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Identity Cards Bill

My Lords, I listened with great interest to the noble and learned Lord, Lord Ackner, bringing back the amendment in an improved form. As he said, he is trying to reflect fairly the response given by the noble Lord, Lord Bassam of Brighton, to an amendment of mine which I had, of course, intended in all seriousness in Committee, but for some reason the House seemed to find a little frivolous at the time. The reason why I did not bring it back on Report—because as the House will know I like to help the Government on each and every occasion—was that I realised that the Government were in a complete mess on this and that on this occasion the mess was so comprehensive that I could not find a way out of it for them. In Committee, the noble Lord, Lord Bassam, said that the Government needed some measure of flexibility in the format of paragraph (b), and therefore they needed to be able to compel us to register a range of names; not just our principal name but others by which we are now, or have been previously, known. I am about to say two things, one of which I think will bring comfort to the noble and learned Lord, Lord Ackner, and the other of which I think he will wish that I had not said. I shall say the nice thing first. When the noble Lord, Lord Bassam of Brighton, referred to flexibility, he went on to say:"““The register has been designed . . . to accommodate the fact that a number of people use more than one name””.—[Official Report, 23/11/05; col. 1636.]" He then said that the Government needed this flexibility to cope with identity fraud and the problems that that causes. I hope that the Minister will bring a more effective argument than that to the House on this occasion. When the Government published their figures about identity fraud on 2 February and made extravagant claims about its extent and the importance of this Bill in tackling it, they then found that their claims were blown apart by the very body which provided those statistics; that is, APACS, the Association for Payment Clearing Services. It said that the cost of identity fraud that the Government had put forward had been grossly overestimated and that its own figures had been misrepresented. Ministers included in their total the cost of money laundering, but the Home Office admits that only ““illustrative figures”” were involved and that,"““no figures are currently available on the proportion of money laundering that relies on identity fraud””." Furthermore, the Government claim that APACS put the cost of ID fraud linked to plastic cards at £504 million, but a spokeswoman for APACS then said that the real figure was less than £37 million. She said:"““The £504 million is the total losses for plastic cards. It is not just identity fraud on cards. Within that overall figure, there will be some cards stolen in the post, some skimmed or cloned, some lost or stolen””." When asked why she thought that the Home Office had used the larger sum, she said:"““I just think they think it’s a good story to scare people with””." In Committee, the noble Lord, Lord Bassam, cited identity fraud as the driving argument for subsection (b). I hope that he will be able to bring a more sturdy argument for the necessity of the subsection to the House. I now come to the part of my remarks which will not please the noble and learned Lord, Lord Ackner. I reflected on the can of worms that we had opened in Committee. The argument that persuaded me that however bad subsection (b) was I could not yet find a satisfactory way out of it is as follows: if the House were to accept the noble and learned Lord’s amendment, its drafting would mean that we would have the option to register any name other than our current principal name. The noble and learned Lord gave admirable reasons why we should have that option. My concern centres around the problem of how we then ensure that the multiple identities of those who have been, and are, serious criminals or terrorists—either living within this country, or outwith it before coming to live here—are registered on the national identity register. If there is any argument for its use, it should be that of national security. That is an argument that we pursued throughout Committee and Report. We still say that much better and more effective ways of ensuring national security exist than by using this intrusive, bureaucratic identity register. However, if the Government were to accept the noble and learned Lord’s amendment, there could be difficulties in obtaining the very information about terrorists which we would all wish to have readily available to the police and to immigration officials when they check that register. The Minister may of course surprise us all and accept the noble and learned Lord’s amendment, but if he is not going to do so, I hope that he will make a more robust response than he did in Committee and also recognise that the Government, by the very drafting of this Bill, have done exactly what the noble and learned Lord, Lord Ackner, said and left the position as an unknown. Members of the public will not find that a very convenient way of registering their names when they read Clause 7(1)(b).