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Identity Cards Bill

My Lords, the Minister has offered some reassuring words, but I do not see how a proper check is being provided when the person who is supposed to be the check on the system is appointed by and reports to the person controlling at the top. It is a bit like having a corporate bank account with only one signature on it. No one would ever allow that to happen in business. You would be labelled as a total lunatic if you did it. I still have that feeling, and this self-certification and internal checking that has started to appear in many of the Bills that come to us from the Executive concerns me. We must remember that this scheme was first floated by the Home Office to a Conservative administration, although it did not get anywhere, and has been floated time and again. We must remember that Parliament is here to act as a check on the Executive. That is what Magna Carta was about, and we forget that at our peril. It may be said that the country effectively votes for an executive at the elections, but it is really voting for a slate in Parliament. We sometimes get confused when we think about exactly which hat the Executive is wearing when it sits in Parliament. When members of the Cabinet are in Parliament, they are sitting as legislators, the people who control the Executive. They sometimes forget that. We ought to maintain some of these checks, and it is with great regret that I see these amendments being turned down by the other place, which ought to know better.