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Identity Documents Bill

The hon. Member for South Swindon (Mr Buckland) was eloquent and I agree with much of what he said, above all about the centrality of the manifesto on which a party is elected. The Conservative party was elected on a very clear manifesto against the alternative vote, and of course Conservative Members are now marching into the Lobby to vote for a referendum on it. However, he will have to learn a lesson about politics that I have had to learn for much of my life, which is the pleasure of swallowing one's previous pledges and standing on one's head. On AV, which is far more important than this minor Bill, the Conservative party is doing both. The nation will duly take note. The hon. Member for Perth and North Perthshire (Pete Wishart) was wondrous in his eloquence. His speech was clearly a bid to join the coalition, and I would have thought that he should get a ministerial job. The Government are short of Scottish talent. Actually, they are short of talent, and he is both Scottish and talented. He should certainly be sitting on the Treasury Bench. He represents the nationalistic passions of Scotland, the country where I was born and where an awful lot of my family still live. I wish that new Labour had been the inspiration for ID cards, but it was not. The Netherlands, Germany, Spain and France all have them. They are a European idea, but in today's evolving political landscape it is always important to hear the nationalist rant against European practice. That is another reason why the hon. Gentleman may find himself much happier sitting on the Government Benches. I turn to the new clause itself, which is not about the origins and use of ID cards, or about whether they were in the manifesto that the British people supported, just as they handsomely supported the party opposed to AV and defeated the one in favour of it. It is simply about whether the state can confiscate money. The hon. Gentleman is wrong; it was not taxpayers' money that paid for my ID card but a £30 cheque or credit card payment from my miserable pre-Independent Parliamentary Standards Authority salary. I am not sure whether it is a claimable expense. As euro-waffler-in-chief, I do an awful lot of travel in Europe, but I am not sure whether I could put in a claim for an ID card.