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Identity Cards Bill

My Lords, I am sorry that the Minister will be delayed a little, but I am afraid her noble friend Lord Gould has made it essential for me to say a few words. If he believes that the British people are profoundly in favour of the Bill, then he is sadly out of touch. I confess that so far I have not received one letter in favour of the Bill, but I have had many opposed to it. Indeed, I have had a letter from a number of my former constituents, who earlier this month conducted a straw poll in Swindon. They found that of the 400 people they contacted, eight were in favour of ID cards, and of those eight, six were uninformed about the national identity register. When they found out about it, they changed their minds. The poll suggested 398 to two against ID cards in my former constituency. So it is by no means certain that the people of this country are profoundly in favour of ID cards and a national identity register as proposed by this Bill. I thought I would put forward those points because I know that the noble Lord, Lord Gould, likes to listen to debates, even though he does not take part in them too often. I hope that my remarks are helpful to him.