---

Identity Cards Bill

My Lords, I tell the noble Lord, Lord Thomas of Gresford, that this Government have done a considerable amount to try to make sure that those who are entitled to receive benefit but do not claim it have the advantage of claiming it. He will know that we have put in place schemes to assist particularly those who are disadvantaged by age and disability—there is cross-checking made across that whole area to try to ensure that, for example, a person with a disability who needs extra money actually gets it. I heard the noble Lord’s cynicism, but I assure noble Lords that this Government have already taken many steps to try to make sure that those who are entitled to benefit receive it—not least because if they receive benefit that takes them above the poverty threshold they do not get so ill and we can look after them better. Perhaps we may stick to the amendment. It is not necessary, because narrowing the public interest to preventing illegal or fraudulent access to public services would not allow us the full benefit of the Bill. I should reiterate a point in relation to the register. I know that many people have said much about the register, but the database that we will have in relation to biometric passports will mean that that information will be held and available in any event. We need to understand that, and we would be looking to use this scheme to help to make the delivery of public services better. That means helping to deliver services more efficiently and effectively in the interest of the public as taxpayers and as users of services. Inefficiency in public services is of no benefit to anyone. Transforming public services will be helped by being able to provide a secure, reliable and fast way of confirming identity. That is why we believe it would be wrong to regard the use of identity cards as simply a guard against fraud. Combating fraud will be one of the purposes of the identity cards scheme—a very important one—but not the only one. We should not limit the use of identity cards in helping to deliver better public services. It is not just a question of combating fraudulent use of public services; it is also about helping to transform those services. We believe that the public will want the introduction of identity cards to be used as a way of helping public services to deliver quicker and better services. Why should we have to keep filling in different forms with details of our name and address? If production of an identity card when seeking access to a public service can confirm our identity quickly and easily, surely we should be aiming to provide that. If producing an identity card enables address details to be confirmed, that will help both the public service and the applicant for that service. I have spoken previously about the Criminal Records Bureau, which has to be certain of the identity of anyone who is seeking a criminal records check. However, mistakes are made in identifying people, and since 2004 there have been over 1,000 occasions where applicant details supplied by the Criminal Records Bureau to the police led to conviction details being matched mistakenly with an applicant. If one considers the number of John James Smiths who may have been born on any given date in any hospital in our country, one can see the way that mistakes can arise. An identity card check would provide a much more reliable method of confirming the person’s true identity and so avoid those kinds of mistakes.