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Security Industry Authority

My Lords, I thank the noble Baroness for that question. She is absolutely right on IT systems, which worried me in my last incarnation for some 10 to 12 years. We do not have a good record and, I have to say, neither do private companies in this regard, but we live in a world where we have to get these things right. A lot of it is not just to do with the technology but with changing how we operate and how someone constructs their organisation. Those things are terribly difficult and I would not want to underestimate that. For example, although it is not my specific area, I am looking into the EU borders area in great detail, and the Home Office is making sure that it focuses on it—because these things can easily go wrong. If we do not focus on them, we have no chance in this global world of ours of moving on and countering these various threats. I did not answer the question asked by the noble Baroness, Lady O’Cathain. I am terribly sorry; I went away with the fairies or something. The noble Baroness made a valid point about ID cards. She is absolutely right that people can create exact copies of them. However, it is rather like someone robbing one’s house. One may have a burglar alarm, bars and all these things, but if someone focuses totally on robbing one’s house, it is very difficult to stop them getting in. I am afraid that the same is true of ID cards. You need a real specialist to spot a fake one that someone has put a huge effort into creating. There may be many other things against ID cards but generally, in purely counter-terrorist terms, I have no doubt whatever that they will make the situation easier. They will not resolve the problem—nothing on its own will resolve the problem—but they will make the situation easier.