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Identity Cards Bill

For the reasons that we have been putting forward in many of our debates on this measure, I think it is exceedingly unlikely that that would be the case. Many departments have already begun to identify cost benefits in wanting, at a future stage, to invest in reading and verification equipment and so forth. As I said in my contribution and as my noble friend Lady Scotland made plain yesterday in one of her contributions on the issue of costs, already even at what could be said to be this early stage in the life of the development of the ID card scheme, some of the cost-reduction analysis and research undertaken shows up very clear benefits. I think that our discussion about the Inland Revenue and its ability to access information probably highlights the help that the scheme will be to that department and, no doubt, to other enforcement agencies in recovering revenues lost to HM Revenue & Customs in terms of moneys to the public purse. So there will be benefits. It is inevitable and highly desirable that other areas of the public service should buy into those benefits. That will be of assistance to us and to the Government as a whole.