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Identity Cards Bill

moved Amendment No. 120A:"Page 39, line 15, leave out ““Cards”” and insert ““Register””" The noble Lord said: My Lords, this is probably an extraordinarily simple amendment, but it has an ulterior motive that is absolutely clear. I want to try to get us back on the right track. Identity cards for some purposes are a good thing. If that were made clear, life might be a little bit easier. But the identity register, if it is not correctly understood and correctly produced to the nation, is a bad thing. If you mix good with bad, you get something indifferent. So my proposal is that this Bill, as I suggested on 15 November and other noble Lords suggested at various times during its passage, should not be known as the Identity Cards Bill, but simply as the Identity Register Bill. Whether that register will prove to be a good thing over time is another matter, but one of the difficulties that we have had during the passage of this Bill is in distinguishing between compulsory and voluntary. If we pursued the voluntary objective, we would find much more support than we do at the moment with the fear of a register. This fear is more international than national. Other countries are seen not to have the same obligations as us. I therefore suggest to the Minister and her colleagues that if they simply change ““cards”” to ““register”” in the Title of the Bill, it would be more accurate. In order to be sure about this, I rang one of my old English dons and asked whether he would be kind enough to read it through. In my university days, we would often be asked to précis large texts, sometimes to not more than a quarter of their original length, and sometimes to only three words. This Bill would be better if it was known as the Identity Register Bill rather than the Identity Cards Bill. I beg to move.