---

Identity Cards Bill

Would the noble Lord accept that there is a very important distinction to be drawn between ID cards, which many of us who find the Bill objectionable would potentially be prepared to support, and the national identity register? The fiction keeps on being trotted out that the public are in support of the Bill because they support ID cards. But the Bill is not fundamentally about ID cards. It is about the national identity register. I concur with all my noble friends who have intimated that their judgment is that the population of the country would be much less inclined to support the Bill if they properly understood its parameters.