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Business of the House

May I reinforce the call of my right hon. Friend the Member for Maidenhead (Mrs. May) for an early debate in Government time on ID cards? The Home Secretary is announcing today that, despite the constant stream of private, personal data that companies working for the Government have lost, she proposes to hand over the job of taking and storing the fingerprints of every adult in this country to outside contractors. It is bad enough if someone loses one's bank account details, but at least one can set up a new bank account. If somebody loses one's fingerprint details, one's identity is compromised for ever. The House needs to debate that potentially disastrous idea.