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Identity Cards Bill

Certainly not. The Under-Secretary, who sits and heckles, gets it all wrong, and will not take part in the debate, now wants to take part on an à la carte basis. This is a table d’hôte proposal by the Government and they are going to get a table d’hôte response from me. The latest argument is the ludicrous—I use that word advisedly—assertion by the Home Secretary that having an ID card will limit the intrusions of the state upon the person. That is an extraordinary argument. If that were not daft enough, the Home Secretary tells us that citizens will find having an ID card useful, and even valuable. The technology director of Microsoft, no less, pointed out that the identity register will be a honeypot for hackers, fraudsters, thieves and terrorists. It will worsen the risk of identity theft. Far from being an infallible security system, we hear this week that the Government intend to rely on chip and pin technology to protect the card, the same technology that we have used for years in the common, everyday Visa card. So much for improving our personal security.