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Identity Cards Bill

My Lords, the noble Viscount has made an extremely important point that may not have struck most of us. The Bill is a rather ominous sign of the extent to which government has been taken over by spin. One of the main reasons why people have not been as willing to vote as they should be is that they dislike too much spin. Spin has been mounting. It has been the most enormous spin to say to the public: ““We are offering you a Bill under which, if you want it, you will get a voluntary identity card that will protect you in all sorts of ways””. Some time later, as the Bill went through Parliament, the Government have admitted that it is intended to be compulsory and that all those facts about you will have to be on the register, whether you like it or not. That is the simple point. It was spin. It was an easy way to get people to accept the idea of identity cards from the beginning. The noble Lord, Lord Gould, said from the Government Benches that there had been various polls in which people said that they wanted identity cards. That was a response to the spin. We are now faced with the compulsion about which noble Lords have spoken. Later, we may probe the question of how we handle the way in which that compulsion is finally brought about through the Bill, but that was a big spin. It has done a lot of damage to public trust in Parliament; trust in Members of Parliament; and, perhaps, in the Lords—trust in government. That is far more damaging than the Bill itself. This is a good amendment. The noble Lord, Lord Phillips, made an extremely good speech. He was quite alone on his Benches when he started, until a couple of people trickled in—luckily, before he had finished. He looked a lonely figure but it was a splendid speech. I agreed with every word of it. I support the amendment.