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Identity Cards Bill

My Lords, when, on the sixth day in Committee, amendments were moved to ensure that the commissioner would review and report on the extent to which there were proper arrangements for securing the confidentiality and integrity of the information recorded in the register and that there were effective arrangements for dealing with complaints, the Minister argued, at col. 1519 of the Official Report, that it was not necessary to do so as the spirit of the amendments was already reflected in Clause 24 and because the existing complaints procedures were more than adequate. She has now taken a welcome step forward and her new Amendment No. 77 is certainly helpful. The Minister has argued that the amendments moved by the noble Lord, Lord Phillips of Sudbury, are largely drafting amendments and do not add very much. He said that they were improving amendments but did not pursue most of them with any great determination. I think that there is a rather stronger case to be made out for them. In our last debate on these issues, the noble Lord, Lord Thomas of Gresford, pointed out that the commissioner’s role was confined to considering structures and frameworks. The amendments tabled by the noble Lord, Lord Phillips, tighten up the new subsection to ensure that the commissioner will not just examine appropriate provision but will consider whether the arrangements really are effective and work in practice. The issue of complaints had been raised by the Select Committee on the Constitution in paragraph 7 of its third report. The last time that we debated this matter, the Minister argued:"““It would be wrong to give the commissioner a formal role in the investigation of complaints””." She repeated that argument this afternoon. She then said that it would be a routine function that the new agency would need to fulfil and that the United Kingdom Passport Service already had a tried and tested system for dealing with complaints. On that occasion, she did not appear to recognise that the handling of complaints about the accuracy of the register and the uses to which it will be put is not at all the same as the handling of complaints about the manner in which passports are issued. The Minister went on to give us a description of what she believed was a satisfactory complaints procedure. She said:"““There is an existing four-stage complaints procedure which includes a review by the local customer service manager, followed, if not satisfied, by a review by the headquarters’ customer service department. If not satisfied, a complainant can write through their MP to the Passport Service chief executive or a Home Office Minister and then, as I have already said, to the Parliamentary Commissioner for Administration—the ombudsman””.—[Official Report, 19/12/05; col. 1520.]" Anyone who has had to deal with the so-called ““customer service”” organisation of any large body—as I have had to do recently—will know what a nightmare it can be. After a long session in which you are asked to key in various numbers on your telephone and a prolonged lecture—admittedly, usually imposed by some regulator—about your rights, you then listen for probably a quarter of hour, at your expense, while someone says that you are a customer and your custom is greatly valued. Eventually you get through, only to be moved on to someone else and to have to wait for another 22 minutes—as happened to me the other day—before you get connected. If the Minister had had the privilege which some of us have had of being a Member of Parliament and going through the procedures by which you pass on complaints to Ministers and the ombudsman, then I do not think that she would have read that part of Sir Humphrey’s draft with quite the confidence she did on the last occasion. It seems a far from satisfactory set of arrangements. Amendment No. 83, in my name and that of my noble friend Lady Anelay, will give the commissioner the responsibility of setting up a system for dealing with complaints that tailor the whole thing to the requirements of the register. It would not give the commissioner himself the job of dealing with detailed complaints. I agree with the Minister that that should not be his role. The final amendment in this group, Amendment No. 84, which is in my name and that of my noble friend Lady Anelay, takes up the issue raised by the Minister on 19 December, at col. 1523, when she attempted to justify the fact that the Bill requires the commissioner’s reports to be made to the Secretary of State and not to Parliament on the ground that the Secretary of State must have the right to exclude sensitive material concerning security and crime prevention. It is hard to see why that should be necessary if the commissioner is specifically precluded from keeping those matters under review, as he is by Clause 24(3). We understand perfectly well, however, why there needs to be a protecting mechanism, and our Amendment No. 84, which will be very relevant when we debate the next group of amendments, maintains the necessary safeguards but allows the commissioner to keep under review general policy matters, particularly issues of substantial public interest that may arise from particular cases without, of course, going into the details of those cases in a way that could prejudice security or crime prevention. That is a sensible way in which to proceed, and I hope that the House will agree.