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Identity Cards Bill

My Lords, of course—but the whole impression that I got from the noble Baroness’s speech was that she was not listening to her new leader, who was concerned not to be as provocative as she was, and concentrate on costs. But I may be mistaken on that, too, and I apologise to the noble Baroness in advance if I am. Let me return to the whole question of costs. The fact is that the amendment, which I do not particularly like, although I shall support it, has a lot of faults, because it talks not about facts but about estimates. We can dispute whether the LSE’s assumptions and estimates are right or whether the Government’s are right. I am bound to say that looking at estimates is generally not done well by the Comptroller and Auditor General. I speak from a modest four years as chairman of the Public Accounts Committee. My noble friend Lord Sheldon could do better—he served as chairman for three parliamentary terms. The plain fact is that the Comptroller and Auditor General prefers to look at facts and then compare them with estimates previously made by any government. As the House will know, the Public Accounts Committee and the C&AG do not generally concern themselves with party politics, only with facts. The amendment asks the Comptroller and Auditor General to give a report on estimates, but I think he would find that rather difficult. We have now had a reply, in a letter from my noble friend Lady Scotland to the noble Baroness, Lady Anelay, dated 11 January, which was somehow copied to me, and I am grateful to her. Her answers on costs did not convince me. If she were really to tell us the truth of this, she would tell us that the Government do not know what the costs will be. That must be the case, and it would have been better if she had said so. They cannot know. I do not know if the LSE is right, or whether the Government are. Assumptions are bound to have been made, and we will only know later if they were right. That is one reason why I am not happy with the amendment, but I will come back to that. The Government seem to accept that there are problems with the estimates. The Minister’s replies in the debates we have had here and in the letter I have quoted emphasise the fact that they are concerned about costs. If so, I would have thought they would have no serious problem in accepting this amendment, because it only asks for a government report on estimates. The amendment rightly does not seek to define ““estimates”” in too much detail. It would be extremely difficult to provide any definition. Any government report of the kind addressed by this amendment would be easy for the Government to accept. They would get this report about estimates, which would be no better than all the information we have had already, and which would then go back to the House of Commons for consideration. One of the reasons I support this amendment, as, I think, the noble Baroness, Lady Noakes, said, is that it would give the other place a chance to rethink, which is what this House is all about. I believe that this House holds the Government more to account than the other place, but that is another matter. I am no longer in the other place. It might have been better then, but I am too modest to say so. I do not intend to say too much about the detail of the amendment, because it would be wrong to do so in this debate. The letter my noble friend sent to the noble Baroness, Lady Anelay, and copied to a number of us—perhaps it is in the Library; I do not know—refers to KPMG, which the noble Baroness, Lady Noakes, will know very well. I gather she was a major, serious and senior part of that organisation. The letter says:"““KPMG’s conclusion was that the vast majority of ICC cost assumptions were reasonable””—" but it does not stop there; it says:"““reasonable for this stage””." Of course, at this stage it is impossible to do better than that. That is why it is important for the Government to have an opportunity to rethink, although, as I say, I am not happy with the idea of relying on the Comptroller and Auditor General. Not that I do not have the highest possible regard for the C&AG; I do. My experience of the Comptroller and Auditor General has always been that we have been very fortunate, as has the other place, to have such high quality people in charge. They have presented excellent reports to the Public Accounts Committee, which have usually been dealt with very well by that all-party committee. However, this is not the occasion for the C&AG; it is more an occasion for the other place to have an opportunity to rethink. That is why, given my concern about costs, I very strongly support the amendment.