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Identity Cards Bill

My Lords, the noble Earl, Lord Northesk, has tabled a practical amendment that gets to the heart of the principal area of concern about the Bill as a whole, which is how, and under what circumstances, sensitive information can be disclosed. As the noble Earl said in moving the amendment, given that we have a mishmash of provisions in the Bill—that is no one’s fault but just a function of a highly complex piece of legislation—there is every reason why the Secretary of State should have the practical task of pulling it all together and putting out guidance. Guidance is guidance; it is not law. However, it would be extremely helpful to those who will have to work this huge, complex bundle of rights and obligations and to those citizens whose information is collected and disclosed. I should have thought that that is totally with the flow of what the Government have been saying all along and the messages and the policy assurances that the Minister has regularly given. I do not see that this amendment does anything but support—in a sense, buttress—all that. It will provide a single place in which civil servants, the public and public authorities can see set out comprehensively what disclosure means and the reasonable limits that should surround it. I hope that this amendment will appeal to the Government.