereof:

"this House declines to give a Second Reading to the Identity Cards Bill because it would lead to an unreasonable intrusion into the liberties and privacy of the citizen; it would not achieve benefits proportionate to the cost, as the underlying technology is likely to prove unreliable; and the introduction of such cards is likely to lead to a requirement that they be carried at all times and such a requirement would be objectionable in principle and would lead to serious tension between the police and the citizen."

The hon. Member for Walsall, North (David Winnick) has made it plain that he will vote against the Bill and so will I. I acknowledge, of course, that there will be benefits attached to identity cards, but the real question is whether the benefits will be proportionate to the various disadvantages that hon. Members have identified; I do not believe that they will be.

It is worth pointing out, as it has been pointed out before, that most terrorists operate under their true identities, but fail to disclose their intentions. Many countries that have suffered from terrorism—Spain is a good example—have laws that require the carrying and production of ID cards. As my hon. Friend the Member for Aldridge-Brownhills (Mr. Shepherd) said, President Bush, who is surely not a bleeding-heart liberal, has made it plain that ID cards will form no part of his anti-terrorism policy.

John Robertson (Labour, Glasgow Anniesland)

The right hon. and learned Gentleman cites the Madrid bombings. Would he be interested to hear that the Spanish police have said that nearly all the terrorists involved in that horrible event have now been arrested thanks to the ID cards in that country?

Douglas Hogg (Conservative, Sleaford and North Hykeham)

The hon. Gentleman is not really addressing the point. Spain has suffered for years from Basque terrorism and, of course, the cards did not stop the bombing in the first place.

There is no doubt that identity cards would have an impact on policies to control illegal immigration, but let us remember that the real problem with illegal immigration is due to overstaying, which is caused by the Government's failure to deport, rather than a failure to identify those who should be deported. I am sure that benefits on fraud could be derived from ID cards, but I have never encountered a security document that could not be forged, which was the point made by the hon. Member for Crewe and Nantwich (Mrs. Dunwoody). In any event, most fraud arises not from false identities, but from a misrepresentation of underlying facts and entitlements, so the benefits would not be as great as the proponents of ID cards argue.

May I put forward the counterbalancing arguments to explain why we should not follow the policy?

Des Browne (Labour, Kilmarnock and Loudoun)

Does the right hon. and learned Gentleman accept the Cabinet Office's estimate—it was published separately from any consideration of ID cards—that identity fraud costs the citizens of this country £1.3 billion a year?

The rest of the debate is in Hansard.