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Identity Cards Bill

The hon. Gentleman might have noticed the rubber stamp on the front of the Bill—it may not be on the current version—saying that the Secretary of State has declared that this Bill is compliant with the European convention on human rights. I thought that article 6, which says that one is entitled to a fair hearing, was a fairly central part of the European convention. The punitive aspects of clauses 6 and 7, and the clause mentioned by the hon. Gentleman, seem to me to ride straight through the convention and the rubber-stamped certificate introduced by the Home Secretary. People will have to travel huge distances to be photographed. The stupidity of that is only underlined by paragraph 2 of schedule 1, which refers to identifying information. It states"““The following may be recorded in an individual’s entry in the Register””." ““May”” means ““must””, of course. What may be recorded is, for instance,"““a photograph of his head and shoulders””." How many jokers in this country will stand with their backs to the camera? They will not have broken the requirements of paragraph 2: it will be perfectly lawful for people to allow the backs of their heads and shoulders to be photographed for the purposes of the schedule. Members may say that that is a minor and a flippant point, but it highlights the stupidity of this part of the Bill. It should also be borne in mind that the eyes of some members of the ethnic minorities do not respond to the biometric readers in quite the same way. The same applies to those who have had cataract operations. Why should people of my parents’ generation, who now have eye problems such as cataracts and who fought for their country in the 1940s to prevent it from being overrun by a state of this kind, now endure the embarrassment of not being read properly by biometric readers, and possibly be denied access to the health service, local libraries and all the other public services that the Government seem to want to provide?