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Identity Cards Bill

My Lords, the noble Lord says that he is listening to me. I hope that he will because I have been around a long time. Indeed, I was in the Labour Party for 54 years. It was a Labour Party which would not have dreamt of bringing forward a Bill of this kind. Nor in fact would it have brought forward many of the measures which the noble Lord, Lord Philips, outlined in his opening speech. I repeat that some of those measures have the elements of a fascist state. This country is preaching to many other countries about democracy. It wants democracy in Iraq; it wants democracy in Iran. It wants democracy everywhere except perhaps in this country whereby the measures that it is introducing are undermining the democracy which has been built up over many hundreds of years. I do not deny that those are strong statements. But the fact of the matter is that there is a creeping competence for all kinds of authorities in this country to have control over the individual. Let us consider some of the incidents of late. An author on the BBC makes a certain statement about homosexuals and before long the police are telephoning her or are on her doorstep asking her to justify those statements. That is just one instance. The police are becoming the arbiters of free speech. That is very serious indeed. Members of this House and of the House of Commons should understand exactly how their freedoms are being undermined by a host of measures which are coming forward piecemeal. If they do not do so they will find themselves in a state where the Government have complete and utter control over the individual; and, of course, in this country the freedom of the individual has always been the bedrock of our very democracy which we have exported, and still seek to export, to other countries. If we are not careful, there is a real danger that we shall be in the sort of society which many of us fought against in the last war. I know that my former noble friends do not like to hear me say these things, but perhaps it is proper that I should say them because I had been in the Labour Party for 54 years before they expelled me and therefore I do know what the Labour Party that I joined stood for. It did not stand for measures such as the identity card now being put forward by new Labour. We have before us a Bill that, in the first instance, is supposed to be a voluntary scheme. We have been assured that it will not be necessary, and that the Government will never make it necessary, for identity cards to be carried at all times. Yet on the ““Any Questions”” programme broadcast last Friday the noble and learned Lord the Lord Chancellor said, first, that they should be compulsory and that if they were not, they would not be any good; and, secondly, that they should be carried at all times. In other words, the police will be able to come up to you and say, ““Papers””, whether they say ““please”” or not.