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Identity Cards Bill

My Lords, I have sympathy with the amendment that the noble Lord, Lord Phillips, has just moved. As he explained, it would limit the current drafting of the Bill. For the purpose of the national identity system, Clause 1(4)(b) would be:"““for the purposes of the prevention or detection of crime the sentence for which may be imprisonment or detention””." The amendment leads on from detailed debates that    we had in Committee regarding both the Government’s priority of the issues that they list as being in the public interest and both parties’ probing attempts to limit the Government’s broad definition of crime to that of serious crime. Indeed, my noble friend Lady Anelay noted in Committee that the Minister referred specifically on Second Reading to ““serious crime””, and not just to ““crime””, despite the drafting of the Bill. The noble Lord, Lord Phillips, and I are agreed that government drafting is too broad. However, on these Benches we are not convinced of what the final solution should be, as we are still in discussions with our colleagues in another place. As such, we cannot support the amendment, but I very much hope that the Minister will take the opportunity to outline exactly how they see this provision working. What definition of crime will it cover—will it involve fraud, theft or assault? I am sure that the House will be pleased to have further detailed clarification on this matter following debates in Committee.