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Identity Cards Bill

My Lords, I am grateful to the noble Lord, Lord Phillips, and the noble Baroness, Lady Anelay, for raising these issues, as it gives me the opportunity to confirm that these are just the sort of issues that will be included in secondary legislation. I am sure that the noble Lord, Lord Phillips, is right in his interpretation of Clause 41(4). I confirm that his amendment is entirely superfluous. The clause gives the Secretary of State the power to make exemptions in the cases to which he alluded. Officials from the ID cards programme met the RNIB on 2 December. The meeting was extremely productive, as ever, and the RNIB agreed to send the ID cards team its findings on how its members coped with the roll out of chip and pin to further understand the needs of disabled users of the ID card scheme. The next meeting with the RNIB is planned for March/April this year, and we intend to continue with this valuable dialogue both on policy and the technical side of matters. The ID cards programme will continue to engage with special interest groups, including those representing race, faith and trans-gender groups, and to further investigate the needs of disabled people. The noble Baroness, Lady Anelay, asked for specific information. Although she gave advance notice, for which I am grateful, I am not in a position to give specific details, as it is too early in the development of precise exemptions, in particular, and eligibility for home and mobile enrolment centres. I take the point about the hour-long journey. My journey takes me 50 minutes and I travel some 55 to 60 miles, so I understand the point that is being made. We shall have to give some flexible consideration to that. The issues raised by the noble Baroness are precisely the sort that we have to discuss with the representative groups—in particular, those with disabilities. We intend to do that. Today’s dialogue has been extremely valuable. Decisions have not yet been made and the special needs interest group will, I am sure, provide advice and feedback to the programme team on the very issues that the noble Baroness has raised. If I can, I will ensure that we will provide some more information before the Bill moves to another place. However, that may be a tall order because these are difficult and complex issues on which we wish to have detailed discussions with those who have a particular interest. More than that I cannot really say, but your Lordships can rest assured that we are extremely sympathetic with regard to these matters and are concerned to get them right.