---

Identity Cards Bill

My Lords, as the noble Lords, Lord Pearson and Lord Stoddart, know, all passports in Europe at the moment have ““European Union”” on the front cover and the inside cover in 12 languages. The problem now is in how many other languages it will be. We will have sovereignty over our own passports. The problem is not the passport, but the identity register. I have already received representations from Italy, France and Germany opposing wholeheartedly the full flat-out gallop at which we are going in this direction, way ahead of anyone else. The Germans do not like it at all and have suggested that the Commission may get hold of this idea before long, and in the interests of something else ask for an exchange of information from the identity register. This country has a good passport office. It went through a bad time for a while, but it is probably the best in the world at the moment. There is a certain friendliness and a welcoming approach among our immigration officers. Perhaps they have a new instruction to be friendly. There are differences, however. I return to Germany, which has the biggest single population—80 million or so—in the EU. As noble Lords may be aware, passports in Germany are issued with identity cards by the Oberbürgermeister—the mayor. It is a regional and a local activity; it is not centralised. Part of the Germans’ fear is that information will be centralised, and they will strongly oppose any activity of the sort that might happen in Brussels. I must not refer to my Italian friends as wops, because I have done that before. Noble Lords will be fully aware that ““wop”” is not an insulting word. It was introduced when we invaded Italy in the Second World War when the fascisti threw away their papers. They were named ““without papers””—they were wops. A great advantage of our democracy is that we are not frightened about being without papers. We may be wops, but we are who we are, and long may we remain so.