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Identity Cards Bill

My Lords, as noble Lords may have guessed, I have missed a few sessions of this Bill and so lost the cadence of the House a little. Coming back, I have to say that not much has changed. I feel as though I am in a small corner of Britain which is somehow disconnected from what is happening in the rest of the country. It has been my view from the start that while of course it is true that there are issues of liberty as well as security in this, the real point is that the proposed Bill is about identity and about people strengthening their identity. In that context, the state and the Secretary of State are not enemies of the people, but helpers or enablers of the people. This complete failure to understand where the public is on the issue is beyond me. My noble friend at the Dispatch Box has reminded us that the Labour Party fought an election on ID cards. This is not just a public opinion thing. Members of the public want them, profoundly. They want them because they want to be able to assert their identity and they do not see the Secretary of State as some kind of villain in this, but as a friend in this new world. Of course noble Lords may feel that they have won the odd vote, and so they have. But I can tell them this: in the end, while they may have won the odd battle, the war will be won over here. In the end, the public will not be denied. This is a fundamental issue. It is not just of public concern; it addresses the forces and changes of the new politics that will happen. Over time, noble Lords will come to understand that it is right that this is done. It is not the case that the state is the enemy of the people. The people have many enemies. This Bill will help to protect them from the real enemies they face.