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Identity Cards Bill

My Lords, I am happy to respond to that point. The report is by a research team operating within the London School of Economics. The noble Lord can see from the report the large number of people from the London School of Economics who are working on it. That is quite normal for research projects. As I said in my opening remarks—when I do not believe the noble Lord was in his place—the director of the London School of Economics has given his support to previous reports and to the report that was issued at the weekend. He stands by its description as coming from the London School of Economics. We also asked for costs from other departments but drew a blank. We asked for details in a number of Written Questions but the Answers that we received largely indicated that many government departments, including the Foreign and Commonwealth Office, were not fully signed up to involvement in this scheme. That raises the big issue of whether other departments will engage with the scheme or whether it will remain a stand-alone Home Office scheme. There are unanswered questions there. We asked for information about the 44,000 private sector organisations which according to the market-sounding document are supposed to be engaging with the system. We asked how that will work and who will pay for it and bear the costs. There was silence. Parliament deserves better. We must give the other place an opportunity to approve the costs and the benefits and to decide about affordability. The amendment is about the costs and benefits of the scheme and about parliamentary scrutiny. I have made it clear that the scrutiny to which I am referring is the scrutiny of the other place. The amendment is not about the principle of the Bill. The noble Lord, Lord Campbell-Savours, talked about a Joint Committee and that may well have been a good way for the Bill to have proceeded at an earlier stage, but the Government declined the opportunity to do that. This issue is so important that I wish to seek the opinion of the House. On Question, Whether the said amendment (No. 1) shall be agreed to? Their Lordships divided: Contents, 237; Not-Contents, 156 [Amendments Nos. 2 and 3 not moved.]