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Identity Cards

My hon. Friend puts that well. I cannot answer for the Home Secretary, but I am sure that the Minister for Borders and Immigration heard what my hon. Friend said and will comment on it later. I am worried that we will have a position whereby different people hold different sorts of identity document. Foreign nationals resident in this country will have to have an identity card; they are obliged to have them. Others, in the north of England, starting in Manchester—even though only 3,500 people said that they wanted an identity card—and now in other northern parts of the country, will be entitled to apply for identity cards. However, people in the rest of the country, if they choose not to do so, will not have such a card. As my hon. Friend the Member for North-West Leicestershire (David Taylor) pointed out, having an identity card will become compulsory only when a certain percentage of the population has opted for one. Before that happens, primary legislation is required in order to be in a position to make them compulsory. That is the first practical problem. Although one takes an intellectual position about whether one supports the concept of identity cards, the practical implications, especially given the Home Secretary's actions last week, mean that some residents in this country will have identity cards and others will not, and some citizens will have voluntary cards because they happen to live in Manchester or Newcastle, while others, for example in Leicester, will not. We therefore have not a fudge, but a bit of a shambles.