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Identity Cards

I put my name down to speak in the debate partly because, as mentioned earlier, I proposed the introduction of identity cards before it became fashionable on the Labour Benches. I benefited not only from the support of the hon. Member for Epsom and Ewell (Chris Grayling) but from that of the Liberal Democrat spokesman, the hon. Member for Winchester (Mr. Oaten) and that of the distinguished hon. Member for North Norfolk (Norman Lamb). When the hon. Member for Eastleigh (Chris Huhne) said that the Liberal Democrats had consistently opposed the policy, he was forgetting the record of his colleagues and his predecessor. However, I was not totally on message when I presented my Bill, and I will not be totally on message tonight either, because I think that there is a case for delaying the implementation of the card aspects of the scheme. I shall say more about that shortly. One of the striking features of public opinion over the years is how stably it has remained in favour of this project, despite almost universal media opposition to it. Barely a single newspaper is prepared to put in a good word for the identity card scheme; the reason why support remains quite strong—significantly stronger than support for any of the three major parties, I would say—is that people feel, intuitively, that it makes sense. I think that people should ask themselves two basic questions before deciding whether, in principle, they favour an identity scheme. First, they should ask how often they actually wish to pretend to be someone else. Secondly, they should ask how concerned they would be if someone pretended to be them. Most people would reply "I never want to pretend to be someone else, and I would be concerned if someone pretended to be me." On the basis of intuition, it is still widely accepted that it is a good idea to have a way of verifying the basic claim that people are who they claim to be. We are one of the very few countries in the world where establishing someone's identity consists in part of their producing a gas bill. There is a lot to be said for a verifiable approach.