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Identity Cards

The hon. Gentleman anticipates my next comment. The database would provide a check against the issue of duplicate passports or ID cards with the same biometric data. However, the Government have not provided any evidence that there would be a substantial problem. Nothing in what the Home Office has proposed indicates that it would be worth paying £5 billion for that benefit—let alone the £20 billion that the LSE estimates the project will ultimately cost us. Other states do not think that there would be a substantial problem. Those lucky European states that we inoculated after the war against nanny state intrusion, such as Germany—not Sweden, I should say the hon. Member for Battersea (Martin Linton)—do not allow such centralised databases, and for very good reason. They know how databases can be abused; they suffered from them during the Nazi period and under Vichy France. That is why we should not begin to go down this route.