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Identity Cards Bill (Programme) (No. 3)

I, too, rise to support what my hon. and learned Friend the Member for Harborough (Mr. Garnier) said from the Front Bench, and the comments that my right hon. and learned Friend the Member for Sleaford and North Hykeham (Mr. Hogg) has just made. My distinguished colleague was right to say that the time available is the amount of time that the Government set. The Government expect their supporters to march into the appropriate Lobby to support the proposition that it is fair to devote an hour and three quarters to the Bill’s central contention, which is that a national identity register should be set up. This is a profoundly important piece of legislation, yet the Government say that the time allotted will be sufficient for scrutiny by Back-Bench Members from every party who could not attend the Standing Committee, or who were not put on it in the first place. The Bill was in Committee for only seven days, and the Minister made much of the fact that it received 26 hours and six minutes of consideration. In any Parliament before 1997, that would have been laughable. This Bill affects every citizen of this country. With the fines that it can impose and its proposals for a national identity register, it reaches into every particular of identity, yet it is not being discussed in the traditional manner on the Floor of the House of Commons.