Identity Cards Bill

Public Bill Committee, 5 July 2005.

Identity Cards Bill - Standing Committee D

Identity Cards Bill

Roger Gale (Conservative, North Thanet)

Good morning. I have a couple of housekeeping announcements to make before we begin our consideration of the Bill. While I am in the Chair, hon. Gentlemen and hon. Ladies may remove their jackets if they choose to do so for their comfort. I cannot speak for my co-Chairman, Mr. Hood, but I am sure that he will extend a similar facility.

Those who have not served under my chairmanship before may not be aware of such issues, but for the benefit of all I must say that we will have long and complex matters to discuss when we come to the substance of the Bill. Many amendments have been tabled, and it often facilitates debate to have a fairly wide-ranging discussion at the start of consideration of each clause. I am relaxed about that, but hon. Members will understand that if we have a stand part-type debate at the outset there will be no such debate at the end. That matter is very much in the Committee’s hands.

Copies of the motion agreed by the Programming Sub-Committee this morning are available in the Room. I remind the Committee that the debate on the programme motion may continue for up to half an hour. I call the Minister to move the motion.

Tony McNulty (Labour, Harrow East)

I beg to move,

That—

(1)during proceedings on the Identity Cards Bill the Standing Committee shall (in addition to its first meeting at 10.30 a.m. on Tuesday 5th July) meet—

(a)at 4.30 p.m. on Wednesday 6th July;

(b)at 9.15 a.m. and 1.00 p.m. on Thursday 7th July;

(c)at 10.30 a.m. and 4.00 p.m. on Tuesday 12th July;

(d)at 9.15 a.m. and 1.00 p.m. on Thursday 14th July;

(e)at 10.30 a.m. and 4.00 p.m. on Tuesday 19th July;

(2)the proceedings shall be taken in the following order, namely, Clauses 1 to 3, Schedule 1, Clauses 4 to 45, Schedule 2, new Clauses, new Schedules, remaining proceedings on the Bill;

(3)the proceedings shall (so far as not previously concluded) be brought to a conclusion at 7.00 p.m. on Tuesday 19th July.

I welcome you to the Chair, Mr. Gale, and I am sure that our deliberations under your chairmanship and that of Mr. Hood will be fair, completely impartial and dispatched in a convivial manner. I hope, too, that our debates will be convivial and temperate. Without remotely trying to seem patronising, I ask new hon. Members on both sides of the Committee to reserve rhetorical flourishes, brouhaha and knockabout for the Chamber downstairs. We have serious business afoot in the Room, and I am sure we shall dispatch it in good order.

I welcome the hon. and learned Member for Harborough (Mr. Garnier), who sits on the Opposition Front Bench with the hon. Member for Newark (Patrick Mercer), to whom—misquoting Bevin, I think—I wish to say, “It’s déjà vu all over again”. The hon. Gentleman and others were members of the Committee that discussed the previous Bill, so we ask their forbearance as this is essentially the same Bill that was before the House then. Some drafting changes have been made and I shall make available to the Committee a brief summary of the distinctions between the Bill as it is now and what it was last time we discussed it.

I welcome the northern wing of the Liberal Democrat party—the hon. Members for Orkney and Shetland (Mr. Carmichael) and for Westmorland and Lonsdale (Tim Farron)—to the Committee. They will have a journey to travel, especially on Thursdays, so we shall try to dispatch our proceedings on that day in good order for them.

The programme motion was agreed by the Programming Sub-Committee, and our sittings on Thursdays will start at 9.15 am, not 9 o’clock. We consider that to be fine. The motion provides for 10 sittings and an out date of Tuesday 19 July. The Bill has not received excessive scrutiny—there is no such thing—but it has received plenty of scrutiny at various stages. We have deliberately avoided introducing knives and having a segmented debate, but, as I have been told by my Whip, and as an ex-Whip I listen to her, we reserve the right to introduce them should progress not be as forthcoming as we want. I hope that we shall progress without them. I offer the motion agreed in the Programming Sub-Committee in all humility and look forward to our deliberations.

Edward Garnier (Conservative, Harborough)

I join the Minister in welcoming you, Mr. Gale, and, in due course, Mr. Hood, to the chairmanship of the Committee. As the Minister said, the Bill has been round the houses before, but we must remember that we now have a new Parliament and that this is a new Bill, and that it should not be allowed to escape scrutiny because it contains words that others, especially my hon. Friend the Member for Newark, have seen before. I am sure that the hon. Members for Orkney and Shetland and for Westmorland and Lonsdale agree that our duty as Opposition Members on this Standing Committee is to hold the Government to account.

Our view is that this is a bad Bill that does bad things, and it is our job to ensure that its terms are properly scrutinised, so that if it is to pass muster, it does so having been thoroughly and properly looked into and debated. So, we will not be embarrassed if our debates last long into the evening, or if we are criticised in rumblings from silent members of the Government team.

John Robertson (Labour, Glasgow North West)

Well, they will not be silent then.

Edward Garnier (Conservative, Harborough)

The hon. Member for Glasgow, Anniesland and I shared a bedroom in Basra. He proved himself a highly accomplished member of the armed forces parliamentary scheme, and I admired his performance during our time there. I trust that I shall be able to be equally complimentary about his performance in our Committee’s deliberations over the next two weeks.

I welcome the Minister to the Committee. He used to be the aviation Minister at the Department for Transport, and I was in regular contact with him—both speaking to him across the Chamber when the opportunity arose and corresponding with him—to try to get across my concerns about the activities of Nottingham East Midlands airport. He thought he had escaped me when he moved to the Home Office, but, under the new dispensation following the election, I was moved to a new post, so here I am, ready to talk to him again.

Tony McNulty (Labour, Harrow East)

Delighted.

Edward Garnier (Conservative, Harborough)

As the Minister correctly says, he is delighted to see me.

I also welcome the Under-Secretary, who is new to Government service, at least from the elected point of view. I welcome him to his post and to the part that he may play in our deliberations. I do not know whether it is proper for me to describe the ministerial team as Little and Large. This morning, I learned on the “Today” programme on Radio 4 that the Minister is a former university admissions tutor. We learn something new every day of our political lives, and that was certainly new to me. We will soon discover whether that experience informs his approach to the issues before us.

On Second Reading last Tuesday, 34 people had spoken by the time that I made the winding-up speech for the Opposition. Some 24 of those—they included Members from the Government party—spoke against the Bill. Not one of those from the Government party who spoke against the Bill is on the Committee. Only nine right hon. and hon. Members spoke in favour of the Bill. Not surprisingly, all were Government Members. Of those, three were equivocal in their support for the Government. Again, not one of those three is a member of the Committee.

I congratulate the hon. Member for City of Durham (Dr. Blackman-Woods) on being a member of the Committee; I anticipated having to do so. She made the last Back-Bench speech on Second Reading, and I said that she had made a career-enhancing speech. She takes her first step in a great career as part of the Labour party’s representation in the House of Commons by being appointed a member of this Committee. I look forward to hearing her speak frequently and with enthusiasm as we discuss clauses and amendments.

Interestingly, the hon. and learned Member for Redcar (Vera Baird) is on the Committee, but she is here as Parliamentary Private Secretary to the Home Secretary. She was not permitted to speak on Second Reading, and I dare say that she may not be able to contribute to our deliberations. None the less, her presence is to be welcomed.

The hon. Member for South Ribble (Mr. Borrow) did not even attempt to speak on Second Reading, as far as I remember, but I am sure he will have read in detail all that was said and that he will wish to play a lively part in Committee. I believe that the hon. Member for Stroud (Mr. Drew), who is way over on the far left of our Committee Room, also did not feel it necessary to contribute on Second Reading.

David Drew (Labour, Stroud)

I have my views.

Edward Garnier (Conservative, Harborough)

As the hon. Gentleman says from a sedentary position, he is a man who has his views. I am glad to say that somebody does.

The hon. Member for Colne Valley (Kali Mountford) did speak on that occasion—she made a very loyal speech and no doubt wishes to say similar things in Committee—as did the hon. Member for Broxtowe (Dr. Palmer). I wrongly described the newly identified constituency of the hon. Member for Glasgow, North-West (John Robertson), and I apologise for that. He is a personal friend of mine, and I know he will wish to play an active part in today’s consideration of the Bill.

My hon. Friend the Member for Newark is also present. He has been through this hoop before and it may be that he could recite everything to do with the Bill without even looking at the Committee proceedings in Hansard.

John Robertson (Labour, Glasgow North West)

May I welcome you to the Chair, Mr. Gale? May I also thank the hon. and learned Gentleman for all the gracious things he has said about me? He has just ruined my career, before it has even started.

Edward Garnier (Conservative, Harborough)

I am truly sorry about that. If I have made the career of the hon. Member for City of Durham while ruining that of the hon. Member for Glasgow, North-West, I suppose there is some justice in the world.

May I welcome my hon. Friends to the Committee, two of whom are new to Parliament and to Committee work? I look forward to hearing from them both and, indeed, from my hon. Friend the Member for Hertford and Stortford (Mr. Prisk).

I would like to repeat my welcome to you, Mr. Gale. While we have serious business to do, I trust that we can do it with good humour and that, as the days get longer and tempers get shorter, we shall none the less remember what our job is: to ensure that the Bill is vigorously and properly considered.

Alistair Carmichael (Liberal Democrat, Orkney and Shetland)

May I add my voice to the welcome that has been given to you, Mr. Gale, and your chairmanship of the Committee? Such is the weight of the Home Office business before the House and in Standing Committee that I am beginning to feel that I have probably seen more of you than I have of my wife and children. We will both have to deal with that situation in the next two and a half weeks. In common with the Minister, I have no doubt that your chairmanship, and that of Mr. Hood, will be hallmarked, as ever, by the courteous but efficient running of our deliberations.

I welcome the Minister, with whom I have never served in Committee, and the Under-Secretary, with whom I have had the privilege of serving on one or two occasions, to their posts. In common with the Minister, I hope we will be mindful of the fact that we are all here with work to do and that some of the more extravagant rhetorical flourishes might be saved for later stages in the Bill’s consideration.

I also welcome the hon. and learned Member for Harborough, with whom I have never served, and the hon. Member for Newark, with whom I have, to their respective posts. I am pleased to welcome all the Conservatives to what I hope is their final and settled position on this Bill, which is one of opposition. I hope it is a position worth waiting for because, in terms of consistency, we have been waiting long enough for them to catch up with us.

The hon. and learned Member for Harborough said that the hon. Member for City of Durham made a career-making speech. It may be that in the next couple of weeks she has cause to reflect on whether this is necessarily the career she would have wished for at the time that speech was made, but she and other new Members on the Committee will no doubt acquire such experience for themselves.

I want to touch briefly on the relevance of the terms of the motion. We will have sufficient time to consider the Bill, if we are fairly economical with our submissions, and I am pleased to see that, as things stand, we shall not have to contend with knives. However, as the Minister said, that situation could always be addressed at a later stage.

Mark Prisk (Conservative, Hertford and Stortford)

I welcome you to the Chair, Mr. Gale. You have guided me during at least two Finance Bills in the past couple of years, and it has been important guidance. I know that everyone here will welcome your presence today. I shall leave the complimentary remarks there, and I would not wish to damage the career of any Labour Member by making unduly flattering remarks.

What we are considering today is perhaps the most important legislation before this Parliament at this juncture. After all, it is very rare that we can honestly say as Members of this House that a Bill, by its very nature, affects every single person living in these isles. Inevitably, most legislation is about certain groups or certain parts of the country. It is unusual for a Bill to be specifically intended to affect every citizen—in this case, by seeking to clarify their identity, as the Government might put it.

In that sense, the Committee has a tremendous challenge. I did not have the pleasure of serving on the Committee that considered the previous Bill during the last Parliament; I am new to these deliberations. I note that we have 10 sittings in which to seek to consider 45 separate clauses, two schedules and the explanatory notes, and in which to draw out the distinctions, questions and uncertainties. That is a challenge of which I am sure all Committee members are aware.

As to the motion, I note the hours proposed and I welcome the small amendment regarding the 9.15 start on Thursdays. Perhaps not all Committee members have noticed that change, but they may wish to note it now. As you will know, Mr. Gale, it was discussed in the Programming Sub-Committee and its purpose is to try to ensure that not only Committee members, but others who serve the Committee, can proceed in the best possible way.

Many people in the workplace outside this House would say that 9 o’clock is not a particularly early start. However, for a Committee to do its job properly, officials need to be up and early a good hour or more before that. We can afford a little courtesy on this matter to the Officers of the House and also the civil servants who support the Government, let alone Opposition Members’ support staff. That small change may not necessarily mean an extra slice of buttered toast in the morning, but it may mean that those who support the Committee can do so in a better fashion. I also note that it has been generally agreed that we should sit for an extra 15 minutes in the afternoon so as not to lose any time from the total.

I concur with the Minister’s opening remarks. This Bill is very important and it is incumbent on us all to seek to engage in our deliberations in a convivial and temperate manner. He is right to say that the legislation has not had excessive scrutiny. We shall seek to ensure that the scrutiny that it receives is thorough and purposeful. I hope we will be given the opportunity to improve the legislation, bad though it is in principle and practice.

Patrick Mercer (Conservative, Newark)

I welcome you to your place, Mr. Gale. In advance of our appearing in front of Mr. Hood, I should say how glad I am to hear that he has recovered. All those who served during consideration of this Bill previously will remember that he was absent through illness, but I am glad to say that he is better. I am sure that under your guidance, Mr. Gale, we shall have a precise, clear and concise discussion of the issues.

The object of debate is to convince. The phrase “déjà vu” has already been used. Several months ago, I sat in a Room very similar to this with one or two faces who are now here and who are, agreeably, very familiar to me. Among those now present were the Lord Commissioner of Her Majesty’s Treasury, the hon. Member for Enfield, North (Joan Ryan), and the hon. Member for Colne Valley. They and others who have been through this process before will know what awaits us.

When we on the Conservative Benches sat here last time we had a completely different view of the Bill that we were about to consider. As we proceed, hon. Members will find that a number of the hon. and gallant Gentlemen who have joined me today have a lot of personal experience of problems that arise in the field. Speaking personally, however, I was well disposed towards identity cards. [Interruption.] I do not know why the hon. Member for Colne Valley is grinning; I am sure that she could acknowledge what I said.

Kali Mountford (Labour, Colne Valley)

Will the hon. Gentleman clarify for the expanded knowledge of the Committee whether there were probably at least three Conservative positions at that time? That is the explanation for my broad grin.

Patrick Mercer (Conservative, Newark)

The hon. Lady’s broad grin is enormously welcome; it lightens our lives and brings a levity to our discussions, which is always welcome. The fact remains that, speaking personally, I approached the Bill last time with an open mind, and I was probably much better disposed towards it than many of my colleagues.

As everybody in this Room will know, we set out five tests for the Bill that were comprehensively failed, both during general debates and in Committee. As a result, my mind was made up for me, against the Bill, by the Minister and those who spoke with him. In the intervening months between the first attempt to enact the Bill and now, we have seen that public opinion has changed hugely as well. Currently, if we are honest, the public are still ambivalent and undecided on the rights and wrongs of the Bill. My mind, and that of my party, is made up. We need a considerable and detailed amount of time to scrutinise the Bill.

Nick Palmer (Labour, Broxtowe)

I am not sure whether we are rehashing what was said on Second Reading, but as the hon. Gentleman has mentioned his party’s position, I want to clarify whether the Conservative party would reintroduce identity cards in a way that met their five criteria or whether it is against identity cards in principle at this point.

Roger Gale (Conservative, North Thanet)

Order. Perhaps I can clarify the position. We are not rehashing Second Reading; we are debating the programme motion.

Patrick Mercer (Conservative, Newark)

Thank you, Mr. Gale, for your clarification. None the less, I am enormously pleased to hear from another Nottinghamshire Member, who of course suffers day to day from the rash of uncontrolled crime in that county, which he may wish to speak about later.

Last time, we had eight sittings in which to debate the Bill. We constantly overran, and the discussion went from good-tempered to bad-tempered at times. The Government chose wrongly to introduce knives into the debate, yet at the end of the proceedings a large part of the Bill remained undebated. Many clauses were not properly considered or scrutinised and we did not do justice to the Bill. This time, the usual channels have kindly and sensibly agreed to extend this set of discussions to 10 sittings, but I wonder whether that will be enough time, given the amount of amendments that have been tabled and the size of the Bill; I hope that it is.

None the less, as my hon. Friend the Member for Hertford and Stortford has already pointed out, this is one of the most serious Bills that has come before the House for many years. It is likely to affect every person on the street and huge amounts of national treasure and taxation. I plead with the Minister to listen carefully and take on board what we have to say in the next few sittings and not, like his predecessor, be so obdurate as to agree to no amendments. We have an interesting time in front of us, but I wonder if there will be enough of it.

Ben Wallace (Conservative, Lancaster and Wyre)

As one of the new Members of the House and a new Committee member, I want to express my hopes for the programme of this Committee. I was informed when I came to the House that the a lot of work was done in Committee and that that was where we would get a balanced and reasoned debate on any subject that the House was considering at the time. With ID cards, of course, that is very important. As my hon. and learned Friend the Member for Harborough said, this matter will affect everybody in the United Kingdom.

I have already noticed that what the Committee lacks in balance of representation, due to the Government, it makes up for in experience. I am a new member of the Committee, and I hope that a full and robust debate between all parties will be allowed throughout our considerations, so that everyone can contribute. I and my two gallant colleagues, my hon. Friends the Members for Newark and for Bournemouth, East (Mr. Ellwood), bring to the Committee considerable experience of counter-terrorism and associated issues. I hope that the Committee can use that experience to ensure that the Bill is fully considered and not cut off in its prime, so that when the legislation progresses to the next stage, all Members and everyone in the United Kingdom will fully understand the impact. I hope that the new Members on the Opposition and Government Benches get a chance to contribute, and that the Committee lives up to what it has always promised to be.

Tobias Ellwood (Conservative, Bournemouth East)

I, too, am honoured to have been selected to serve on the Committee.

The House had an interesting debate on ID cards on the same day as the Trafalgar anniversary celebrations. As those events took place on the same day, many Members were unable to participate in the debate. However, there were many contributions— according to my hon. and learned Friend the Member for Harborough, there were 34—which demonstrates that there is substantial interest in this subject. It was also interesting that many of the questions asked in that debate, such as those on cost and technology, for example, were left unanswered, and I hope that the Committee will have an opportunity to probe them further.

As my hon. Friend the Member for Hertford and Stortford said, this legislation affects every UK citizen, and a running debate on ID cards is taking place concurrently in the media. It is interesting that as the nation has become more familiar with the arguments about ID cards, its support for the concept has started to decline.

The hon. Member for Orkney and Shetland was the first Member to raise the interesting position that the Conservatives adopted the last time this matter was brought to the attention of the House; the Conservative position has matured since then.

Edward Garnier (Conservative, Harborough)

If my hon. Friend is saying that the Conservative party’s position on this subject has matured, that makes me very mature indeed, because I refused to support the position adopted last December.

Tobias Ellwood (Conservative, Bournemouth East)

That is very mature. The Conservative party has many mature Members; that is useful to know. [Interruption.]

Roger Gale (Conservative, North Thanet)

Order.

Tobias Ellwood (Conservative, Bournemouth East)

Thank you, Mr. Gale.

I am trying to stress what happens when legislation is rushed through—when there is not enough time to debate issues or to scrutinise the Government’s ideas or the impact that they will have on the nation. On ID cards, there are issues to do with cost and technology, for example, that we need sufficient time to discuss so that we can understand them. Those issues were raised when we debated the matter in the Chamber. Although some of us might agree in principle with the concept, the question of practicalities and whether ID cards will be of benefit or target the people whom they are intended to target is another matter. Originally, the nation supported the general concept, but when we consider the benefits that such cards will bring to society as a whole, their cost and the question whether the people whom they are supposed to target will be affected, it becomes clear that there is not really an appetite for them.

On the general concept of ID cards, I also hope that we will get a chance to debate some of the arguments that were not thoroughly debated, such as our requirement to link with the United States in respect of some form of biometric solution. When we debate these matters, we will show that the position that the Conservatives are now taking is the correct one.

Roger Gale (Conservative, North Thanet)

Before I put the Question to the vote, for the convenience of any Members who did not attend the Programming Sub-Committee, I may say that we have discussed the possibility of sitting later on Tuesday evenings, should—and only should—that become necessary. I have asked the usual channels to ensure that, if that becomes necessary, all Members will be given advance notice so that they can adjust their diaries.

Roger Gale (Conservative, North Thanet)

I remind Committee members that adequate notice should be given of all amendments. As a general rule, my co-Chairman and I do not intend to call starred amendments. Will all Committee members please ensure that mobile phones, pagers and other electronic toys are turned off or in silent mode during Committee sittings?

I would like to extend a personal welcome to new Members of the House who have not sat on a Committee before. The proceedings are occasionally arcane, but, broadly speaking, the conventions follow those for proceedings on the Floor of the House. However, if new Members have questions about any procedure that they do not understand, please do not hesitate to ask. In doing so, they may well be asking questions that older Members, or Members of longer standing, have always wanted, but have never had the courage, to ask.

Mark Prisk (Conservative, Hertford and Stortford)

On a point of order, Mr. Gale. This may be that first opportunity, although I am not sure. During our earlier deliberations, the Minister alluded to a paper, which sounded extremely helpful, that distinguishes between this Bill and the one considered previously. I am new to this debate in Committee, so I think the document will assist us, but I am not clear about when that paper will be made available to Committee members. The Minister might be able to clarify that. May I have clarification through you, Mr. Gale?

Roger Gale (Conservative, North Thanet)

Yes, I can clarify that immediately; it is probably one of the easiest questions that I shall be asked. The Minister has placed that paper on the Table, and it is available as of now.

Clause 1 - The National Identity Register

Edward Garnier (Conservative, Harborough)

I beg to move amendment No. 1, in page 1, line 10, after “others”, insert “who reasonably require proof”.

We shall deal with this amendment in the context of clause 1 as a whole, although I do not intend my remarks to be taken as an attempt at a clause stand part debate because the issues we need to discuss are discrete to subsection (3)(a).

This Bill is called the Identity Cards Bill, but in many ways ought more properly to be called the national data register Bill or the national identity register Bill. As I understand it, the Bill provides the Secretary of State with 60 regulation-making powers to set up a national identity register. The identity card, which we shall come to when we discuss later clauses, is the shop front of that national identity register. In clause 1, however, we are concerned with the register and registration. Subsection (1) says:

“It shall be the duty of the Secretary of State to establish and maintain a register of individuals”.

That is essentially everybody in this country over the age of 16, subject to certain exceptions, including, for example, people who are in this country for less than three months. We shall discuss those exceptions in greater detail in due course.

The purposes of the register are described in outline but not detail in subsection (2). However, under subsection (3) the purposes are to

“facilitate, by the maintenance of a record of registrable facts about individuals in the United Kingdom ... the provision of a convenient method for such individuals to prove registrable facts about themselves to others”.

That is as may be, but it seems to the official Opposition that it provides an open door for all sorts of people to make inquiries about us and the facts that have been registered about us. Subsection (3)(b) refers to

“the provision of a secure and reliable method for registrable facts about such individuals to be ascertained or verified wherever that is necessary in the public interest.”

That is essentially an attempt to provide some reassurance for the citizen, but I am not convinced that without our amendment it is worth anything at all.

Mark Prisk (Conservative, Hertford and Stortford)

This is the third or fourth time that I have read the Bill through and the words “convenient method”, which my hon. and learned Friend quoted, concern me. The question in my mind is, convenient for whom? Does my hon. and learned Friend share my concern that that is not clear and that the convenience rests with the Government, not the individual?

Edward Garnier (Conservative, Harborough)

Oh yes, and we shall discuss in due course the change in the relationship between the individual citizen and the state that the Bill will introduce.

One always needs to be careful when a Minister says, “This will be helpful to the citizen,” or, “This will be convenient for them.” They mean that it will be helpful for the political party that happens to be in government at the time, or for the government machine that is being managed by the political party in government. My hon. Friend is entirely correct to highlight the word “convenient” in subsection (3)(a).

It is as well to be aware that we are talking about the national identity register, not the identity card. It will be easy to conflate the two concepts and easy for the Government to say that the identity card, as a piece of plastic, is a convenient method for individuals to prove registrable facts about themselves. Of course, we are talking about what is on the register and recorded about the citizen by the state, which is not a question of convenience but a matter of compulsion. We will be required under penalties ranging from £2,500 to £10,000—it does not matter whether that is a civil or a criminal penalty—to register certain facts. The facts that have to be registered are dealt with later in the clause and we shall consider them in a moment.

The facts have to be registered compulsorily. The Government say that is wonderful, because one purpose of this register is to facilitate a convenient method for you and I, Mr. Gale, other Committee members and other citizens of this country to prove facts about ourselves to others. Why should I prove facts about myself? Why, when I leave my house, should I have to demonstrate who I am, what I am doing or why I intend to do it? It is for the Government—the state—to demonstrate and build a case against me showing that I am doing something contrary to the national interest or the criminal law, or something that offends against statute or common law in some other way.

I ask that only those with reasonable reason to require proof of the compulsorily assembled facts about me be entitled to inspect the register or interrogate me about the facts about me on the register.

We are increasingly becoming all too familiar with petty interference of the sort that citizens have to put up with from those whom I would loosely call jobsworths. Nowadays, one cannot go into a Government building, a public place or a park, or drive a car, without someone asking, “What are you doing and why are you doing it?” Those people have absolutely no right in law to require us to tell them what we are doing, but the Bill will build a culture of public interference into the private lives of individuals.

Kali Mountford (Labour, Colne Valley)

I hope that the hon. and learned Gentleman will consider what he says carefully, as he seems to be impugning the character and nature of civil servants when he talks about jobsworths. I am sure he would not want to do that and that he would like to correct the record on that point.

Edward Garnier (Conservative, Harborough)

I see that we will get some really high-class interventions during our debate. I have not mentioned civil servants, and I have not impugned their quality or integrity. If the hon. Lady’s constituents do not come across jobsworths such as those I am talking about they are very fortunate. In due course, she may well be able to support the Government—[Interruption.] Does she wish to intervene again?

Kali Mountford (Labour, Colne Valley)

I am grateful for the opportunity to do so. Perhaps the hon. and learned Gentleman will explain exactly who the jobsworths are.

Edward Garnier (Conservative, Harborough)

The hon. Lady might care to drive her car and park it somewhere, and she might find that some privately employed official—not a civil servant—will require her either to move it and have the car photographed or to answer to him. Such a person has no statutory right to do that, but we are creating a culture of interference in the life of the citizen, and the Bill is the latest representation of that. If the hon. Lady finds that an acceptable way to go, she wants to live in a different sort of country from the one that I want to live in, and a different sort of society from the one in which most of our fellow citizens want to live.

What possible objection can the Government have to the amendment? What possible objection can there be to a requirement that only those “who reasonably require proof” should have an entitlement to ask for it? If “convenient method” is to have any meaning, it must mean convenient for us, the individuals whose registrable facts are on the database. It should not mean convenient for the Government, who should be the servants of the people. It should be the right of the people to ensure that the Government and their servants behave correctly and appropriately.

Those who want the national identity register to come into being should at the very least ensure that the standards of behaviour and conduct of those who wish to operate the system are of the highest. I therefore require the Government to explain, to the Committee and to the public at large, why our amendment should be considered controversial in any way. I urge the Committee to accede rapidly to my request that the amendment become part of the clause.

Alistair Carmichael (Liberal Democrat, Orkney and Shetland)

I can be brief. I presume that this is a probing amendment, but the hon. and learned Gentleman raises a good point. Many of my concerns, and those of people outwith this place, relate not just to the nature of the proposed scheme but its possible development and the manner in which the database will be used. There are concerns about what has been called function creep—which is also known by that ghastly word “incrementalism”. The test of reasonableness is fairly well known in law, leaves a wide range of discretion and is easily applied. A simple, straightforward amendment such as this would be a particularly elegant way of addressing the matter.

I commend the hon. and learned Gentleman on tabling the amendment and look forward to hearing what the Minister has to say.

Nick Palmer (Labour, Broxtowe)

I, too, welcome you to the Committee, Mr. Gale.

I want to draw attention to one point. The amendment, as it stands, would mean that individuals who wished to use an identity card, believing that it would be convenient to do so, would not be allowed to do so unless they were able to demonstrate that the person to whom they were showing it could “reasonably require” it. That seems to be an unreasonable restriction on the individual. If I find it convenient to use a card, why should I not do so?

Patrick Mercer (Conservative, Newark)

Even if one agrees with the idea of a national identity register and an identity card, one must point out that the provision that we are debating is loosely drawn. It states that

“the provision of a convenient method for such individuals to prove registrable facts about themselves to others”.

Who exactly are “others”?

Mercifully, despite the threats that we face, we live in a country that, as a general rule, is free on a day-to-day basis of violence, intrusion and very serious crime on our streets. If Members present have spent any time in countries such as Israel, they will know that completely different states of affairs exist. One’s identity is demanded on a regular basis by policemen, soldiers and civilian security workers. It could be argued that that is right and proper; perhaps it is reasonable in a country that faces such a threat.

I just wonder how far we will go with the national identity register and the cards that are likely to follow in a country where we frequently see arbitrary notices in car parks saying things such as, “£25 for misparking your car here”. I allude to the point made by my hon. and learned Friend the Member for Harborough. People get their cars clamped if they mispark. That is just one of the pettifogging restrictions on our privileges and rights, and, frankly, they do not stand up.

The Government might wish the Bill to refer merely to “others”, but who else will start demanding access to the register? Who else, in due course, will start demanding access to our cards? That is why the amendment is not only powerful, but sensible. If we introduce the simple words “who reasonably require proof” into clause 1 and they are in the legislation from its inception, we will get a clear idea of where the register starts and stops and where, in due course, the cards will start and stop.

I appreciate that we are talking about registration at the moment, but as we will find out later, people will not be compelled to carry the cards—at least not in the early stages of their introduction. I believe that there will be a gap of about four years between the inception of the national identity register and when it will become necessary to carry a card. During that time, will we have to get used to the fact that “others” can demand to know our details? Who are those “others”? Surely it makes sense to amend the Bill so that there is a list of those who are empowered to know our details. We should be aware of who is empowered to know about our registration on the national identity register, and who, in due course, will be able to see our card.

This is a sensible amendment. I was surprised that it was not agreed to when we considered the previous Bill in Committee. The amendment would tie the Bill down and make it much more precise. If we knew who is to have access to the countless number of pieces of personal information that will be required for the register and who is to be entitled to look at details, things would be much clearer. I commend the amendment to the Minister, and I hope that he addresses it with an open mind; I am sure that he will.

Mark Prisk (Conservative, Hertford and Stortford)

I had not initially intended to contribute to this debate, but I have decided to do so after having listened to my hon. and learned Friend the Member for Harborough and my hon. and gallant Friend the Member for Newark. I suspect that the crueller Labour Committee members will have realised that I am the only Conservative Committee member who is neither gallant nor learned—but I am, nevertheless, honourable.

Patrick Mercer (Conservative, Newark)

Deeply.

Mark Prisk (Conservative, Hertford and Stortford)

I am grateful to my hon. Friend.

The question that underlies the arguments of my hon. and learned Friend and my hon. Friend is this: where should the burden of proof rest? Should it rest on the shoulders of the individual, or should the agents of the state have to demonstrate why they wish us to prove who we are? These things should be accurate, and the best and most convenient method for me to identify who I am is to look in the mirror. I do not need a registration scheme, let alone a card, to do that.

Therefore, I ask the Minister to address two points. First, does he believe that putting the burden of proof on the individual, as set out in the Bill, is right, and, if so, why? Secondly, can he define the term “others”? If he cannot do so, and intends to tell us that that will be done in due course by regulation, will he confirm the method of regulation that will be presented to the House? All too often, the ability of Members to scrutinise legislation when it is delegated is far more curtailed than it is in Committee. Those who will be affected by the Bill—let us face it, that is every citizen of this country—will want to know exactly who, on the basis of the words in the clause, can and cannot require the information as set out.

The amendment is eminently sensible, and it would improve the clause.

Tobias Ellwood (Conservative, Bournemouth East)

An analogy can be drawn. The police are currently required to have a reason to stop and search someone—or, indeed, to question them. There are regulations that protect the individual from being stopped for no reason. We require a valid reason to take action. The same principle applies to the ID card register. There should be a valid reason for somebody wanting to look up somebody else up on a system.

Nick Palmer (Labour, Broxtowe)

Does the hon. Gentleman feel that there should also be a valid reason in law for an individual voluntarily to use the card in order to show who he is?

Tobias Ellwood (Conservative, Bournemouth East)

At present, there are many different forms of ID cards that we use voluntarily. Someone wanting to show such a card to prove their identity to someone else is a different matter from someone wanting to check the register itself.

Are we going to open the door for anyone? The hon. Member for Colne Valley rightly referred to the integrity of the civil service. We are talking not so much about the civil service, but about anyone with access to a database who might be able to take advantage of the information that it holds. That is what concerns us.

We are talking about the creation of a huge database. How it will be used, by whom and for what reason, and whether the details are accurately stored, are questions fundamental to its integrity. For example, if a life assurance company finds out via the database, through my surname, that my father has an hereditary disease, the decision whether to give me life assurance could be affected. The company will have taken advantage of the database. I am not saying that that would happen, but hon. Members can imagine such situations developing unless we make law under which people must have a justification to open up the database and check on someone. The amendment would make such a law.

As my hon. Friend the Member for Newark asked, what is meant by “others”? Who are they? When the Minister replies, it will be interesting to hear who they are and what justification they will have. Why should not individuals be protected? Why should they not know that anyone who switches on the machine to check who is listed on the database has a valid reason for so doing?

Ben Wallace (Conservative, Lancaster and Wyre)

I, too, want to speak specifically on the question of “others”. It is important that the term “others” is not exploited. I was involved in creating intelligence records and, as other agencies do, I would exploit the grey area in which there was a gap in legislation. When legislation had not been closed or limited, I would browse people’s records, without hindrance, because I knew that the law had been drafted loosely enough to allow me to do so. By reasonably requiring proof, the amendment would help narrow the field of those who can browse through people’s records and who can investigate or go into people’s backgrounds and activities. If we do not do that, nothing in the Bill will prevent the meaning of “others” from changing under secondary legislation or at the whim of a Secretary of State.

The “others” may initially be police forces and social workers, but that might spread from those in social work to quangos, and “others” could quickly become financial institutions. Several press reports have alluded to the charging of a fee. I know that that was denied by the Government—perhaps too quickly denied—but without the amendment, “others” could broaden the provision and who knows where we would be in 25 years? I am sure that several Labour Members present voted consistently against counter-terrorism legislation 10 years ago when I was doing my job. Who would have thought that 10 years later they would be proposing an ID card?

The amendment is reasonable. It would help to narrow the provision and to protect the individual. Accepting it would ensure that, from the very first amendment discussed, the Committee were doing something good and improving the Bill.

Roger Gale (Conservative, North Thanet)

I appreciate that during proceedings on a Bill of such length and complexity there will be times when members of the Committee who do not have the floor wish to discuss other issues. The Serjeant at Arms has thoughtfully placed green Benches in the Corridor outside the Room for people who wish to have private conversations. I should appreciate hon. Members using them.

Tony McNulty (Labour, Harrow East)

Thank you, Mr. Gale. I apologise if your comments about conversations were aimed at me, among others.

I understand what members of the Committee want to achieve with the amendment, but to paraphrase an old television advert, it is the “wrong place, wrong time”. As the hon. and learned Member for Harborough suggested, the clause concerns the statutory purpose of the national data registration scheme, and not the powers and not who can or cannot access the data. By the time that we get to clause 45, hon. Members will be bored rigid with the notion that nobody can access the data. People can seek verification of it, but nobody, but nobody, can access it, short of those public agencies that can do so for the national security purposes outlined in the Bill—period. We are talking about a verification process, not an access process.

The hon. Member for Bournemouth, East used a nice example, but it is completely and profoundly wrong. By way of homework, I task him to find out where the Bill says that health records such as those that he mentioned can be kept on the database or that his records and his father’s can be accessed and compared. He will not find any such provision in the Bill.

Tobias Ellwood (Conservative, Bournemouth East)

The Minister misses the point, which is not so much about access; it has been illustrated that a number of organisations will have that access. The concern is whether such access will be spread to other organisations, which is a separate issue. The amendment is about ensuring that people who have access to the database have legitimate reason for having it. They must have a real reason for switching on the machine in the first place. People cannot be allowed merely to wander through the information, as has been mentioned. If there is no legislation to prevent them from doing so, the provisions could have an adverse affect. Individuals would end up taking advantage in one way or another. If there is no robust legislation to restrict such actions or to capture any rogue individual who decides to either sell the information or write it down, there is no way in which we can hold such people to justice.

Tony McNulty (Labour, Harrow East)

Let me readjust my challenge to the hon. Gentleman: it is now that he should go away and read the Bill. Given his comments, it is clear that he has not done so yet, and I do not want to start on a discordant note.

The hon. and learned Member for Harborough was entirely right that clause 1(3) is about purposes, not powers. No one could demand to see a card on the basis of clause 1, to answer the question of the hon. Member for Stansted, as I call him. The situations in which people are empowered to access the register and demand to see a card are governed by later clauses—precisely the clauses that the hon. Member for Bournemouth, East has clearly not read.

Mark Prisk (Conservative, Hertford and Stortford)

Will the Minister give way?

Tony McNulty (Labour, Harrow East)

Let me finish my point, after which I shall, of course, revert to using the hon. Gentleman’s formal title, instead of the vernacular one relating to aviation duties.

The hon. Member for Bournemouth, East should read clauses 15 and 18 to 23, as they contain the answer as to who has access on demand to the register to see what details lie within.

Mark Prisk (Conservative, Hertford and Stortford)

I am grateful to the Minister. Evidently, there is a new registrable fact about me: my constituency has changed names during this sitting. Ignoring his light jibe, which I must say was neither convivial nor temperate, he said earlier that he believed that the provision did not mean that people could access the data. Our concern is that, as we all know is the case with Government information systems, once registration is established, there will be the opportunity for people to access the data. We are well aware that the Government will seek not to allow that to happen, but he must recognise that once the register is in place, he cannot guarantee that people will not have the opportunity to access it for malicious or other purposes. We recognise that that is not the intent of the Government, but the opportunity will be there. One of the concerns is that people will hack in and get the information. His use of the word “will” is therefore wrong.

Tony McNulty (Labour, Harrow East)

I do not doubt those concerns, and I am not seeking to belittle the reasons behind the amendment or its import. All that I am saying, to repeat it a third time, is that this part of clause 1 is about the statutory purpose of the scheme. It is not about powers, who has access, the real concerns that the hon. Gentleman and I recognise or the safeguards that we built into the Bill to meet those concerns. None of that is germane either to this amendment or to the clause that it seeks to amend. That is my point.

As I say, there are safeguards in clause 18 to ensure that no one can be required to produce an ID card as the only method of proving identity until it becomes a requirement to register and be issued with a card, or until a lesser requirement is imposed under clause 15. The very real concerns of the hon. Member for Hertford and Stortford can be discussed under those clauses and subsequently.

My hon. Friend the Member for Broxtowe had it entirely right: the amendment would restrict the individual’s choice as to the third party to whom they could say, “Yes, you can establish my ID.” It would do entirely the opposite of what it purports to do. The relationship with “others” is not between the individual and the state in the context of statutory purpose, but between the individual and others who would want them to justify their ID. To add reasonableness and everything else—this would be entirely unenforceable, by the way; it would be bad law in the first instance—would restrict the individual in their relation to third parties who sought their identity.

Patrick Mercer (Conservative, Newark)

Those of us who have had the pleasure of going through this Bill with a fine-toothed comb would endorse the Minister’s points. The clause is designed to outline the purpose of the national identity register. Does it not make him pause, however, when he sees how many people not only among my hon. Friends, but elsewhere, are alarmed by the wording in the very first few sentences of the Bill?

The amendment would do nothing but enhance the Bill. It would help it; it would help put off the worries and concerns that were recorded earlier today and make the Bill that much more reasonable from the start. All we require are the words “who reasonably require proof” to be included at the start, to placate, mollify and help us empathise with what I believe is a difficult Bill.

Tony McNulty (Labour, Harrow East)

I understand the hon. Gentleman’s point, but simply do not agree with it. The Bill’s statutory purpose is outlined in clause 1(3), and the key relationship with “others” is between the individual and those who seek that the individual should justify their ID. I understand that the amendment may seem a perfectly simple and apparently attractive way to allay many of the fears to which he alludes, but I point out that it simply would not do that. It would do entirely the opposite, and give power and rights that were entirely unenforceable. I should be interested to hear how they could be enforced. I know that there is a test of reasonableness in law, but how could we entirely enforce the reasonableness of the requests? The amendment would give the right to those who would seek that an individual should justify his ID, rather than give greater rights to the individual.

I fully understand the thrust and sentiment behind what the hon. and learned Member for Harborough is trying to do, but simply outlining the statutory purpose in the way that is proposed is not the way to do it. To go to the heart of it, the hon. and learned Gentleman may be far better versed in the sort of pigeon legalese with which we have to deal in legislation, rather than the English language, but “others” does not refer to the relationship between the state, jobsworths or others and the individual; it refers to the relationship between the individual and those who seek to require proof of identification from them.

My hon. Friend the Member for Broxtowe made precisely that point. Adding an apparently useful and attractive test of reasonableness for those who would request ID—that is the thrust of how the amendment has been spoken to—appears attractive, but on this clause and in this manner, the amendment would not achieve the very thing that those who tabled it are seeking to achieve. I ask the hon. and learned Member for Harborough not to press the amendment, although I take on board hon. Members’ concerns. We shall have plenty of time subsequently to discuss those very safeguards on access and other elements in the Bill.

Edward Garnier (Conservative, Harborough)

The Minister is right: there is no controversy about what clause 1 is about. It is about the establishment of the Secretary of State’s duty to maintain a register of individuals, known as the national identity register. It is not about establishing powers, as we see from the text.

The problem arises in the first few sentences of the Minister’s response. He said that nobody has access to the data except certain people whom he mentioned. It is when we begin to consider the exceptions that our concerns about the statutory purposes come to the fore. On Second Reading, there were concerns about function creep, and we have touched on the issue briefly this morning. After the second world war, the national identity system moved from having three purposes—I think that they were conscription, rationing and national services—to having 39 by the time the scheme was abolished in 1952. I talk about 39 purposes as though they were akin to the 39 articles. As I am sitting next door to the son of a bishop, I must be careful about that sort of thing.

In the clause, function creep is to be considered in the light of access creep. An increasing number of people will think it necessary for them to require people to prove things about themselves. The pretext for demanding proof will be extended. As was mentioned a moment ago, opportunities for demanding proof will multiply as the system gets further embedded. There will be a change in the relationships between both the individual and others and between the individual and the state.

While the Minister is perfectly correct in all that he says, he does not go far enough in understanding the conclusions and the implications of the Bill and the clause. A practice will develop in which people are required to prove who or what they are as a matter of course. Whereas subsection (3)(a) currently refers to the provision of “a convenient method” and the facilitating of that convenience for individuals to prove facts about themselves to others, in reality the balance will be the other way around. Every time somebody is confronted by another person, a pretext will emerge or develop whereby one will have to prove something about oneself. Things will eventually be required of people merely in order for them to go about their lawful business; not as a matter of convenience, but as a matter of everyday practice, they will have to prove the facts about themselves on the register.

In the security world, there is an expression, “the need to know”, which means that people do not tell somebody a secret unless they have a need to know it. In the context of subsection (3)(a), the need to know will disappear to nothing. There will be a common practice—a daily occurrence—whereby it will become entirely regular and routine for others to stand in front of people and place them in a position in which, for convenience, reasons of facility or any other reason, they will have to present the facts about themselves that the other person wishes to know. There will not be a “reasonably” about it. Such a situation will become an everyday and automatic practice.

If not on Second Reading, then on other occasions, we have heard about the use of the card as a flash-and-go system whereby people will simply flash the card in front of an inspector, be it human or otherwise, and gain entrance to a service, building or whatever. Increasingly, subsection (3)(a) will lead to a foolish flash-and-go culture in which, because the card ostensibly represents the registrable facts and proof of the registrable facts, the person to whom it has been flashed will be satisfied that the individual who has flashed it is who he says he is, or at least who the card says he is. The card will tell the person to whom it is flashed that everything contained on the register about the individual is true.

This is not a non-essential point. The measure that I seek to amend is narrow, but it contains the kernel of a complete change of culture and practice. Before long, we will be living in a society where the card and the register are not used to facilitate or for convenience, but are referred to as a matter of everyday practice so that, once people leave their house, out will come the card because it is the doorway to the national identity register.

I am grateful to the Minister for the calm and attentive way in which he has listened to our concerns, but I fear that he has not understood the seriousness of the implications of the clause and of subsection (3). We will have other opportunities to test the opinion of the Committee, and on this occasion, my hon. Friends and I, and the hon. Gentlemen from the Liberal Democrats, have established our concerns. I hope that the Government consider them seriously between now and consideration on Report, which, I understand, might not take place until autumn.

Our concerns are not mere debating points. We are discussing the future of our country, how we wish our society to develop, and the relationship between the individual and the state and between the individual and others. Once this legislation is enacted and the grinding machinery of government gets going, it will be very difficult to claw back the freedoms and common understandings under which we currently live our lives.

I am grateful to the Minister for what he has said and, although I wish he had said more, I beg to ask leave to withdraw the amendment.

Edward Garnier (Conservative, Harborough)

I beg to move amendment No. 2, in clause 1, page 1, line 16, leave out from beginning to end of line 4 on page 2 and insert—

‘(a)of assistance to the Secretary of State in preventing or detecting terrorist acts in the United Kingdom or elsewhere or otherwise in the interests of national security;

(b)of assistance to the Secretary of State in preventing or detecting serious crime;

(c)for the purposes of controlling illegal immigration and enforcing immigration controls; or

(d)for the purpose of securing proper provision of relevant public services.

(4A)For the purposes of subsection (4)—

“relevant public services” means the public provision of—

(a)healthcare,

(b)housing,

(c)education, and

(d)social benefits;

“serious crime” means crime giving rise to an offence triable only on indictment.’.

Roger Gale (Conservative, North Thanet)

With this it will be convenient to discuss the following amendments: No. 3, in clause 1, page 1, line 17, leave out “prevention or”.

No. 4, in clause 1, page 1, line 17, after second “of”, insert “serious”.

No. 5, in clause 1, page 2, line 3, leave out from first “of” to end of line 4 and insert

‘establishing entitlement to a particular public service’.

No. 43, in clause 8, page 7, line 8, leave out “and”.

No. 44, in clause 8, page 7, line 10, at end insert

‘and

(c)is issued for the following purposes only—

(i)to assist the in preventing or detecting terrorist acts in the United Kingdom or elsewhere or otherwise in the interests of national security;

(ii)to assist the Secretary of State in preventing or detecting serious crime;

(iii)the purposes of controlling illegal immigration and enforcing immigration controls;

(iv)the purpose of securing proper provision of the following public services, namely—

(a)healthcare,

(b)housing,

(c)education,

(d)social security benefits.

(1A)In subsection (1)(c)(ii), “serious crime” has the same meaning as in section 1(1A).’.

No. 120, in clause 43, page 37, line 23, after first “crime”, insert

‘(other than in section 1(4A))’.

I should explain that, at this stage, only amendment No. 2 is being moved. When we group amendments in this way, we do so by subject matter for debate. Other amendments within the group may be called later and moved formally. For example, amendment No. 120 relates to clause 43 and it will not be voted on until we deal with that clause.

Edward Garnier (Conservative, Harborough)

Thank you, Mr. Gale, for that explanation, although it is of course permissible for me to discuss all the grouped amendments.

Amendment No. 2 would change subsection (4). We wish to build greater certainty into the purposes for which the data register is to be established. The subsection states that

“something is necessary in the public interest if, and only if, it is—

(a)in the interests of national security;

(b)for the purposes of the prevention or detection of crime;

(c)for the purposes of the enforcement of immigration controls;

(d)for the purposes of the enforcement of prohibitions on unauthorised working or employment; or

(e)for the purpose of securing the efficient and effective provision of public services.”

Those things might all be in the public interest; taken individually or collectively, they might all be for the public good.

We all want our national security to be enhanced, crime to be detected or prevented, the laws and regulations concerning immigration to this country to be enforced, illegal working to be prevented and the rules relating to it to be enforced. Of course, we all want the provision of public services to be maintained securely, efficiently and effectively. However, that of itself is not good enough, which is why we have moved amendment No. 2. We want this aspect of the statutory purposes to be tightened.

If members of the Committee compare what is in the Bill with what we have set down in amendment No. 2, they will find that our proposal would provide a much tighter definition of what should be in the Bill. We say that national security should be detailed in relation to terrorism. When the Bill first came to the public fore, the then Home Secretary laid a lot of stress on identity cards and the national register being a useful tool in the war against terrorism. If he, his party or the Government still adhere to that, they should be specific and clear about it.

Our amendment would make the first part of subsection (4) read as follows:

“For the purposes of this Act something is necessary in the public interest if, and only if, it is ... of assistance to the Secretary of State in preventing or detecting terrorist acts in the United Kingdom or elsewhere or otherwise in the interests of national security”.

It is essential that we highlight the main reason within the framework of national security for which the register and the ID cards would prove to be in the public interest.

The world scene was unalterably changed following 11 September 2001. Although, prior to that, we had the Terrorism Act 2000, it is fair to say that we came to view terrorism and the institutions of our country, and those of our allies, in a different light after the attacks in the United States on 9/11.

Patrick Mercer (Conservative, Newark)

Is it not interesting that the country that has been so afflicted by terrorism—so seriously hurt in such a brief time scale—does not have identity cards? Indeed, the introduction of identity cards in that country would be illegal.

Edward Garnier (Conservative, Harborough)

President Bush has made it clear that the compulsory introduction of identity cards and a national identity register would be a step too far in the United States, where terrorists have attacked the fabric of the nation and where an attack was carried out with identity documents. The people who committed the attacks on 11 September had passports, and some even had pilot’s licences. They certainly had other forms of identification. An identity card system, which the Bill seeks to introduce in this country, would not have prevented that attack and I am not even sure that it would have helped to detect it, not least because all those who took an active part in the outrages were killed—they all committed suicide.

Let us move the telescope across to Madrid. Much play was made on Second Reading of the argument that the use and possession of identity cards, and presumably the underlying register, would have prevented or detected the terrorist act there. Spain has an identity card system, but that prevented nothing because the attack took place.

During the debate on Tuesday, the Government, through their Back Benchers, told us not to worry because the system helped to detect those who committed the offences: to buy mobile telephones—the instruments used for the purposes of the Madrid bombing—they had to present identity cards and prove their identity to buy the telephones that were used to trigger the bombs or to pass instructions one to the other. It is all very well to rely on that to show that a register would be in the interests of national security, but, unless the Government are willing to detail how an identity card system and national register will assist in dealing with terrorism, we are at a loss to know how they wish to apply its use.

It has been said that one purpose of the Bill is that is in the public interest to prevent or detect “serious crime”. The Government are interested only in the prevention or detection of “crime”. Sledgehammers and nuts come to mind. How low down the crime food chain will this great national identity register go? Surely only serious crime should be dealt with, detected and prevented by means of the national register. Otherwise, we shall have the problems that I referred to when discussing the previous amendment. Amendment No. 2 deals with what we mean by serious crime. It refers to

“crime giving rise to an offence triable only on indictment.”

Under the Government’s system, all crime—indictable or otherwise—can be part of the purpose for which the register is being set up and the tentacles of the registration system will descend into all sorts of petty criminal behaviour. Antisocial behaviour is deeply frustrating to our fellow citizens and it needs to be dealt with, but we need to think more clearly about whether that needs to be done through the great machinery of the national identity register and whether it should be one of the purposes caught by subsection (4)(b).

During a brief and telling but amusing intervention on Second Reading, the hon. and learned Member for Medway (Mr. Marshall-Andrews) said that he had represented a great many criminals in his time as a member of the Bar. Clearly, to paraphrase him, several of them were not very bright, but not even they, he thought, would be deterred from committing bank robberies and so forth by a requirement to carry an identity card or to register information about themselves on the national identity register.

The Government say:

“For the purposes of this Act, something is necessary in the public interest if, and only if, it is ... for the purposes of the prevention or detection of crime”.

However, we need a closer definition and a far tighter description of their intention.

Roberta Blackman-Woods (Labour, City of Durham)

I am curious about why the hon. and learned Gentleman wants to limit the use of identity cards. Is he saying that, if they can be used to detect crime, even petty crime, we should rule that out?

Edward Garnier (Conservative, Harborough)

I am trying to discuss the principle behind the Bill, and the purposes for which the Government intend the register. There are all sorts of ways in which the police and the other law enforcement agencies may wish to prevent and detect crime, but the hon. Lady must set subsection (4) in the context of not only clause 1, but the whole purpose of the Bill.

This is a hydra-headed Bill that is designed to create all sorts of permissive regulation-making powers under which the Secretary of State can set up the register and eventually require the compulsory carrying of an identity card. Just because the Bill does not say that it will be compulsory to carry the card, there is no point in pretending that carrying it will not become a practical necessity. [Interruption.] I hear the Under-Secretary rumbling on, but if the Bill is to work as the Government intend it to, the implications are clear. Under the Bill, it is to be compulsory to register the information, but it will initially be voluntary to carry the card. The thing will then creep slowly forwards, however. There is no point in the hon. Member for City of Durham being naive about it. That is what will happen; otherwise, the system will break down. That is what happened in Holland, as my hon. Friend the Member for Lancaster and Wyre (Mr. Wallace) told us, and elsewhere.

Unless carrying the card is as compulsory as the registration of the information on the database, the system simply will not work in an effective way; it will not achieve the aims that the clause and the Bill describe, and it will not achieve greater national security or prevent or detect crime.

Tim Farron (Liberal Democrat, Westmorland and Lonsdale)

I am grateful to the hon. and learned Gentleman for attempting to focus the Government on the case that they themselves make for ID cards and on what they consider the main purpose of the Bill—tackling illegal immigration and terrorism. How do those aims sit with their verbal statement on Second Reading, made principally in response to the probing of the leader of the Democratic Unionist party, about the limitations on sharing information on the register internationally? One wonders how effective the Bill, the ID cards and the register can be in countering immigration issues and international terrorism if there is no capacity to share information internationally.

Edward Garnier (Conservative, Harborough)

I suspect that there may be later opportunities to discuss the British-Irish common travel area and how the system established under the Bill will lead to a large hole on the western flank of that area if the Republic of Ireland does not enter into a similar arrangement and unless the two countries’ systems can interrogate each other.

On terrorism, perhaps our minds now turn to countries further away than Northern Ireland. We look to a greater international source of terrorism, which will affect our country just as it has affected the United States and Spain. However, the lesson that the hon. Gentleman asks us to learn is one that the Government apparently do not want to consider. They are prepared to stand up and say that the scheme will be wonderful in defeating terrorism, but when holes are shown to exist in their argument, they move on to the next line of argument. One need only look at the list in subsection (4) to see how the Government have attempted to move the searchlight. Every time that an argument is put up and shot down, they move on to the next. They started with national security; what they mean by that is terrorism, and I hope that in the past few minutes I have demonstrated how greater detail needs to be given on that.

I assume that national security deals with the well-being of this nation. If the Government are serious about what they intend, surely they should welcome our amendment. It would allow for the purposes to be extended to the prevention or detection of

“terrorist acts in the United Kingdom or elsewhere”.

It is too easy to press a button overseas and to detonate a device in this country. It is too easy to prepare an act of terrorism in a foreign country and to send operatives, terrorists or instruments into this country. It will not help us much if the interests of national security are interfered with by activity elsewhere.

I have dealt with paragraphs (a) and (b), and I want to discuss another issue, which the hon. Member for Westmorland and Lonsdale mentioned in his intervention: illegal immigration and enforcing immigration controls. The Government’s purposes, as set out in subsection (4), include

“the enforcement of immigration controls”.

That is one of the things that would be in the public interest, but that is all that is said about it.

We all know what a shambles the Government’s current system of immigration control is. We also know that the current Minister for Immigration, Citizenship and Nationality, who is dealing with this Bill, was faced the other day with the embarrassing admission that 500,000 people are in this country unlawfully. The Government as a whole knew about that matter prior to the election, although he did not, as he was not in the Department then. The Prime Minister, however, for some extraordinary reason, found that it had slipped out of his memory when he was interviewed on television by Mr. Paxman; indeed, it slipped out of his memory and that of his Government during the election.

We now know—the Minister and his colleagues have admitted this—that the preparatory work by Professor Salt was being done in the lead-up to the election. It told us that 500,000 illegal immigrants were in this country at the time. The Government now say that the identity card system and the registration system will, as a matter of public interest, be for the purpose of the “enforcement of immigration controls”. Others will agree or disagree, but the simple possession of facts on a register and the simple use of an identity card to prove the existence of those facts and their truth are not sufficient to enforce immigration controls.

As the Minister will accept, illegal immigrants come into this country clandestinely. Where they are found without a card and an entry on the register, are they therefore to be deemed to be illegal entrants or illegal immigrants and subsequently deported? Will the failure to possess a card and to have an entry on the register be final proof of a person’s right to be here? We must bear in mind that where someone is in this country for less than three months, they will not be required to enter their facts on the register or to carry a card.

Patrick Mercer (Conservative, Newark)

There are 25 million people a year.

Edward Garnier (Conservative, Harborough)

As I understand from my hon. Friend, 25 million visitors a year come into this country for fewer than three months. We are talking about 25 million people who want to come to spend their money in this country as tourists or as visitors of another sort. They will be placed in the difficult position of being stopped in the street and interviewed by a police officer.

That is the foreseeable consequence of this provision. If the Government want to shut their eyes to it, that is up to them. The foreseeable consequence of this system and the blind reliance on it will be that visitors to this country or, more to the point, people of a different colour from mine, are likely to be stopped in the street. Just as a matter of convenience and to facilitate things, people will say to them, “You haven’t, by any chance, got any way of proving who you are or why you are here, have you?” They will reply, “No, I haven’t as it happens. I am a visitor here and I have come here for less than three months.” They will then be asked to prove it.

The whole burden of proof, and the relationship between the Government, the machine and us as individuals, will change incrementally.

Patrick Mercer (Conservative, Newark)

I alluded earlier to life in Israel. I do not know how many Committee members have visited Israel, but I have been through the experience of not carrying an Israeli identity card and having proof of my identity demanded on a frequent basis. It is deeply, deeply offensive. My hon. and learned Friend is making the point that if that happened in this country, it would seriously erode our way of life.

Edward Garnier (Conservative, Harborough)

I agree.

David Drew (Labour, Stroud)

Is the hon. and learned Gentleman now saying that the Conservative party is committed to never again introducing stop-and-search powers? That would be a very important move, as it would mean that the authorities do not have any powers to stop someone, whatever their colour or creed. I should like that to be put formally on the record.

Edward Garnier (Conservative, Harborough)

I am glad that the hon. Gentleman asked that question, because although it is not germane to the subsection proposed in the amendment, it demonstrates an interesting difference between the facts on the ground and what we are dealing with. He may or may not know that a Conservative Government passed the Police and Criminal Evidence Act 1984, which set out a regime under which people should not be stopped and searched without reason. All sorts of rules and regulations lie behind the PACE Act that control or regulate how police officers should interface with people on the street, and set out what they need to do to justify a stop or search. If the police fail to behave in that way, any prosecution mounted on the basis of evidence discovered following such a stop-and-search will be disallowed by the judge. That Act was passed in 1984, and a new atmosphere and culture arose that were vastly different from those that had arisen under the old sus and vagrancy laws. That new atmosphere and culture were to be welcomed.

What has happened since this Government came to power? The Terrorism Act 2000 was introduced; in 2001, emergency legislation was passed following 9/11; there was the Civil Contingencies Act 2004; and, in the last Parliament before the election, there were intense discussions in the House about new powers to provide for home detention and control orders, derogated and underogated. The hon. Member for Stroud will surely remember the 48-hour sitting in the House of Commons. Now in this new Session, we are to get a new anti-terrorism and security Bill. On top of that, the Serious Organised Crime and Police Bill is doing away with the distinction between arrestable and unarrestable offences. Let us hope that it does not happen, but a person who drops litter in the street could, in theory—it would not happen in practice—be arrested, according to that Bill. There will now be no distinction between an arrestable and an unarrestable offence.

The whole atmosphere and culture that this Government have created, no doubt with good intentions, to deal with terrorism and serious and organised crime have changed in such a way that they are unrecognisable in terms of the atmosphere that existed between 1984 and 2000. Stop-and-search is a fact, and it has been provided for by this Government in their legislation. I should like to see a system in which people could rely on PACE and the relationships between the citizen and the state and the citizen and the police were governed only by PACE. This Government have created a new set of facts, however, with which the Minister and I will have to deal. This Bill will make the situation worse.

Kali Mountford (Labour, Colne Valley)

Does the hon. and learned Gentleman not see a distinction between the tools available to the police and security forces to deal with and detect crime and make our country safe, and the internal problems in some police forces that may lead to unacceptable and unfortunate behaviour, as a result of which some communities feel that they are unfairly and improperly treated differently from the rest of the population? Should we not deal with those two important but different matters with equal urgency?

Edward Garnier (Conservative, Harborough)

Of course, those are different matters. This is not an either/or situation. The hon. Lady might be right, but that does not affect the Bill’s wooliness or the difficulties created by it. Although her intervention was fascinating, it was hardly to the point.

To return to the amendment, I have dealt with paragraphs (a) and (b), and I hope that I have exposed the problem with the legislation’s reference to “immigration controls”. Proposed new paragraph (d) addresses our wish for the clause to deal properly with the provision of relevant public services. That affects clause 1(4)(e), which refers to

“the purpose of securing the efficient and effective provision of public services”

without saying what is meant by public services.

Our amendment would inform the public what “relevant public services” means; it means health care, housing, education and social benefits. That would be a wholly uncontroversial and necessary change as this legislation is long on wishful thinking—it will not be respected because it will not do the job the Government wish it to do. A new subsection (4) along the lines that we propose is necessary if this unattractive Bill is to be made workable.

I wish to discuss amendments Nos. 3, 4 and 5.

Tony McNulty (Labour, Harrow East)

First, I am curious to understand why the proposal in the original paragraph (d)—

“for the purposes of the enforcement of prohibitions on unauthorised working or employment”—

is not captured in amendment No. 2.

Edward Garnier (Conservative, Harborough)

Because the amendment deals with the main matters that concern us at present. There is plenty to say about illegal working, and plenty was said on Second Reading about illegal gang workers, the Morecambe bay disaster and so forth. If the Bill can be improved so that it deals with such matters as well, I will not prevent that. However, I am dealing with the amendment.

We do not claim to be the masters of amendment preparation—unlike the Minister, we do not have thousands of civil servants at our disposal—but if he wants to improve our amendment we will listen with care to what he proposes, either later in Committee or on Report. I am not proud. If he can make improvements to our proposals, I shall be happy to agree to them, so long as they are in the public interest and will provide better legislation.

Amendments Nos. 3, 4 and 5 are self-explanatory. I do not need to speak to them at length, as I dealt with my main concerns while addressing amendment No. 2.

Amendments Nos. 43 and 44 address clause 8. They deal in like manner with the purposes associated with ID cards, as amendment No. 2 does with the national identity register in clause 1, and it would be tedious if I repeated the arguments. I urge the Minister to marry up amendments Nos. 44 and 2, and to apply them thoughtfully to the relevant clauses. Again, we repeat our definition of serious crime, which applies to clauses 8 and 1.

Finally, amendment No. 120 deals with clause 43 and refers back to the definition of what we say is serious crime. I do not need to repeat myself on that.

Let me conclude my arguments in favour of this group of amendments by saying that I understand the parliamentary arithmetic—the Government have a majority of 60 or so in the House of Commons, and they had a majority of 31 on Second Reading—and the arithmetic of this Committee, so it would not be surprising if the Bill were unaffected by my amendments, still less by my arguments. However, if we are to do things sensibly and create legislation that achieves the public acceptance required to make it workable, the Government need to apply their mind to the issues that we have highlighted during these debates.

I trust that, during the sitting and tomorrow, we will hear good reasons from the Government—not just assertions—backed by evidence to show that what we propose would damage the purposes of the Bill and the principle for which the Government claim they have national support.

Tony McNulty (Labour, Harrow East)

I am sure it is an error, but I just want clarity. Proposed new paragraph (d) in amendment No. 2 talks about “social benefits”, but amendment No. 44 talks about “social security benefits”. Has “security” been omitted from the first or unnecessarily included in the second?

Edward Garnier (Conservative, Harborough)

I assume that that is a typographical error. I spotted it, but did not think it sufficiently important to delay the Committee. I am delighted and grateful that the Minister has read the amendment with care.

Alistair Carmichael (Liberal Democrat, Orkney and Shetland)

A long time ago, when the hon. and learned Gentleman started his speech, he told us that the purpose of these proposals was to lend a definition to the expressions used in the Bill. He has offered us a useful opportunity to debate the definitions and purposes behind the Bill, and for that reason the Committee should be grateful for his tabling the amendment, but I am concerned about its construction.

I suspect that the hon. and learned Gentleman wishes to push the amendment to a Division, but it would cause some difficulties. I wish, therefore, to express a few concerns, although I might share the initial aims of the amendment’s four paragraphs. Beyond the fact that paragraph (a) highlights terrorism as a particular concern in relation to national security, I am not entirely clear about what it would achieve.

Initially, when I listened to the hon. and learned Gentleman, I thought he was trying to restrict national security to the definition of terrorism, but then I wondered why, because surely there is a public interest in dealing with an alien nation. Indeed, dealing with an alien nation would be caught by his rider

“otherwise in the interests of national security”.

He started by saying that the Government’s definition is defective and seeking to narrow it, but, towards the end of his remarks, he widened it, so we are back to square one.

I now come to the hon. and learned Gentleman’s paragraph (b), and the restriction to serious crime. Again, I have some sympathy with what he seeks to achieve, because if one looks forward to the day when the cards are compulsory and we all carry them, one can easily foresee the people most frequently required to provide the cards on demand by police officers on the street being 16 to 24-year-old black males, probably in places such as London. We cannot dismiss lightly the concern that that could cause the further alienation of a sector of the community that might already feel alienated.

I share some of the hon. and learned Gentleman’s concerns, but my difficulty with his restriction to serious crime is that he would define it by reference to crimes that are triable only on indictment. He referred to indictable crimes—I bow to him on these subjects because, as a lowly solicitor, I do not seek to challenge his legal expertise—but the Bill covers the entire United Kingdom, and in Scotland all common law crimes, with the exception of rape and murder, can be tried either summarily or under solemn procedure.

Under Scots law, the only common law crimes that would be indictable only are murder and rape, so serious fraud, serious theft and even serious assault would not be covered under the hon. and learned Gentleman’s definition.

I suspect that we are dealing here with an operation of the law of unintended consequences, but, even so, I must point out my concerns to the hon. and learned Gentleman. In Scotland, whether a crime is serious or not is a matter decided in the first instance by the procurator fiscal, who may exercise his or her discretion. They then decide how the circumstances presented to them as a crime are to be tried.

Edward Garnier (Conservative, Harborough)

As I said to the Minister, we do not claim to be experts in drafting legislation. We do our best to provide a forum, or a means whereby we can deal with this important Bill. If the hon. Gentleman wishes to table what I might call Scottish amendments to be dealt with on Report, we shall consider them with interest. I do not wish to be prescriptive. We are doing our best, but if he can help us to do even better I shall be grateful.

Alistair Carmichael (Liberal Democrat, Orkney and Shetland)

I hope that I made it sufficiently clear right at the start of my remarks that I think the hon. and learned Gentleman has done the Committee a service in raising the issues and tabling an amendment that allows detailed consideration of such definitions, because, as he knows, definitions can be very important. To lay down a marker in case he is minded to force a Division on the amendment, I should say that I am not inclined to support something that would have undesirable consequences, whether unintended or intended, if added to the Bill.

The third leg of the hon. and learned Gentleman’s amendment relates to

“the purposes of controlling illegal immigration and enforcing immigration controls.”

I have to say that the Government have a better definition on this occasion. My concern is the phrase “controlling illegal immigration”. I would have thought that preventing illegal immigration was a more worthwhile objective for Government policy, although controlling it might be a more realistic one.

Finally, we come to

“the purpose of securing proper provision of relevant public services.”

Again, I have one small concern. Proposed new subsection (4) defines the relevant public services as health care, housing, education and social benefits. The first three of those would be the responsibility of the devolved Administrations in Cardiff and Edinburgh. However, the devolved Administration in Edinburgh have said that they do not intend to use ID cards for the purpose of allowing people access to public services of that sort, and I suspect that the position is the same in Cardiff.

The hon. and learned Gentleman’s amendment could introduce a small degree of ambiguity into what is currently a very clear position. We should do all we can to encourage the Scottish Executive to maintain their position, which, in my view, they were right to take.

I commend the hon. and learned Gentleman on tabling the amendment, as considering the purposes set out in the clause has been a useful exercise. If he is minded to press it to a Division, however, I fear that I might have to sit on my hands.

Kali Mountford (Labour, Colne Valley)

The clause and amendment go to the heart of the Bill, because they are about its purposes. Some of the Opposition’s amendments would not do the legislation any favours, however, because they would limit its purposes in a way that my constituents would be unable to support.

On the national interest, I fail to see why a particular point needs to be made about terrorism. Perhaps I have only a paltry amount of common sense, but it is enough for me adequately to address many areas of life, and I would have thought that most people consider that dealing with terrorism is in the national interest. I think that most people would be surprised if terrorism were not included as one of the crimes that affects the national interest. It is reasonable for people to expect terrorism to be included as such a crime and to expect our armed services, police service and security services to use whatever means are properly available to them to detect such crimes and find the people who have perpetrated such acts against the state. It would be reasonable to expect people acting on the nation’s behalf and in our interests to use all the tools that are available to them. One of the reasons why I began to take a close interest in this subject is that the identity register could be the single most important detection tool of the security services. They have asked for it, and that was the phrase that they used. It was also used the last time that the Bill was debated in the House.

Patrick Mercerrose—

Kali Mountford (Labour, Colne Valley)

I am sure that the hon. Gentleman also remembers the debates that we had at that time.

Patrick Mercer (Conservative, Newark)

Will the hon. Lady explain how she believes that the existence of a national identity register will help not so much the control or understanding of the population by the security services, but the spreading of a net over those coming into this country with a desire to carry out acts of terrorism?

Kali Mountford (Labour, Colne Valley)

That is a very interesting question. The key is not simply the existence of the register, but the purpose to which it is then put; it is not just that there is a register—a register lying idle would be of no use at all—but what happens once the register is established and when people come into this country.

It seems that we have moved on to the next part of the amendment, although I have not yet finished addressing the part dealing with crime. Nevertheless, for now, let us move on to discuss people who enter the country illegally. It is reasonable for us to establish our right to ask people who enter the country to enter properly in the register—we already make such requests in some circumstances—so that we can identify whether they have a right to be here. The hon. Member for Newark and others have pointed out that lots of people who come to this country will not be on the register; those entering on short-term visas are already an exception. However, it is reasonable to have a tool to establish whether people have a right to be in the country.

Patrick Mercer (Conservative, Newark)

Without wishing to impede the hon. Lady’s steady progress, I want to dwell for a moment on how she believes that the existence of an identity register will impede terrorists of the type that we are now seeing. Unlike in the days of republican or Protestant paramilitary terrorism, this is not a population about which we know anything. We are talking either about people who are likely to be born in this country and are on the register anyway or about those who come to this country for a shorter period—the time between entering and death—and do not need to be on the register in the first place.

Kali Mountford (Labour, Colne Valley)

I point the hon. Gentleman to the ways in which people find their way around systems already, the fraudulent acts that take place and the ways in which documents are duplicated and wrongly shown as proof of identity in many circumstances. It is not difficult for a determined person to deceive, if they want to do so. The provision is simply an extra tool to impede the ability to deceive. It is not a be-all and end-all or a panacea; it is merely an extra, useful tool to add to a panorama of tools available to all sorts of people to identify properly somebody’s right to be here and their right to proceed as they are doing. If somebody were to produce false ID, as they often do already, this provision would be a useful, simple way to try to impede their progress.

If somebody comes into the country using a false identity, they are stuck with it. That is an important part of the Bill. Once that identity, false or otherwise, is established, the ability for that person to reproduce themselves in multiple identities at later points is impeded.

Ben Wallace (Conservative, Lancaster and Wyre)

Given that the hon. Lady thinks that this is such a useful tool, is it right that it is paid for by individuals rather than by the state?

Kali Mountford (Labour, Colne Valley)

We are moving away from the purpose. Since the hon. Gentleman is new, however, I advise him that, in the end, all of us pay for everything by one means or another. There is no such thing as a free ride. I am sure that we will come to that issue at some point, but I am trying to say that the provision is a useful tool. He seems to want to make a point about whether the individual or the taxpayer pays: I point him to the fact that those two are one.

Tobias Ellwood (Conservative, Bournemouth East)

I am grateful to the hon. Lady, because I know that she wants to make progress.

The hon. Lady made an interesting comment about people who may come into this country from abroad with identification documents, end up on the new register and be stuck with that new identity. What is there to prevent such individuals from leaving the country with a new set of documents and getting another identification card? We are moving on to the robustness and integrity of the technology, which we do not believe is at the point where it can work and identify such things. Also, any damage to the fingers will cause that system not to work.

Roger Gale (Conservative, North Thanet)

Order. These matters will be covered later in the Bill. Perhaps we should revert to the amendment.

Kali Mountford (Labour, Colne Valley)

I shall resist the temptation to discuss the entire Bill in one go.

On the hon. Gentleman’s initial point, however, I refer him to the fact that once the biometric data are installed on the database, the ability to leave and come back with new documents will at least be impeded by the fact that those biometrics exist and would have to be cross-referenced in some way. Of course, he may argue that that procedure is imperfect, and we can argue at some point about that issue, but it gives me some hope and anticipation for some progress in the direction of identity. Indeed, identity is the factor that is being most misunderstood by the Committee so far in our proceedings. There seems to be an assumption that the Bill contains the requirement to carry a card and that that is the mechanism by which people are safeguarded.

I see that the hon. Member for Newark is as excited as ever, so I will give way if he wishes. Apparently, he is not so excited after all.

The carrying of the card is not the most important part of the proposal. It is the collection and verification of the data. If we are trying to impede the progress of crime, such information is a vital tool to make available to our police forces and security services. They have asked for it and recognise its usefulness.

It is a little disappointing that we want to narrow the scope of the crime that we wish to detect. It is important to ensure that the police have tools available for the crimes in respect of which they already have powers to check identity. They cannot check identity in a willy-nilly manner just because they feel like doing so. As the hon. and learned Member for Harborough said, previous legislation contains safeguards to prevent that from happening. It is important to recognise that the carrying of the card is not the most important factor.

Tim Farron (Liberal Democrat, Westmorland and Lonsdale)

Does the hon. Lady accept that the movement towards what she hopes will be a more reliable, single identifier for individuals, which is clearly the intention of the Bill, will massively increase the prize of identity fraud and the motivation of people who are criminally inclined to copy and commit identify fraud? A single document would be far more likely to achieve what a person wants.

Kali Mountford (Labour, Colne Valley)

I am pleased that at least those on the Liberal Democrat Benches accept the importance of identity fraud. As a person who has been subjected to such fraud at a cost, I have a keen interest in ensuring that no one can steal my identity in future. I am not at all sure how my identity was stolen and the goods that I did not want were charged to me. We would have to be ever vigilant in ensuring that the system remained clean and robust, and I am sure that later clauses deal with such matters.

I want to concentrate on the narrower part of the amendments, which concerns the purpose of the Bill, which offers our constituents some comfort and succour in respect of having their identity protected and not used or abused by others to commit crimes against those in our communities. It is reasonable that the police have asked Parliament to consider such a method, but my constituents want us to go further than the Bill. I have already told them that there could be problems with some of the provisions that they wish to include, one of which is medical records. That would be wrong, because it could lead to dangers.

Other members of the Committee have referred to matters that could become registrable facts. Such inclusion would not necessarily be as beneficial as some of my constituents think. They want the flash-and-go world to which the hon. and learned Member for Harborough referred, but I do not. I accept that he fears such a system, but my constituents want it. We must find a balance between what is reasonable for Parliament to introduce for their protection and the sort of society that he fears so much.

Ben Wallace (Conservative, Lancaster and Wyre)

I accept what the hon. Lady said about medical records, but clause 1(5)(h) refers to

“information about occasions on which information recorded about him in the Register has been provided to any person”.

I fear that that provision will hearten her constituents by suggesting that their medical records will be in the system, although not in so much detail. Each time a hospital or a doctor verifies someone’s identity before giving treatment, which is part of the provision of public service, that footprint will remain on the register. Therefore, if people were to look at the register, they would know that an individual inquired of a GP about certain treatment or received treatment for cancer at the Royal Marsden hospital. That is a fact. She might like to take note that such things already happen. If someone gets their credit check file today, they will be able to read about every time they inquired about a loan, a hire-purchase agreement or anything else. The footprint remains.

Roger Gale (Conservative, North Thanet)

Order. Perhaps a general admonition is in order. Interventions should be treated as such, and not as speeches.

Kali Mountford (Labour, Colne Valley)

I hope that I can reassure the hon. Gentleman that he need have no such fear. He seems to be mixing up several elements of the Bill. Later in our discussions of the Bill, he will see that such a record cannot be made available.

Let us say that somebody presents themselves to a hospital for treatment and has that treatment free at the point of use, as we would all wish them to do. If that person is not entitled to their treatment free at the point of use, as most citizens of this country are, but is liable to payment, it will be reasonable to ask them to demonstrate that they can pay or whether they are eligible for free treatment. It is reasonable to ask such people to pay in those circumstances, and it is also acceptable to check such things.

The hon. Gentleman seems to be going further, and suggesting that we would somehow be able to check by other means, involving other people going into the record, what somebody checked, where they checked it, who checked it and what the purpose was. If he reads on into the Bill, he will see that that information could not be made available. We are talking about a verification process, and an ability to say, “This person is who they said they were when they presented on that day”. It tells us that they were who they said they were. That is all it does. It does none of the other things, even though my constituents want blood groups and previous problems to be included, so that if they are knocked over in the street, the ambulance services can give them immediate treatment. That is going too far, but the hon. Gentleman seems to have a different view of the provisions.

Tim Farron (Liberal Democrat, Westmorland and Lonsdale)

To return to the point made by the hon. Member for Lancaster and Wyre, the concern is not the depth to which the detail is explored at each point that the card is asked for, but the fact that the register provides a route map around the country showing where an individual has been, with obvious inferences as to why they have been to that point. Does that not cause the hon. Lady’s civil liberties alarm bells to ring at all?

Kali Mountford (Labour, Colne Valley)

The hon. Gentleman needs to read further into the Bill, as he will find that what he described cannot happen. The process is one of verification. We have moved on from discussing the purpose of having the identity register and the card in the first place to discussing how they can be used. They cannot be used in the way that he suggests. No such thing can happen.

The purpose of the provision is to ensure that we protect our national security and to give the police the powers and the tools that they need to safeguard our security, keep us free of crime, do the proper detection and ensure that the people who are here should be here,. All those purposes are reasonable and I want them in the Bill. The amendment tabled by the hon. and learned Member for Harborough would restrict the purposes in a way that people would find unacceptable.

Patrick Mercer (Conservative, Newark)

I am pleased to follow the hon. Lady. I had a free ride on a fire engine when I was in her constituency recently, which was interesting.

Kali Mountford (Labour, Colne Valley)

Nice photos, by the way.

Patrick Mercer (Conservative, Newark)

I am grateful for the hon. Lady’s comments.

I do not see a great cultural gap between the hon. Lady’s part of Yorkshire and my part of Nottinghamshire; people behave and act the same, and they probably think the same. My constituents are not at all convinced of the need for this Bill. They might like some of the ideas in it, but that is the case only until the question of cost is reached. Then, by golly, any interest, sympathy or empathy that they had completely erodes. However, I am straying from the point; forgive me, Mr. Gale.

Tony McNulty (Labour, Harrow East)

As ever.

Patrick Mercer (Conservative, Newark)

I feel a little aggrieved about that comment.

A number of points have been made about terrorism that I do not believe necessarily fit closely with the amendments. I want to address them in the clause stand part debate, so I shall restrict myself to dealing briefly and in a focused fashion with the first part of our amendment. Currently, subsection (4)(a) includes the words

“in the interests of national security”.

What is national security? The Falklands war was a question of national security. [Interruption.] So was the miners’ strike, as I usefully hear pointed out behind me. Avian flu may be a question of national security, although we have yet to experience that. I suggest that the national identity register would make no difference whatever to any of the things that I have just mentioned.

Tim Farron (Liberal Democrat, Westmorland and Lonsdale)

This is a slightly mischievous point. Would the hon. Gentleman care to speculate on how a Conservative Government might have used an ID card system and its attendant register during the miners’ strike to control the enemy within—a term in which I may have been included?

Patrick Mercer (Conservative, Newark)

I should be delighted to do so in the Tea Room after the sitting.

Moving on, “national security” is simply not a close enough definition of what is needed. The Bill was introduced with a view to producing a register and a card, principally, initially, to counter not war or other threats to this country, but terrorism—the insidious new style of terrorism that we face, the threat of Islamist fundamentalists. That is why it is crucial that the amendment to subsection (4)(a) be made, and that we use the words

“assistance to the Secretary of State in preventing or detecting terrorist acts in the United Kingdom or elsewhere or otherwise in the interests of national security”.

Under the amendment, there would still be mention of “national security”, but the phrase would be embellished, broadened and further focused by the emphasis on terrorism, not only on these shores but abroad.

I will not go further than that, as I am sure you will be pleased to hear, Mr. Gale, but I might like to return to the subject in the clause stand part debate.

Ben Wallace (Conservative, Lancaster and Wyre)

I want to expand on subsection (5)(h). Perhaps the Minister will provide some clarification on these matters, as he nodded his head during an intervention. Under subsection (5)(h), the information requested will be logged. This is an important subject. On going deep into the Bill, to use the words of the hon. Member for Colne Valley—I do not know quite what that means, other than reading it once again—I looked for where it mentions any inquiry made, or who inquires. I gather that an inquiry made by an authorised person would leave a footprint; the record would not just say, “An inquiry came in”; it would say whether the inquiry was made by, say, Morecambe Bay Hospitals NHS Trust, a cancer hospital or the National Blood Service. It would say who asked the question, and in asking where the question comes from, almost as much is given away as if the actual question were given. That is an important issue when it comes to tracking and making sure that we keep tabs on an individual.

Tony McNulty (Labour, Harrow East)

That is a fair point. The fact that information from the register has been provided to a hospital or doctor will be recorded under the provisions of paragraph 9 of schedule 1, but what a person was being treated for or the details of medical records would not be recorded. The paragraph 9 information cannot be disclosed except in very limited circumstances—that is, to the security services or police in cases of serious crime, or to the individual concerned, who may want access to check their own footprint. That is all; only those limited circumstances would be allowed.

Ben Wallace (Conservative, Lancaster and Wyre)

I am grateful to the Minister. Will he clarify the last part of his answer? He said that information could not be disclosed, except in the extenuated circumstances in which it was needed by the security services. Is that actually in the Bill? Is it dealt with under clause 3(2)(c), which states:

“the Secretary of State considers that it is both practicable and appropriate for it to be recorded in accordance with the applicant’s request”?

In the future, a different Secretary of State—perhaps a Conservative one, when there is another miners’ strike, or something like that—might register something. That is an important point.

It is absolutely fair that the hon. Member for Colne Valley expressed fears about the phrase “national security”, which my hon. and gallant Friend the Member for Newark also mentioned, and public interest in that regard. That has been tested time and again. In my previous existence at the Scottish Parliament, I served with Mr. Dennis Canavan, a former Member of this House. He was often very vexed because he felt that he had been investigated as a Member by the security services. They protected themselves in the interests of national security during the aforementioned miners’ strike.

Another issue is about the register. I agree that a lot of people are confusing the difference between accessing the register or using it to verify, and amending it—going into it and changing details. Verifying implies an element of access; it is about going to the register and getting access to the details on it. It is not about amending it, but it does mean access to that register, and information technology systems can be vulnerable even at that level of protection. We should remember that, in moving on from that position, getting access and seeing what is there, our freedoms become vulnerable.

The hon. Member for Colne Valley talked about identity theft and how the register will prevent it, but she forgot to talk about the innocent person whose identity has been stolen. That is another duty of the state: to protect. One of the reasons why the Opposition are trying to narrow the definition is that the register has already changed from a single register used to verify someone with an ID card who presents it to say, “This is me”. It has already become a register that will allow people from certain Government agencies, sometimes at the whim of the Secretary of State, to delve into its details. It has moved from being a tool for verification to being a database storing personal details with considerable elements of footprints. That is important.

As to the purpose of a register, let us remember that the hijackers on 9/11 were flagged up on FBI computers. They were already on somebody’s register; the problem was that the security services in the United States did not have the resources on the ground to survey those individuals. If one asked the security services—the people on the ground—about this issue, they would say, “I do not want £18 billion spent on ID cards. I would like surveillance teams and technology to carry things out”.

The idea that the register is a single useful tool purely to verify the identity of someone who presents an ID card has already gone. That goalpost was moved by this Government, and that is one of the reasons why the Opposition are trying to narrow down the use of the database to its original purpose, at the very least.

David Borrow (Labour, South Ribble)

I should like to flag up a point raised by the Minister of State: the effect that the amendment would have in removing the provision on illegal working. I emphasise that that provision needs to be part of the Bill. In my constituency, hundreds of migrant workers work in the farming industry, and it is important for farmers there to have proper identification of the people who work for them to ensure that they are not working illegally. The removal of the provision from the Bill, as proposed by the Opposition, would be a bad step, and I do not think that they have answered adequately the point made by the Minister some time ago.

Tony McNulty (Labour, Harrow East)

I join the hon. Member for Orkney and Shetland in congratulating the hon. and learned Member for Harborough on tabling the amendment. I do not do so because we agree with it—we clearly do not, as I shall say shortly—but it has prompted a useful debate on any number of the themes of clause 1. In that sense, it has been a useful introduction to our deliberations.

I also agree with the hon. Member for Orkney and Shetland that in the end, ironically, the amendment suffers from over-prescription and from what one might term as undue specificity. Very often during my brief, fleeting time in this House—