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Identity Cards

I certainly have, and I have taken into account their source. Could it be the same source that predicted that we would have little more than 50,000 immigrants from central and eastern Europe, and then the figure ended up at 750,000? The source that the hon. Gentleman is quoting is responsible for the worst Government forecast on record; if he is happy with its authority, all I can say is heaven help us. I fear that the Government may try to deprive us of access to public services unless we sign up to ID cards. The cards may not be mandatory in legislation, but they may increasingly be required to access possibly every type of public service, including health care, education, leisure facilities and public transport—the list is potentially endless. In the Government report entitled "Safeguarding Identity" published last month, officials state that the ability to provide high-quality public services efficiently""is dependent on our ability to know who everyone is, wherever and whenever they need a service"." I do not understand why biometric information needs to be stored on a national centralised database in order for me to tell a doctor or a nurse who I am. On a practical level, making ordinary life dependent on the reliability of a complex administrative system makes the inevitable myriad small errors potentially catastrophic. At every level and every turn, the entire national identity register scheme, including ID cards, is flawed. It will not prevent terrorism, illegal working or crime, and it will not protect us against identity fraud—it might even make the problem more difficult to disentangle. Why are we doing it? I am forced to conclude that Ministers have no real grasp of why they want ID cards and the database, other than that it can be done.