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The Earl of Onslow: The world has changed since 1941, in this country infinitely for the better. The reason I am not happy about the matter is because the information is being collected centrally by government, rather than by individuals to whom I voluntarily give it. That is the fundamental difference.
Lord Maxton: People already give that information in terms of their passports. I do not understand what the argument is on this. In the modern information world all sorts of organisations will have information about us, given by people voluntarily and to some extent compulsorily. I do not see why we have this enormous objection to governments, who are elected by the people of this country, having that information as well.
Lord Phillips of Sudbury: Is there not a terrific difference between, first, the system of Barclays Bank having all sorts of information about you, which the noble Earl said is voluntarily given and confined to Barclays Bank—unless of course it is improperly
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accessed, which it is—and, secondly, the state collecting it and, under the Bill, having wide powers to share that information and to sell it commercially? Surely there is a big difference.
6.45 pm
Lord Maxton: I do not see the big difference. I have no problem in giving all sorts of information to organisations voluntarily, and I have no objection to the Government holding information as well.
Lord Stoddart of Swindon: I support the amendment because it really says what this is all about—surveillance. It is about not identity cards or registers, but the surveillance of the individual by the Executive. The noble Lord, Lord Maxton, says that the world has changed. In many respects it has, but the concepts of democracy and individual liberty have not changed, I hope. They still exist. Individual freedom means that there is no state surveillance surveying everything that you do and having all sorts of information about you, some of which you may not know about. That is what the argument is all about. I really am so surprised that one by one Labour Members of this House have risen to support a proposition which is so anti-Labour. I know for certain that if the Labour Party had been in opposition and the Tories or even the Liberal Democrats had been in government, there would have been hell to pay about this Bill. There would not just have been debates in Parliament but marches up and down the country against this concept.
I am so disappointed that, as I say, one Member after another has risen from the Labour Benches to support what is nearly fascist legislation. Hitler in 1933 did exactly the same. As soon as he came to power he introduced a national register which enabled him to define who were Jews and who were non-Jews, and we know what that gave rise to. As the noble Lord said, these are decent people. They do not want to use the information in an inappropriate or dangerous way, but they will not always be there—I know that Mr Blair thinks that he will always be there or the Labour Party will always be there. But it does not happen that way. There might well be circumstances in this country where the information, which is centrally registered, could be used for baleful purposes. That is the great argument against having this central register and eventually a compulsory identity card.
The noble Lord, Lord Gould, who is an expert in this, referred to opinion "out there". He says that people want more surveillance—that is what it is—and that they are all in favour of compulsory identity cards eventually. I have to say that I meet a fair number of people and nobody has come up to me and said, "Lord Stoddart, will you please get me an identity card because I want one? I want to be compelled to carry one". I have had a great many letters saying, "For God's sake, Stoddart, vote against this legislation because it is so dangerous to our democracy and freedoms".
Where does this opinion poll come from? Is it from four people? I understand that, often, legislation is based on the view of a few people. Or is it scientific? We
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simply do not know. In any event, if we are to be governed by opinion poll, let us take a lot more of them. Let us, in these dire times when so many horrific murders are taking place, take an opinion poll on whether we should restore capital punishment. I can tell the noble Lord the result straightaway. People would say, "Yes, bring it back. Why should we keep spending hundreds of thousands of pounds on keeping these monsters in prison?". So let us not go down the road of relying on opinion polls.
Lord Waddington: The noble Lord expressed his opinion that the Bill is anti-Labour, but was he not understating the case? Did not Mr Blair himself at the Labour conference at Brighton in 1995 express the view that compulsory identity cards were anathema and that he would oppose them if the Conservative government proceeded with them? What has changed to make Labour so enthusiastic in government about something that it said that it was prepared to oppose root and branch when in opposition?
Lord Stoddart of Swindon: That is a very good point and I must confess that I had forgotten it. Those on the Labour Benches were my friends, colleagues and comrades until they threw me out, so I want to be as kind to them as I possibly can, but I have a duty in this House to express my opinion. My opinion is that the Bill is bad.
Once again, I want to have a go at the manifesto commitment. The noble Lord, Lord Phillips, repeated what I said in an earlier debate, but there is more to it even than that. Sometimes, it is not only what is in a manifesto that counts but what is not. For example, Mr Smith told the Labour Party conference—I forget which year it was now:
We all remember that. When, finally, we won the election—not we, but the Labour Party—we found that our air was for sale and was sold. Mr Blair himself—not in the manifesto but before the election—said that we had no intention of introducing university tuition fees. We have them. If you can do what is not in the manifesto, conversely, you can not do what is in the manifesto when you find that it is unacceptable and incorrect.
I support the amendment. I do not know whether it will be put to the vote—probably not—but it has enabled us to have a very good debate on some of the principles not only of the Bill but of new Labour.
Lord Lyell of Markyate: I agree that it has been a very good debate. The only way to understand the Bill is to try to consider in practice what it will and will not do, what it will and will not achieve, and what it will and will not do for individual citizens and residents of this country. I entirely understand why the noble Lord, Lord Gould, says what he does, because that is what quite a lot of opinion polls have shown. Most of us have been through a period—I certainly have—of thinking that identity cards were a very good idea. We thought that when we were in government for a bit—
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at least, we discussed it with favourable views—and then we drew back. As the noble Lord, Lord Thomas of Gresford, reminded us, the Australians also drew back. However, just in the course of today's debates, we have sussed out from the Minister that, at present, they would be pretty well useless to the police unless and until they were compulsory and carried. The noble Baroness shakes her head.
Baroness Scotland of Asthal: That is absolutely not what I said. Cards will be of considerable use to the police and, to get that utility, it will not be necessary to have them carried, as the noble and learned Lord suggests. I hope that I made it clear that it is because of their use that we are anxious to have them. That view is absolutely shared by the police, who know intimately the details of the Bill.
Lord Lyell of Markyate: I am grateful to the noble Baroness, but let me analyse her answer to me about half an hour ago. I asked expressly how the provision would help the police constable in Brixton. She said that the individual would be taken to the police station—I do not know how, because there is no power of arrest, but that is not the point—and would call himself Mr Brown. I am assuming that it is a Mr Brown sufficiently identified that he can be somebody who is on the register. Then, by entering his 13 biometric details—his 10 fingers, his eyes and the shape of his face—it can be shown that he is not that Mr Brown. That is all that can be shown. That is not much help and that assumes that he pretends to be someone that he is not.
Over and above that, the measure is completely useless. Roughly 20 per cent of the population will not have a card unless or until it becomes compulsory. Then it will still not be much use to the police, unless or until people carry it because there are serious social downsides not to do so or it becomes compulsory to do so, as it is in Holland, with all those things that cause people to worry. When it becomes compulsory, we must look carefully at the detail of what can be required—what information must be given. What the public think, which is where the noble Lord, Lord Gould, should start fashioning the question for his next opinion poll, is that the Bill will solve the problems of fraud, terrorism, immigration, illegal working, and—something that no one but a bureaucrat would think of—efficient and effective public services. That is what the Bill tells the public is its purpose. Let us leave the problems of public services out—that is just a mop-up. The proposal will be of very limited benefit to fraud, terrorism, immigration and illegal working unless and until it becomes extraordinarily detailed and assertive. Then, as my noble friend Lady Carnegy of Lour said, the devil is in the detail, which is in Schedule 1. We need to work out all those details. Even when we have worked them all out, towards the end of our debates—when we have really scrutinised the Bill—we must decide whether we have a Bill the benefits of which are worth the costs.
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The noble Baroness may not believe me, but I genuinely keep an open mind on that. I hope that she will be provided with more information with which to persuade us.
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