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Identity Cards Bill

The right hon. Gentleman may be further concerned to hear that, before we broke for the recess in July, I tabled 10 or 12 written parliamentary questions to a number of Departments of State to find out what steps they had taken to prepare for the national register and the identity card system. Not one of them, not even the Home Office, was able to say that it had done anything meaningful to prepare for the scheme. The Treasury, the Department of Health, the Department for Work and Pensions, the Ministry of Defence, the Northern Ireland Office—none of them had done anything sensible to meet the right hon. Gentleman’s Committee’s concerns.