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Lord Dholakia: My Lords, I add my thanks to the Minister for introducing this Bill in your Lordships' House. I also ask her to convey our thanks to the Minister of State, Des Browne, for briefing colleagues earlier in the day.
We do not have the five tests demanded by the Opposition. To me, they are as irrelevant as those introduced by the Chancellor of the Exchequer with regard to monetary union. It is a shame that we will not have time on our side to tease out many of the issues raised by the Minister. The reasons are simple. We are in an almost unreal situation. On the one hand, there is anticipation of a general election, and on the other, Bills are being pushed through your Lordships' House that are unlikely to end up on the statute book for some time to come.
I do not believe that scrutiny and revision, which require the Committee and Report stages of the Identity Cards Bill, will be reached—so why this haste? The Government, of course, have their own reasons, which have nothing to do with the Bill being enacted. I suspect this may be another matter on the Government's agenda of "tough on crime, tough on the causes of crime".
Whatever the reasons, it is right that I should set out my party's position on this Bill. We do not believe that ID cards will work with regard to tackling terrorism—although that is what David Blunkett told us in the first instance—nor that they will help to tackle benefit or health fraud. It would be helpful to have some recent data to establish the Government's case on these points.
ID cards have serious cost implications. The system is flawed, and has civil liberty implications, as pointed out by the noble Baroness, Lady Anelay.
I shall start with some of the possible assumptions made by the Government in the consultative document on Entitlement Cards and Identity Fraud. We are told that a card scheme could be a powerful weapon in combating illegal immigration. If that is the case, why do we not sort out the chaotic immigration procedure that lets in illegal immigrants? If we had proper, managed migration, with a system of admission of those economic migrants whose services we require, and a proper method of dealing with those who are genuinely being persecuted and are seeking refuge, ID cards would become less relevant.
ID cards cannot be forced upon people who enter this country. They are designed for those who are lawfully resident here. How ID cards could stop illegal entrants baffles the imagination. We have said we would support a system of immigration based on the United Kingdom's needs. We will support a system designed to help refugees and deal effectively with those who enter the country unlawfully. ID cards would do no such thing. To set up this aspect of policy
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as an end to all illegal immigration is just not true. It will not work. It may placate tabloid newspapers, but its impact would be negligible.
It is obvious that ID cards are unlikely to be introduced in Britain straight away. The Secretary of State for Trade and Industry, Patricia Hewitt, has acknowledged that the process will take many years. If that is the case, why is it necessary to bring the Bill forward at the fag-end of this parliamentary term? It does not give us time to consider the framework carefully.
According to the Government, we will not have to carry ID cards. If that is the case, how will they be effective against terrorism? Even if they were made compulsory, would they stop terrorism? Of course we acknowledge the serious threat of terrorism, but in the majority of cases that have been identified, terrorists have not used false or multiple identities. Past evidence in the UK, the United States and other countries demonstrates that terrorists are capable of carrying out atrocities without changing their identities.
ID cards are of little relevance to those who are hell-bent on destroying themselves. We may know someone's identity, but that does not tell us what they are about to do. There is the classic case of Richard Reid, the so-called shoe bomber. Even if he had had an identity card, would it have given a clue about what he was going to do? Those who wish to destroy themselves do not care whether they have an identity document or not. That pattern is well established among suicide bombers.
The Government's argument is seriously flawed if they think that this is the way to stop terrorists or their activities. I do not dispute that an identity card would provide people who were lawfully resident in the UK with a means of confirming their identity to a high degree of assurance. The problem is that it stops neither terrorism nor illegal immigration. No country has found a foolproof system, and Great Britain is no exception.
The Government's other objective is to help people to gain entitlement to products and services provided by both public and private sectors, particularly those who may find it difficult to do so at present. We do not dispute that. There is benefit and health fraud, but I fail to see what that has to do with identity. A vast amount of health and benefit fraud that occurs in the United Kingdom would not stop through the availability of identity cards. Is it not the case that only 5 per cent of it involves individuals pretending to be someone whom they are not?
The cost implication of the introduction of ID cards is still a mystery. How much would it cost? What technology have we in mind? This is a major national investment that requires intense scrutiny. It has to be evaluated on the basis of other cards and identity documents that many people possess. I acknowledge that we are simply discussing the framework at this stage, but surely the Government have in mind the ultimate cost implication. I was delighted that Des Browne actually gave some figures in the briefing note that he supplied, but they are still not complete
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because of the large number of reading machines that will be required in all sorts of places, for which the cost would be considerable.
Last week, I met representatives of LaserCards, which I understand provides the green card technology to the US Government. In essence, three types of card have been identified. The first type securely stores information on the card itself that can be read offline. The second type requires a central database to be accessed, which is the system often used by banks. The third type is a hybrid of both systems. Will there have to be reading equipment in every post office, benefit office, hospital and doctor's practice? Who will operate the system? Who will be responsible for protection of readable data? Does the Data Protection Act apply? What guarantees are there that data will not be accessed for other purposes?
The Government have not had much luck with computerised services established in the area of criminal justice. We will need a lot of convincing that a foolproof system that will not break down is available. Even before the questions have been answered, we have a unique situation in Wales. Under devolved powers, the National Assembly for Wales can take its own decision whether to have ID cards in relation to health provision. It says that it will not ask for ID cards, so we have an example of the first unilateral declaration of independence coming from the Labour heartland.
Let me now come to the regulatory impact assessment. There is serious concern about complex procedures, and then there are cultural problems. We have seen the impact of stop and search on our black and minority-ethnic communities. I appreciate the Minister's concern on the matter and her assurances, but she has not satisfied me that police will not ultimately have access to the relevant information if they suspect that a crime has been committed. The Joint Council for the Welfare of Immigrants has produced research evidence from Europe that suggests that,
"black and ethnic minority . . . nationals could be disproportionately targeted on the basis of race for identity checks by police, immigration officials or other public service officials".
Then there is the risk of conflict with the European Convention on Human Rights and other international convention law.
The other issue identified by the regulatory impact assessment is that,
I suspect that, like the anti-terrorist legislation that caused so many problems for the Government, the provision is likely to be considered disproportionate in its use, discriminatory on foreign nationals, and adversarial in its impact on black and ethnic minority people here.
We are certainly entitled to know the cost implication of a fully operational ID card system. So far, it is difficult because the figures keep changing. Would the Government make public the Office of Government Commerce's Gateway review documents? There cannot
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be any commercial confidentiality about them. Should we not be entitled to information that is given to commercial companies? We want to know the true cost of a system when fully operational and the financial contribution of each citizen in the UK, together with the cost of a biometric readable passport that we are obliged to produce. It is then that we can argue about what alternatives to ID cards are available to us, such as more police, more intelligence officers and more spending on secure borders. There are better ways of spending that money.
The other point that I wish to address concerns the database, on which the Home Affairs Committee commented. It identified two issues—whether the Government have the capacity to run a system of ID cards, given their awful record on IT systems; and the implications for civil liberties, as mentioned by the noble Baroness, Lady Anelay. My noble friend Lord Phillips of Sudbury is upset that he is unable to participate in the debate, as he is speaking on the Charities Bill. He is chair of the advisory panel established by Liberty to assist with a major project on privacy and identity. That report will be available when the Bill comes to the House again before long, as I suspect that it will.
We have reached a stage where successive legislation has eroded the delicate relationship between the individual and the state, as rightly pointed out in a number of government reports. That is also a conclusion reached by the Select Committee on the Constitution. There is so much information available on citizens of this country—their shopping habits, the products they buy, and their financial standing—which is a by-product of the credit card system. Then there is the passport, a document that sets out your citizenship and the rights that go with it. There is an insatiable appetite on the part of the Government to continue to obtain more information under the guise of tackling fraud, terrorism and illegal immigration.
This morning, I read the report of the London School of Economics on the identity project. It is an assessment of the Bill and its implications, and it concluded:
"All identity systems carry consequential dangers as well as potential benefits. Depending on the models used, identity systems may create a range of new and unforeseen problems. These include the failure of systems, unforeseen financial costs, increased security threats and unacceptable imposition on citizens. The success of a national identity system depends on a sensitive, cautious and co-operative approach involving all key stakeholder groups including an independent and rolling risk of assessment and a regular review of management practices. We are not confident that these conditions have been satisfied in the development of the Identity Cards Bill. The risk of failure in the current proposals is therefore magnified to the point where the scheme should be regarded as a potential danger to the public interest and to the legal rights of individuals".
There must be a time when we should call a halt. That time is now. If the purpose of this Second Reading is simply to identify for political parties those who are against this legislation, let it be so. In the coming weeks we shall continue to proclaim that we are against the Bill. I now look forward to listening to the maiden speech of the noble Lord, Lord Ballyedmond.
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6.10 p.m.
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