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Identity Cards Bill

While I agree with everything that my noble friend Lady Anelay has just said about this aspect of what she accurately described as a skeleton Bill, I rise to support Amendment No. 117A, which relates to Clause 6(1). This provision would have done credit to the informed and perceptive imagination of George Orwell. Subsection (1) states:"““The Secretary of State may by order impose an obligation on individuals of a description specified in the order to be entered in the Register””." Lo and behold, it then goes on to say:"““An order . . . may impose an obligation on individuals required to be entered in the Register to apply””" to be so entered. Not only can the Secretary of State therefore require someone to be entered in the register who does not want to be—indeed, who wants not to be—the measure goes on, with sublime artistry, to oblige him to apply to be entered. Not even Big Brother in 1984 or the pigs thought of imposing that on poor decent old Boxer, who gradually came to find himself subjected to a status intolerably subordinate to them. At least Orwell did not fashion a scheme obliging him to ask for just that. Therefore, this amendment ought to be supported because without subsection (1), subsection (2), which is my real target, would fall.