Extract from House of Commons Hansard    Debates 10th February 2005

Identity Cards Bill   Third Reading

Mr. Neil Gerrard (Walthamstow):

I shall be brief because I know that other hon. Members want to speak. My position has always been clear. I voted against the Bill on Second Reading and the more I hear about it, the less I like it. I shall vote against it again this evening.

I agree with one point that the Home Secretary made. I do not agree with much that he said about the measure but he was right about the Tory Front-Bench position. It is pathetic not to be able to reach a decision about whether to vote for or against such an important measure on Third Reading. We have had a limited time for debate this afternoon but what are the reasons for that? The usual Front-Bench channels made agreements to discuss the measure on a Thursday, when there is one less hour for debate, so those on the Tory Front Bench are shedding crocodile tears.

Listening to the debates on some of the amendments this afternoon, I felt as though I was listening to discussions about angels on pinheads, because, however we amend the Bill, we cannot make it acceptable. What it sets out to do is fundamentally objectionable. The Joint Committee on Human Rights raised a host of objections to it, and I have just had a brief chance to read through the Government's response to them. It does not really answer them.

On Second Reading, we debated issues such as whether the cards would become compulsory. I am absolutely sure that it will become compulsory to have this card, because the Home Secretary said on Second Reading that this was the first step towards compulsion. We also discussed disclosure to service providers, the police and people in the private sector, and the audit trail that will exist. The real problem with this measure will be the register, rather than having to carry a card.

The public's view on this will change. At the moment, we might find 80 per cent. of people saying that they support the measure, but once they realise that they are going to have to have these things, their view will change. Once the next, short step is taken, as I believe it undoubtedly will be, and carrying the card becomes compulsory, public opinion will certainly shift. We are going down a very dangerous road.

Everyone here knows which people will be the most likely to be asked to produce their card when it becomes compulsory to carry one. All the evidence from every European country that has cards—including those where they are voluntary—shows that the people who are most often asked to produce their card are from minority ethnic communities. To pretend, as the Government did in their race relations assessment, that this measure will actually improve race relations, strikes me as absurd.

I do not like enabling legislation of this kind. A mass of detail remains to be introduced in secondary legislation, which means that it will never be properly debated in this place. Of course, we cannot amend secondary legislation, so whatever form it takes, we shall just have to take it or leave it. I am also unconvinced that the Home Office can produce information technology infrastructure that will work, which could perhaps be the saving grace in all this. This concept is fundamentally flawed in principle, and we should not be going down this road.
 

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