Examination of Witnesses (Questions 300
- 319)
TUESDAY 10 FEBRUARY 2004
MR MARTIN
HALL, COUNCILLOR
GERALD VERNON-JACKSON
AND MRS
JAN BERRY
Q300 Chairman: Perhaps I have got
this wrong but, in my understanding of the north Somerset scheme,
it does not actually check the thumbprint against any fingerprint
record at the time. It is merely that the person cashing their
cheques leaves their thumbprint behind.
Mrs Berry: No, but it provides
you with evidence for later on. As I understand the scheme in
Essex, it checks their database to ensure that person is a member
of the club, and then they can gain admission. So the technology
is there. It is the application to which it is then put.
Q301 David Winnick: Mr Vernon-Jackson,
I am not asking you the question at the moment but you did raise
the difference, if an identity card scheme comes about, between
the white, elderly person who will quite likely be asked on very
few occasions, compared to a young, black person. I want to ask
you, Mrs Berry, do you accept a particular sensitivity when it
comes to race relations over any such scheme as we have been discussing?
Mrs Berry: I accept it has received
publicity to this effect, I believe we have to be mindful that
some people perceive an identity card will infringe people's liberties.
I do not believe that to be the case though.
Q302 David Winnick: If you take certain
parts of our country where there is a relatively large minority
population, would I be wrong to say that it is quite likely, not
because the police want to discriminate but it just comes about,
that young black males, in particular, would find themselves being
asked far more frequently for identification by way of such a
card than other groups? You do not believe that, in fact, would
be the position?
Mrs Berry: Are you saying in certain
areas?
Q303 David Winnick: Yes.
Mrs Berry: I think that in certain
areas there are more black youths on the streets than there are
white youths, and, therefore, in those areas, it is not surprising
that more black youths get asked for their identity than white
youths.
Q304 David Winnick: The point I am
really putting to you is, if there is such a card, whether it
is to be held on a compulsory basis or otherwise, the police will
tend to wish to see a card, an identity card, amongst the group
that I have mentioned?
Mrs Berry: I think I said earlier
that if a person had an identity card, that would be a much easier
way of checking (a) their identity, but (b) if they were being
checked an awful lot for no apparent reason, as is sometimes reported.
This could be checked far better than it currently is checked.
The procedures now in place for recording stops and recording
searches are far more detailed than they have been previously.
I see an identity card actually assisting that process and enabling
police officers to justify the courses of action that they have
taken, or not, as the case may be.
Q305 David Winnick: Do you therefore
not see any possibility of increasing attention between groups
who are in what would be described as "minority groups"—black
or Asians—and the police as a result of any such scheme?
Do you see no possibility of increased tension as a result?
Mrs Berry: I do not believe that
because people have identity cards police officers will have the
right to stop them in order to check their identity cards. They
must have suspicion, in the first instance, before they stop them
and/or search them. If a police officer cannot then justify the
reason for their stop and search because of the circumstances
that prevailed at that time, then that police officer has to be
accountable for that course of action. I do not think the identity
cards themselves will cause any more stops and searches, because
the circumstances should dictate what they are being stopped for
in the first instance.
Q306 David Winnick: A police officer
would always, surely, argue that the only reason he has asked
for a person's identification is because he has reasons for suspicion.
So that would always be the reason or, as some people would put
it perhaps, quite unfairly, excuse?
Mrs Berry: Well, a police officer
would still need to justify that, and by having a database against
which records can be checked, any disproportionality that is identified
could be checked far more thoroughly than it currently can be.
If you do have a police officer who is stopping people without
good reason, I think that with an identity card scheme that is
far more likely to be identified than it is without.
Q307 David Winnick: That is in an
ideal world. Can I put to you, Mrs Berry, a case which came into
the public domain not more than 18 months/2 years ago in the West
Midlands, though not in my particular part, where a person, who
on all accounts was a perfectly law-abiding person—there
is no evidence he has ever been charged with any offence—was
stopped in his car 40 times—40 times—in a period of
some four months. He happened to be black. Would there not, therefore,
be some concern that having an identity card scheme would just
increase that type of, if you like, stop-and-search instead of
reducing such incidents?
Mrs Berry: Well, if a person has
been stopped 40 times, clearly, unless it is the same police officer
who stopped them on every occasion—
Q308 David Winnick: No, it was not
the same police officer.
Mrs Berry: Then the officers have
got to be accountable for the stops that they have undertaken
and/or the searches. I see the identity card actually assisting
that process. I do not see it personally increasing the numbers
of stop and searches that will take place.
Q309 David Winnick: So you believe
there are no grounds for concern that an identity card scheme
would increase tension in some parts of the country?
Mrs Berry: No. I think some people
will foresee that it may increase, but I do not think the practicality
or the reality is that it will increase it.
Q310 Mr Prosser: To Councillor Vernon-Jackson.
You raise in your evidence your concern about the various government
initiatives which require identity checks, such as the Census,
identification and tracking of children at risk and the Electoral
Register, etc. You say that there could be a lack of coordination
or even confusion between these various sorts of roles. Is it
your concern—and is it a serious concern—that not
only are those without coordination, but, if the Government goes
ahead with a national identity database and card, that there will
be another system out of coordination with the others? What is
your feeling on that?
Councillor Vernon-Jackson: I think
you need to take the two separately. I think we were surprised
at the lack of coordination within Central Government between
the different databases. It looks as if the Department of Health
does not speak for the Department of Education, who do not speak
for the DWP, and they do not seem to match up what they do. I
am also interested that so many different people were talking
about issuing separate cards: a passport card, a driving licence
card, an NHS card, a benefits card, a Connections card for children.
So there seemed to be lots of different databases, lots of different
cards going on between different departments. In some ways, for
those of us who are slightly fearful of government "big brother",
it was quite reassuring to see this inability of government departments
to speak to each other.
Q311 Bob Russell: Nice one. Not joined
up Government.
Councillor Vernon-Jackson: Absolutely
not. It was really interesting to watch. I think on the idea of
collecting data, if there is to be a single point at which people
collected—so, for instance, if we are going for voter registration
by individual not by household, which the Electoral Commission
are looking at now—it may be possible for there to be fewer
times when people are contacted. For instance, if we are doing
that on a regular basis, then you might be able to co-ordinate
that with Census collection as well, once every 10 years, and
things like that. Again, we have problems with Census data. We
are not using the 2001 Census data in some areas because it is
so inaccurate. So I think there are some benefits that could accrue
to some coordination, if that is possible, within Central Government.
Q312 Mr Prosser: It is interesting
that the groups from Liberty and other organisations argue that
there might not be a principled opposition to an identity card
if each identity card, or each identifier, as we call it, related
to a different function and a different benefit; but you arrive
at the opposite of that?
Councillor Vernon-Jackson: If
you are going to do it—if you are going to do an identity
card—let us do it properly and have one that actually works
for a range of things, otherwise it becomes a charter for wallet
makers that we have to carry five or six of these things around,
and that just seems to be inefficient and really does not do government
a great service. One of the things that could be a potential way
out of this is that we are able to create a single identifier
number and then link the different databases up; and that might
actually reveal fairly interesting things about people who have
dropped out of the system in various places, or where there are
multiple identities in some systems. The civil liberties point
of view I think we are most worried about is the issue of cards
and people: in effect, if you are young, black and male, having
to carry it, it becoming compulsory to carry and that not being
the same for other parts of society.
Mr Prosser: Thank you very much.
Q313 David Winnick: So, presumably,
the answer which Jan Berry gave does not satisfy you?
Councillor Vernon-Jackson: I think
we have considerable concerns about community cohesion, given
the basis that the card has been asked for, which is about national
security and illegal immigration, and that seems to target a small
section of society.
Q314 David Winnick: Therefore, your
association recognises there is a sensitivity about this issue
which the police perhaps do not quite see in the same light as
you do?
Councillor Vernon-Jackson: I think
our view was that there will be problems with community cohesion,
which is why we were happy to support the idea of the single identifier
number but not happy to support the idea of a card being compulsory
to either have or present.
Q315 Janet Anderson: If I could turn
to socially excluded groups and ask you, Mr Hall, first of all.
You say in your evidence that an identity card could also assist
the financially excluded to access mainstream financial services.
How do you think this would work?
Mr Hall: One of the problems apparently
encountered by financially excluded people, who typically do not
have a passport, do not have a driving licence, perhaps have a
meter for electricity and gas, is that they have not got the documents
they need to establish an identity; and, under the Know Your Customer
part of money laundering rules, financial institutions are required
to check the identity of all their customers before they do business
with them. So I think it would help them, at least, to establish
who they are—what services they got would be a matter of
their creditworthiness rather than their proven identity—but
I think there is a real barrier to a lot of people in actually
approaching financial institutions at all. It causes a lot of
embarrassment and awkwardness as well.
Q316 Janet Anderson: I think it is
true to say that there have been cases where people who have never
had any credit and have always paid for everything up front, as
it were, have then applied for credit, and, because they have
no credit record, they are refused credit, and that, of course,
counts against them on their credit reference. Would you see an
identity card as overcoming that particular problem?
Mr Hall: Well, I do not think
it would necessarily overcome that problem. I think, in circumstances
where a credit check shows no previous credit experience, many
lenders would then ask questions rather than simply refuse credit.
It is simply that there is a gap in their knowledge. I mean, that
is the case for many, many people who stop being students and
start to borrow from commercial institutions, as distinct from
student loans. I think that not having a credit record in itself
is not likely to deprive very many people of credit. I think not
being able to prove who you are and where you come from makes
it impossible to get any form of financial service. I am not just
talking about credit here; it is virtually all financial services:
bank accounts, even universal bank accounts, where it is still
necessary to prove who you are.
Q317 Janet Anderson: Thank you very
much. If I could ask you, Mr Vernon-Jackson, do you have any suggestions
as to how a national identity card scheme should approach the
problem of individuals with less stable lives or who may be suspicious
of authority?
Councillor Vernon-Jackson: I think
there are very real problems. I think people with mental health
issues, people who choose to live not as established people in
established homes, or whatever, but who choose to move around
the country—other groups of people—I think it is a
real problem because I do not think anybody has found a way of
accessing who those people are. I think it is likely, if a system
comes in, that there would be problems with these people, and
it might actually exacerbate the problem. If you have people with
mental health problems, asking people to present identity cards
is yet another source of anxiety: "Who is looking at me and
why?" So I think there are issues there for these groups
in society. I am sure there are reasonably large numbers of people
who would not even get onto a database anyway. So I think the
idea that we will have an ID card system and an ID number system
which will capture everybody, knowing exactly where they live
all the time, is unrealistic. I am sorry, I am not sure I am being
very helpful.
Q318 Janet Anderson: You actually
think it is impossible for a system—
Councillor Vernon-Jackson: You
will never hit 100% of people with anything. I think it is highly
unlikely. As the terrible events in Morecambe have shown, there
are whole sections of communities and of people within the country
who have almost no contact with anything official ever.
Q319 Janet Anderson: Do you want
to expand on that a little?
Councillor Vernon-Jackson: Well,
I mean—
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