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Identity Cards

The Scottish National party has always opposed the identity card, and we will continue to oppose it. We will join the Conservatives and Liberal Democrats tonight in the Lobby. I agree very much with the hon. Member for Eastleigh (Chris Huhne), and it is a great pity that the Liberal Democrat amendment was not selected, because it goes to the crux of the matter. We have always been concerned about the confusion regarding the purpose of the identity card. It was first proposed after 9/11 by the then Prime Minister, Tony Blair, to fight terrorism. It seems to have gone through many rotations since. It became the solution to whatever problem happened to be uppermost in the Government's mind—benefit fraud, people trafficking or whatever. Frankly, the scheme has never been credible because of that. The arguments hit a new low tonight when the Home Secretary effectively said that the scheme was for the convenience of the citizen, who could carry a small card rather than a passport or other documents to prove their identity. That might be useful, but it is not worth at least £5 billion of public money. There is another serious concern about identity cards. It was mentioned that during the second world war, everyone carried an identity card. I do not think that we can quite equate the current situation with war time. In any event, even then there was what the Americans call mission creep, since the identity card went from having three purposes to 39. In 1951, the English High Court said:""This Act was passed for security purposes, and not for the purposes for which, apparently, it is now sought to be used."" In other words, the identity card took on more and more functions. We must be clear, given the Home Secretary's recent announcement, that the identity card is not dead. Biometric passports are proposed. I understand that 80 per cent. of the population carry a passport, so there will be a large number of such passports in circulation. Will those passports effectively become ID cards? That seems to be the way things are moving. I am deeply concerned that we might get into a position in which the Government say that a person cannot access health or other services unless they produce a specific piece of identity, whether that is an identity card or a biometric passport. I do not see why we citizens should need to do that, but in the case of many services, the Government determine what identification is needed. It seems that we are moving towards effective compulsion by the back door, because one will either carry the document or not access services. That is very disreputable.