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Identity Cards Bill

I am grateful, Mr. Speaker. The Home Affairs Committee reported on 20 July 2004—more than a year before the end of the Standing Committee process. The House has thus not had the benefit of the inquisitorial method of working that Select Committees use. Three matters of principal concern have arisen since the end of the Standing Committee, the first of which is costs. Hon. Members on both sides of the House have repeatedly raised the question of costs throughout the passage of the Bill because it is critical to our understanding of what the national identity card system will mean. Some of us believe that the large investment that the Government propose would be better spent on other forms of detecting and preventing crime, but that is an aside. We need to know the Government’s intentions, which were made clear only in the past few days through what the press described as a string of concessions to critics in an effort to avert a rebellion. I do not know whether a rebellion will be averted, but I do know that the House is entitled critically to examine the Government’s costings. We must be assured that the costings are robust and capable of being realised. We especially need to examine the Minister’s proposed arrangements to recoup funds from other Departments, which will be critical to the working of the scheme. Secondly, we must consider something that is rather inelegantly called function creep. The Minister has been somewhat undermined by his colleagues in the Cabinet Office, because the Government’s chief information officer’s draft information technology strategy has been leaked over the past few days. On identity cards, it is important to note that the document reveals:"““Identity management is a subject whose time has now arrived.””" It says that the Government are leading the debate on identity cards and will be using it as part of a"““suite of identity management solutions””" to enable public and private sectors to provide cost-effective electronic services. The document also says that data sharing will increase under new proposals. Those are legitimate matters of concern for many hon. Members, so we want to find out what the Cabinet Office proposes and whether the Home Office agrees. Thirdly, the efficacy of the proposals—their ability to do what they say they will do—is a matter of huge concern among many hon. Members. In the past few days—after the Standing Committee concluded—we found out the results of tests on the card system. The system works perfectly well—unless a person is disabled, has dark skin, has brown eyes, is bald, or is wrinkled. If someone makes the mistake of being bald and wrinkled, the system tells them that their head is upside down. If a person is a labourer, typist, or pianist, the system does not work. The system does not work if a person undertakes a voluntary change of appearance, which that rules out every teenager in the country. If people make the mistake of ageing, identity card technology is not for them. In fact, it has been revealed that one in 1,000 cases result in a misidentification. As 13.5 million people a month go through British airports, there will be 13,500 misidentifications every month, which will do wonders for the queues at security checks. The Minister’s response is that multiple identifiers will cure that problem, but I draw the House’s attention to the front page of today’s The Scotsman. It says that ID cards equal more fraud and quotes at length Mr. Jerry Fishenden, the national technology officer for Microsoft—a company one would expect to know something about the subject—who says that the identity card scheme as envisaged will result in ““massive identity fraud”” on a scale as yet unseen. On balance, I prefer the evidence of the Microsoft bosses to that of the Minister, but it is for a Select Committee to look in detail at the proposals. It could call Mr. Fishenden to give evidence.