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Identity Cards Bill

My Lords, this amendment is essential. During the early stages of seeing whether the ID card scheme works, we will see examples of petty officialdom acting ultra vires and trying to control movements when they should not do so. Perhaps it will be irritating to have your position vis-à-vis parking fines and other minor infringements checked before you leave the country to go on holiday. That is perfectly feasible and probably sensible, but what if an appeal is pending and it has not been registered properly? What if one evening you are mugged or your pocket is picked and your ID card is lost, but you have to travel shortly afterwards; how will you get another ID card to do so? Those noble Lords who have tried to use their House of Lords ID card to get on an aeroplane to Scotland will know that it is not a sufficient proof of identity. Lots of issues may arise. In the light of our experience, we may want to return to primary legislation to introduce stronger safeguards for the ordinary citizen. To trust an executive department of state to introduce those protections is foolhardy. History has taught us that that is unwise. We should also remember that all the assurances given to us by the noble Baroness on the Front Bench, while completely honest at the moment, must be taken in the light that no Parliament can bind its successor. After the next general election, Ministers may well change their minds entirely. Indeed, on certain other issues we have seen the same Minister come back to this House with completely different opinions after a general election. None of this is set in stone and therefore it must be set out in primary legislation. Indeed, we may well find by then that local authority entitlement cards and others of that nature are quite sufficient for our purposes, and that we do not need to waste our money. Perhaps we will want to introduce legislation to ensure that they are better used. So many different things could come out of the trial period we are about to enter that merely to move on to the next stage by a super-affirmative order-making procedure is foolish and foolhardy. We must go back to primary legislation in order to move further down this track.