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Identity Cards Bill

My Lords, it was debated at length in the Commons and debated in this House. To put this to rest, I shall be happy to go through the chronology, because we need to make sure that the issue is finally dealt with comprehensively. The first phase was to enable a sensible phased introduction of identity cards. Once passports and residence permits are designated it means that, as British nationals resident in the United Kingdom renew or apply for their passports, and as foreign nationals apply for or renew their residence permits, they will be entered on the national identity register and issued with ID cards. That should not come as a surprise to anyone, as I have said. When the Government issued our first consultation document in 2002 on what were then termed ““entitlement cards””—the noble Lord referred to that in opening this debate—one of the options canvassed was for a universal scheme linked to passports. When we announced the decision in principle to introduce identity cards—as long ago as November 2003—it was made clear that there would be a two-stage scheme. Again, it was stated that the second stage would be compulsory but, in the first stage, as well as introducing a voluntary plain identity card for those who did not have a passport, it was made clear that the intention was to link the issue of identity cards to that of more secure passports. Indeed, we stated in Identity Cards: The next steps—Cm 6020, the policy document published at the time—that:"““By linking the card scheme to widely held identity documents most people will get a card conveniently and automatically as they renew an existing document””." When we published the draft Identity Cards Bill in April 2004, not only was ““must”” included in Clause 5(2), just as it is now, but it was also in Clause 8(6) in the draft Bill, which is equivalent to Clause 8(7) in the present Bill. Again, we were very clear that in the first stage of the scheme there would be no possibility of obtaining a designated document, such as a passport, without an identity card. Paragraph 2.17 of the consultation paper on the draft Bill—Cm 6178—stated:"““Once a document such as a passport has been designated as an ID card, this will be the only form in which it will be available—i.e. there will be no ‘non-ID card’ variants. It would undermine confidence in the system if there were to be identity documents available on demand at different levels of security””.??"