Examination of Witnesses (Questions 600
- 607)
TUESDAY 27 APRIL 2004
RT HON
CHARLES CLARKE
MP, RT HON
JOHN HUTTON
MP AND MR
CHRIS POND
MP
Q600 Mr Taylor: I wonder if I could
put a proposition to each of you three Ministers and perhaps if
you were continuing your congenial spirit of this afternoon, if
I may say so, you would all be sporting enough to have a go at
it, and in what order I do not mind. The proposition I put to
you is as follows: it would be possible that some people, not
me, but some people could make a very good, articulated argument
for not having identity cards at all on civil liberties grounds
and other people could make a very good argument indeed for having
compulsory identity cards for the better management of the State,
a more efficient delivery of services and the elimination of fraud,
but between those two poles, something that might be called a
voluntary identity card fails either or both arguments and it
is not much better than futile and it would be rather like dog
licences used to be, that only honest citizens would apply. Would
you care to comment on that proposition?
Mr Clarke: I think a voluntary
identity card, from the point of view of the better management
of services and the elimination of fraud which you describe, would
lead to efficiencies and benefits both to the citizen and—
Q601 Mr Taylor: This is the voluntary
one?
Mr Clarke: The voluntary one,
and would lead to benefits for both the citizen and the State
in relation to a number of the areas I described, the Children's
Services passports, the Connexions card, 16 to 19-year-old access
and some of the Unique Learner number infrastructure, and I think
there would be advantages to the citizen and the State in my narrow
area of education of even a voluntary card compared to where we
are now. I actually believe, which goes outside my brief, that
the advantages would be so great across a wide range of different
services, not simply education, that the overwhelming majority
of citizens would decide that it was more convenient to have an
identity card than the other alternative, the driving licence,
the passport or the kinds of documentation we have been discussing
which arise. I accept that if you only went to the level of the
voluntary card, there would be a question about evasion of that
group at the end who would not be there and then it would be a
matter for Parliament to decide that, having got to that point,
taking a step towards the compulsory card would be the right course
of action to follow and there are issues there to be debated.
I think I am right in saying that I cannot comment on the proposed
Home Office legislation in detail, but the precise proposition
is that there would be a parliamentary debate for consideration
of that matter before any decision was taken, but my answer to
that question, Mr Taylor, would be that a voluntary card would
be significantly better, both narrowly within the education system
and, I would argue personally, more widely, than the status quo
and it would have no civil liberties threats, if I can put it
like that. There would then be a debate about whether it was rational
for some reason to go for compulsion in relation to some or all
services.
Q602 Mr Taylor: I am grateful. Would
either of the other Ministers care to comment?
Mr Hutton: No, thank you! I think
Charles has made the argument very clearly and I certainly do
not want to detain the Committee with similar answers.
Q603 Mr Taylor: You can simply say
that you agree with him if you want to.
Mr Hutton: All right, I agree
with Charles.
Mr Clarke: Good man!
Mr Pond: And if I can agree with
the Secretary of State at slightly more length, I do think that
is the process we are going through. We are seeing that on a voluntary
uptake this does provide benefits to the citizen as well as to
the institutions which are seeking to serve them. Certainly in
the area of DWP, I am sure a lot of people would rather present
an identity card even on a voluntary basis than go through the
process of the list of documents they might have to use to verify
their identity and I do believe that it will make a big contribution
towards fraud, but at some stage Parliament will have to make
a decision as to where the balance lies between the two extremes
that you specified and indeed individual Secretaries of State
will have to decide for their own departments whether or not the
identity cards are going to be required for access to services.
Mr Clarke: And to put that to
Parliament.
Mr Pond: Indeed.
Q604 Mr Taylor: I have one final
question particularly for the Secretary of State for Education,
reminding him that he plans to introduce the Unique Learner numbers
and asking him how these will fit with the unique personal number
for each person on the National Identity Register? In short, what
do you mean by the common identifier?
Mr Clarke: That is precisely a
matter for discussion. It is one of the reasons why I favour this
whole process, because I think we already have obvious numbers,
like the National Insurance number and the Health Service number,
which are different from the passport number and the driving licence
number, all of which exist and are different. We are developing
in education the Unique Learner number for the reasons I indicated
earlier, to help and support individuals as they go through their
life and their learning and it is a question for us whether we
set a completely different number or we take the NHS number, the
NI number or one of the other numbers, and these are the questions
which are there. Now, I would much prefer a framework in which
there was one simple register in which we had that number for
all of these things and that is precisely the route we are going
down.
Q605 Mr Taylor: Well, you are currently
working, am I not right, on databases for children, so how will
that work which you are doing on databases fit in with the National
Identity Register? Will they fight each other or will they assist
each other?
Mr Clarke: Well, I hope they will
work together. We are currently investigating the feasibility,
including the potential costs, benefits and savings of introducing
the number and we need to think of that in the context of ID cards.
The number that we mean is the number which may well be alpha-numeric
which will be used to link and share information and, as I said
a second ago, there is a plethora of different types of number
and we think it would be better to have one. The Unique Learner
number and the information-sharing systems which we are considering
under the Children's Bill, which I mentioned a second ago, are
both about improving the sharing and management of information,
but there is a focus that whatever the system it needs to identify
children and learners these more broadly by using numbers. We
are not yet ready to say what the numbers should be and both projects
are participating in the cross-government work on identifying
numbers, including ID card numbers and the system information
project led by ONS. The point I am trying to make is that it will
massively assist this development, which we feel is important,
if we get clarity about where the Government is going, which is
actually what I think the document published by the Home Secretary
does offer us, and the fact there is some degree of certainty
about where we are going. I cannot answer the question you asked
directly for the reason that it is precisely that dialogue which
is taking place at the moment.
Mr Taylor: Thank you very much.
Q606 Chairman: Can I ask each of
the ministers, following our last question what assessment have
you made of the Citizen Information Project?
Mr Clarke: For us not a great
deal of assessment, we are rather Johnny come lately to this debate
to be blunt, we are less advanced than either health or DWP. We
are enthusiastic participants in the debate for the reasons which
I have identified. The Connexion Card is a relatively new development
in what is happening. We welcome the broad framework that is there.
We have not made a detailed assessment of the Citizen Information
Project which takes us in a particular way which will inform the
discussions of the Committee but we will obviously be watching
it very carefully.
Mr Pond: Because DWP have already
had both the National Insurance number process shared with the
Inland Revenue and also because we do require the verification
for benefits we have been involved at an earlier stage perhaps
in some of these discussions. It is early days and we have started
discussions with ONS and we welcome those developments, but there
is clearly a long way to go.
Mr Hutton: We are in a very similar
position to the Department of Education, we are obviously following
the progress of their initiative but we have not made a detailed
assessment of those issues yet.
Q607 Chairman: Earlier this afternoon
the Committee had ONS as a witness and we were a little perplexed
as to why having never had a database the Government is embarking
on having two, I wonder if either Minister can shed any light
on why we now want to have two databases and whether either of
the Ministers want to hazard a guess as to whether that is a useful
thing to do or not?
Mr Clarke: As I understood, and
I am open to correction, you have probably analysed it more than
I, I thought the whole purpose of the ONS study was statistical,
to look at what was happening across the country to form a statistical
scientific base of where things were moving. That is different
from an entitler and a card which gives identity for the various
reasons we have here. I may have misunderstood.
Mr Pond: Just to add to that,
it may be that over time there will be opportunities for the two
to be complementary. I think they do fulfil different functions.
It seems to me that both at the moment have different jobs to
do and let us hope that over time they can complement each other
rather than conflict with each other.
Chairman: I cannot speak for the Committee
but the Committee may have gained the impression that the Citizen
Information Project was about joining up government services in
the way we have talked about in the second half of the session
but we will have to return to this one later on in our inquiry.
Ministers and Secretary of State, thank you all very much for
coming this afternoon. Thank you.
| 
