---

Identity Cards Bill

My Lords, I ought to briefly point out two problems with Commons Amendment No. 70A which we are about to accept. First, subsection (3) allows huge capacity for creative accounting, because the cost of issuing passports is not there. It would therefore be easy to offload a lot of the costs of issuing ID cards on to the issuing of passports. Secondly, in order to deliver the stated benefits in the Bill, you have to integrate or interface with a lot of other government systems. Again, it would be possible to put those integration costs into another budget so that they do not appear in these figures. This is a warning to people who scrutinise these things in future: look out for that. Try to look at some of the other things. Lastly, in subsection (4), it would easy to hide any difficulties by citing commercial confidentiality. I hope that the secrecy over the government Gateway reviews which have so far taken place will not extend into this area as well; otherwise the worst things are hidden from us, and will continue to be hidden.