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Road Safety Bill [HL]

My Lords, I normally thank the Minister for his answer but today, as he said himself, he has not given us any information other than that we debated in Committee. I shall repeat our concerns. The Minister said that the Government ““have no plans”” to designate the driving licence as part of the identity card scheme and that this matter will be put to Parliament in the form of an affirmative order. We all know that that means that, although there may be some debate, the matter will sail through. We feel that there is far too close a link between the potential identity card legislation and this suggestion from the Government. We want to stop fraud and make certain that driving licences are used legitimately, but to replace 22 million licences would involve enormous cost. The Minister gave us no idea the cost, but he did talk about £60 million a year for a proportion of the licences, so we are talking about a tremendous cost, either to the state or to the individual. A lot of that money would be better spent on other road safety measures. We are debating a road safety Bill and if we are talking about, possibly, hundreds of millions of pounds, I am sure that many noble Lords have better ideas for saving lives and improving safety than spending this enormous amount on licences. I have an old paper licence. They are being phrased out. As one gets one’s new licence, one gets a new photographic licence. As the Minister said, fraud has been less prevalent with the new type of licence. So, under the current situation with no new legislation—no new clauses—people will have a better licence. I feel that these two clauses are a step too far. They give the Government too many powers and pose enormous potential cost on either the motorist or the state. I think that we should test the feeling of the House on the matter. On Question, Whether the said amendment (No. 38) shall be agreed to? Their Lordships divided: Contents, 166; Not-Contents, 158