---

Identity Cards Bill

I am very grateful to the Home Secretary for giving way because it enables me to prevent him from carrying on unwittingly misleading this House. He insists on repeating the canard that the biometric passport obligation has something to do with the national identity register system that he wishes to set up. The obligation under the biometric passport system is to provide a system whereby passport officers can read biometrics at the port of entry; it has nothing whatever to do with the entry into the national identity register system that this Government are trying to achieve by stealth. If only they would come clean, they would have a much more sympathetic audience.