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Identity Cards Bill

My Lords, I am very happy to concede that it is theoretically possible for that to occur if the scheme were implemented in a way that was properly connected to the Inland Revenue, at a cost which was not disproportionate to the benefits that were obtained by the Inland Revenue. We have obtained no information whatever on any of that. Before the noble Lord intervened, I was talking about the need for this ID card scheme to rest on large and complex IT systems. Many noble Lords referred in Committee to the Government’s poor record in implementing major IT systems, but that is not part of our case on this amendment. However, freedom of information requests have produced no useful information on the gateway reviews or the risk registers that government projects are supposed to draw up. This is in marked contrast with projects in other parts of government. When we add this secrecy to the secrecy about costs, we see one of the most opaque and unsatisfactory set of proposals that Parliament has ever had to consider. For that reason, an additional process of scrutiny of costs and benefits in another place is an essential addition to this Bill. I beg to move.