|
Mr. Malins: My head is still reeling, I am afraid, at the observation by the hon. Member for Sheffield, Hallam about many-many relationships. I am not sure what that means and I got mildly lost. I shall talk to the hon. Gentleman later. It sounds rather like an orgy.
I shall speak briefly to amendments Nos. 6, 7 and 125, tabled by me and my hon. Friends, and raise a small but important point. The ''registrable fact'' includes addresses where we have
''previously resided in the United Kingdom and elsewhere''.
Is it really necessary for the word ''elsewhere'' to be included? For example, my father was an Army chaplain and in the first 28 years of Army time we had about 32 homes. I regret to say that there is no one alive on this world who has the slightest idea of any of those addresses. Is the word ''elsewhere'' essential?
Amendment No. 7 would knock out the words
''the times at which he was resident at different places in the United Kingdom or elsewhere''.
That is a further problem, because even if we can remember the various addresses at which we have lived in the UK and elsewhere, the chances are that being able to remember the times when we lived at them are pretty remote. Can the Minister justify that requirement? How far back does this provision go? If I am going to register that information on the national register, how far back do I have to go in terms of my residences?
Will the Minister comment on second homes and say a little bit about Army, RAF and Navy personnel and students on gap years? In short, what approach will the Government take on addresses, because the Minister knows as well as I do that certain people are on the move a great deal in their life and those who are living rough or vulnerable are in an even more difficult position on the matter of homes.
My right hon. Friend the Member for Haltemprice and Howden (David Davis), the shadow Home Secretary, not long ago asked the Home Secretary for his latest estimate of the number of people a year who move home and get married. The answer was as follows:
Column Number: 67
''In 2003-04 there were 2,630,000 moves by households in England''.—[Official Report, 20 December 2004; Vol. 428, c. 1505-06W]
In 2002, there were 242,000 marriages. That suggests that changes of address by spouses, and perhaps families, run into millions a year. I suppose that one will have to pay to get that information on the register. However, this is a big handling exercise and the Minister will appreciate that I am getting through my amendments quite quickly. There is more to say, but I want him to have the gist of what I am talking about in terms of addresses, which represent a big logistical undertaking, particularly as in some London boroughs the council tax reveals that there is an annual turnover of addresses greater than 60 per cent.
I share the concern of the hon. Member for Sheffield, Hallam about subsection 5(g), which refers to
''information about numbers allocated to him for identification purposes''.
Will the Minister explain that a little more?
Amendment No. 9 would exclude from the register criminal convictions, cautions and medical records. The earlier explanatory notes said that registrable facts could not be extended by regulation to cover categories not relating to identification, such as criminal convictions and medical records. That assertion is not in the Bill or the present explanatory notes, but the Minister was terribly helpful earlier and I think he has given me the assurance that such matters will not be on the register, so I need not speak to that amendment.
The list of registrable facts includes in clause 1(5)(g)
''information about numbers allocated to him''.
As identification numbers from the police national computer and national DNA database, for example, are now used to establish links to identifying information, arguably they could be included. What does the Minister have to say about that?
The prospect of my reading out the 51 categories of information required for the register would be too much for you to bear as Chairman, Mr. Conway, even with your well known sense of equanimity, so I propose to pass a copy of them to the Minister in due course today on the off chance that he and those who advise him will return to me at their leisure with some observations. I choose not to make any reference to those 51 categories; I hope that that has gone down well.
Amendment No. 43 is important and we may press it. In effect, it is the same as amendment No. 1, but it relates to clause 8, which deals with identity cards. It has been helpfully grouped with the other amendments and it is intended to set out in clause 8 the purpose of identity cards. It would add to clause 8 words identical to those in the earlier amendment. The test of clarity of purpose that applies to the identity register equally applies to the issue of the card. As my right hon. Friend the shadow Home Secretary has said repeatedly, the Government ought to make clear in the Bill the specific purposes for which an ID card is required and, in particular, which of those purposes are the priorities.
Column Number: 68
I will not go over the background to the various terrorist activities—the Minister would not appreciate that. We have heard the arguments before and they will be made again. I am referring specifically to the issue of the identity card, its purpose and whether that should be included in the Bill. It is true that various members of the Government have from time to time spoken of the help that an ID card, as opposed to the register, may provide in relation to the fight against terrorism. As I said to the Minister earlier, he cannot give any assurances in percentage terms as to the extent of that help. However, when he responds on ID cards, will he tell us a little more about why he thinks—we hope that he does think this, and that he is right—that an ID card could be a contributory factor in detecting or preventing terrorist acts?
4.15 pm
Given the hour, I do not propose to go through the lengthy argument that I had prepared in relation to terrorist activities in countries where ID cards exist. There are substantial grounds for believing that a compulsory ID card would not be much help in the fight against terrorism. Indeed, the then Home Secretary was clear on the point in a debate on 3 July 2002. The hon. Member for Sunderland, South (Mr. Mullin) said to him:
''May I ask my right hon. Friend, first, whether he accepts that it is for those who are in favour of the card to make out the case for it, not the other way round?''
At that stage, I think that the hon. Gentleman was taking a sabbatical from ministerial office and was back as Chairman of the Home Affairs Committee—otherwise, I am sure that the impertinence of such a question from one Minister to another on the Floor of the House would have been noted. The hon. Gentleman went on:
''Secondly, will he confirm that the card will be little or no use in combating terrorism? Thirdly, given the unhappy history—I put this as gently as I can—of Government information technology projects, are we not entitled to be sceptical about some of the claims made for the card?''
The then Home Secretary replied:
''I can say yes to all three.''—[Official Report, 3 July 2002; Vol. 388, c. 231.]
A little later, in answer to my hon. Friend the Member for Rochford and Southend, East (Sir Teddy Taylor), the then Home Secretary said that he had ruled out the possibility of the cards'
''substantial contribution to countering terrorism.''—[Official Report, 3 July 2002; Vol. 388, c. 236.]
In May last year, he said to the Home Affairs Committee that
''whilst there could be a contribution towards countering terrorism this was not the primary purpose''.
In speaking to this amendment, jett—what is the word I am looking for? [Hon. Members: ''Jettisoning!''] The more one says a word, Mr. Conway, the more idiotic it seems. I have put aside some of my notes as I have moved along, because the Minister knows the arguments about countries in which there have been terrorist acts. What we really seek from him is a reassurance that he believes that identity cards could help in the fight against terror, and
Column Number: 69
an explanation of how. Perhaps he could give practical examples of how they could help. If we believe that they can, we will, of course, support him.
Mr. Allan: The hon. Gentleman puts forward an interesting line, as he did when speaking to the previous amendment. However, can I take it that his position is not an absolute one and that something that was a small help in the fight against terrorism, but a massive deprivation of civil liberties at huge financial expense would not be acceptable? Does he have a threshold? He would not support absolutely anything that helped in the fight against terrorism, would he? That is what it sounds like.
Mr. Malins: Such questions are impossible to answer, although they are good questions to raise. No Committee member could answer that question accurately. Eventually it will boil down to the instinct and judgment of the person who has to cast a vote one way or the other. However, I accept the hon. Gentleman's point, which is the centrepiece of the argument about this Bill. However, we all have to make our own judgments.
I refer briefly to a matter that I did not raise earlier: identity and benefit fraud. I hope that the Minister will address that issue at some stage, and the effect that the introduction of ID cards would have on it. He knows—it has been said so many times—that the card may or may not be of much use against benefit fraud. Anecdotally, I would say that 99 per cent. of the cases of benefit fraud that I try do not involve people pretending that they are somebody else or having somebody else's identity. They say who they are, but have signed a document that states that they are not working when, in truth, they are. That is what benefit fraud is primarily about for the courts. [Interruption.] The Minister is making an aside to his Whip. It might be relevant to the point I have made.
|
