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Identity Cards Bill

I beg to move, That the Bill be recommitted to a Select Committee. Members hold many serious reservations about the Bill, and even more reservations are held by people outside the House. That is not reason in itself to recommit to a Select Committee; indeed, there is opportunity under the normal Committee and Report process for us to consider the principled reasons, but the Bill, almost more than any other, depends on the practicalities. If it does not work, if it costs vastly more than the Government say it will cost and if conclusions can be drawn about the scope of the information stored on identity cards, the enabling Bill—on repeated occasions, the Minister has stressed that it is enabling legislation—has completely different connotations and the House ought seriously to consider them. I accept that the Standing Committee process is, in many ways, a good means of examining the detail of a Bill—line by line—but it is difficult for a Standing Committee to perform the same role in respect of this enabling Bill. The process is thus imperfect and does not allow hon. Members to consider matters in depth. The Committee that considered the Bill certainly did not have the opportunity to examine issues in detail, many of which the Government raised following the conclusion of the 11th sitting on 21 July. Indeed, the Home Affairs Committee undertook an in-depth examination, but that—[Interruption.]