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Mr. Curry: The Minister has accidentally answered my question. I said that people may seek the registrable facts about somebody, which may include the address of a prison, so although they may not seek that information, they may nevertheless get it.
Does the Child Support Agency count as a public service? We all know about the difficulty of tracking people—usually men—who are not paying their whack. Would the CSA be able to seek or obtain identity cards and registrable facts to track down the men who are not paying what they are supposed to pay?
Mr. Browne: The right hon. Gentleman is right. The CSA is a public service in the context of the clause and one can see that there would be benefits in having regulated access to information on the national identity register against circumstances in which people are avoiding their responsibilities, with which Committee members are all-too familiar.
The problem with this debate from my perspective is that it is concentrating on defeating fraud. We have to start from a different point in relation to accessing public services. People already need to prove their identity and entitlement to access them. However, because of the absence of information collected centrally, which is accessible and guaranteed to a high standard, we cannot always be certain that the people who are accessing public services qualify for them.
We are providing a regulated opportunity for those who provide public services to get access to the registrable facts that they need to establish whether people are eligible to use their services, not all registrable facts. The regulations will not allow every
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public service access to all registrable facts, but they will be tailored to the individual public service.
Mr. Clifton-Brown: Will the Minister tell us whether any of the information will have a sunset element to it? In the case of the Rehabilitation of Offenders Act 1974, employers would not be entitled to know that a person has been to prison after a certain period. There are certain financial provisions that the Inland Revenue and Customs and Excise are not able to access after a period of time—sometimes that is six years and at other times it is 12 years. Will the information that is provided under the registrable facts be able to be deleted from the card after a period of time?
4.45 pm
Mr. Browne: Under clause 17(1) there is a power to set out in the regulations what information will be provided. In relation to each set of public services, these considerations can be debated, consulted upon and worked out, with the regulations being developed appropriately. It would be illegal to have regulations that were in contravention of the Rehabilitation of Offenders Act 1974, so they must be drafted in such a way that they take account of that.
I repeat: those regulations will allow only some of the information, depending on the service. I do not see any reason for being concerned that registrable facts that are of no business to the particular service will be accessed. Those services will be denied access to that information, although it may be held for other reasons. Indeed, it may be held because the person whose information is held is entitled to go back and see that this is appropriate.
Mr. Oaten: I will have to check Hansard, but I am pretty sure that the Minister implied earlier that the public services will have just the information about identity. He now seems to be implying that the provision will go much further and that they will have access to registered facts. That is an important difference. There is an intellectual logic as to their having access to registered facts if they are going to be able to do the things that they can clarify. For the record, will he confirm that public services will have access to the registered facts?
Mr. Browne: I can confirm that and I am sorry: it was an omission not to qualify identity in the context of the service.
The clause and other parts of the scheme are drafted in such a way that in the fullness of time, after the compulsion process, regulations can be drawn up that require people to produce evidence of who they are through the scheme and the necessary registrable facts for entitlement. Yes, that is exactly right, but the provision will be restricted to those facts that are necessary to prove entitlement to the particular service.
Mr. Jon Owen Jones (Cardiff, Central) (Lab/Co-op): I thank my hon. Friend the Minister, who has given way many times. The questions that have been asked so far are about how people ensure that they check on the entitlement according to the list of people
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with ID cards. I want to ask my question the other way round.
When there is a compulsory system in which everyone who is entitled is required to have an ID card, will people be able to check who is accessing services and whether they are on the ID card list? For example, by the time the ID card system is introduced, presumably all those in England who are accessing medical care will be on an electronic medical register. If no one is inappropriately accessing that care, everyone on that medical register should also appear on the compulsory ID card register. Should there be such a system to enable us to say, ''Hey, these people are accessing medical care, but they do not appear on the ID card system—what is going wrong?''?
Mr. Browne: To the extent that I understand my hon. Friend's question, my answer is that we will jealously guard the register to ensure that there is not cross-referencing of the sort that some people would try to persuade us to do, for the obvious reason that this is an identity register. If we started cross-referencing with other registers, it would be possible that information that was nothing to do with people's identity would get on to this register. That is when there is function creep.
We will not put medical records, criminal records or DNA on to this register. The register is about proving people's identity, but to a level that shows whether they are entitled to particular services. Services are a function of circumstances that relate to a person's identity—the footprint of who they are.
My hon. Friend suggests that there ought, over time, to be a process whereby anybody who is not entitled to free public services but is getting them is identified through not being on the register. Our position is to rely on the providers of services to use the facility to satisfy themselves of the identity and entitlement of the people accessing the services and to make the decisions about the provision of services at the point of provision. There is not some grand sweep going on, except at the point of provision.
The integrity of the system, and its ability to work and to ensure that people are properly accessing services, will build up over time. That is how we will best ensure that those who are entitled are getting access to their services. That is why we need the part of the clause that the amendment would take out. At that point, we need to be able to offer people the flexibility necessary to allow them to check the card, to check the registrable facts or, in certain circumstances, to check both. That is why the clause is drafted in this way.
Mr. Malins: We have had a useful debate. It is likely that we will return to the matter on Report.
Mr. Clifton-Brown: I wanted to ask the Minister something for the record, but he sat down too quickly. Over time—particularly when the cards become compulsory—my hon. Friend thinks that we will be able to abolish national insurance numbers, as having a national identity card system and a national insurance card system would be pointless and a duplication. Will he press the Minister for clarification?
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Mr. Malins: I am delighted to do so, being quite unable to speculate on the answer, although I am certain in the knowledge that the Minister cannot reply now.
Mr. Browne: My very quick response is that the national insurance number serves several purposes other than just identifying a person, such as purposes related to other Government functions. At this stage, I cannot see one replacing the other in a short time.
Mr. Malins: I am grateful to the Minister. As I have said, we will return to the matter on Report. The issue that we have been debating is very important, and it will be so to hon. Members who take part in the debate on the Floor of the House on Report. I beg to ask leave to withdraw the amendment.
Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
Mr. Malins: I beg to move amendment No. 52, in clause 15, page 14, line 23, leave out subsection (3) and insert—
'(3) Failure to produce without reasonable excuse an identity card to a police constable reasonably requiring production shall be a summary offence punishable with 6 months imprisonment or a fine or both.'.
The Chairman: With this it will be convenient to discuss the following amendments: No. 133, in clause 15, page 14, line 28, at end add—
'(4) Nothing in this section authorises the making of regulations the effect of which would be to require a British citizen to carry or produce an ID card before such time as when all British citizens are required by virtue of section 6 to be entered in the Register.'.
No. 134, in clause 18, page 16, line 36, at beginning insert 'Subject to subsection (2A)'.
No. 135, in clause 18, page 16, line 45, at end insert—
'(2A) Subsection (2) does not authorise the imposition of such condition or requirement in relation to or on a British citizen before such time as when all British citizens are required by virtue of section 6 to be entered in the Register.'.
No. 187, in clause 18, page 16, line 45, at end insert—
'(2A) The Secretary of State may by regulations provide further cases in which such a condition or requirement may be imposed in relation to or on an individual.'.
Mr. Malins: The amendment goes to the heart of the Bill and could give rise to a debate that lasted for hours and hours, but is not going to, because I want to put the matter to the Minister extremely succinctly.
My amendment, on which we shall not vote, takes us back to the point made by so many people. Our constituents and many people out in the country generally know very little about the Bill. They say that if we want to succeed in the war against terror, there is little point in having an identity card that is not compulsory to carry. Furthermore, if someone cannot produce that card, they should be taken into custody until they can establish who they are.
We all know—we went over the argument many times on Second Reading—that there is a provision under which a person can be required to produce their driving licence for a police officer. Failure to do so can lead to a requirement to produce the licence within seven days at a police station of the person's choice. That would not be at all helpful with respect to
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identity cards because—purely as regards terrorism, which we dwelt on so much early in the sitting—it would be of no use in dealing with the potential terrorist, who would simply say, ''Of course I'll produce the card in a few days,'' but never would.
On Second Reading, a number of distinguished right hon. and hon. Members argued that if the card is to become compulsory—we know that it will—the logic is that it should be compulsory to carry and produce it. If one wants to fight against terrorism, there is a seriously good argument for that. On the other side of the coin, that undoubtedly could be a serious infringement of civil liberties. However, the Bill infringes liberties in many ways, and parts of our argument are devoted to that proposition. We have a set of scales; we weigh one side of the argument against the other to discover the tipping point and the balance.
Let us not pretend that we are not dealing with civil liberties issues or that my probing amendment would do anything other than infringe civil liberties. I merely ask the Minister—and others, perhaps—to explain the logic in not going that extra step and telling people that they must carry the card and produce it or otherwise they may be taken into custody until it is established who they are. That—I paraphrase a possible Government line—would be one way for the police to be able to pick people up, identify them and ensure that they were bona fide citizens, not terrorists.
Conversely, if it is not compulsory to have and to carry the card, will there not be a danger of simply saying to society, ''We don't propose to pick you out in the street to see who you are.''? That is another way of saying that we could be taking steps that make it easier for the terrorist to walk the street, because he or she knows that there is nothing that the police can do if they have the card on them or not.
On amendment No. 133 and consequential amendments, the clause ensures that the provision of public services, such as NHS treatment, cannot be conditional on evidence of registration. Similarly, clause 18 prohibits a requirement to produce identity cards. However, both clauses contain exemptions, allowing refusal of services or requiring production of a card where a person has been compelled under clause 6. One imagines that that is primarily intended to ensure that certain groups, such as foreign nationals, be required to carry a card. Those safeguards are likely to be only temporary. When the compulsory scheme is finally rolled out to every UK resident, they will no longer be relevant.
There will be a number of consequences to the two-tier system until final national compulsion takes place. UK citizens who are compelled because they have not registered by the date on which the Home Secretary determines that the card shall become compulsory can be required to produce cards while other citizens are not. Do the Government intend to impose that two-tier system on British citizens? Probably not. Should not the Bill ensure that British citizens will not be required to produce a card, or need one to access services, until all compulsion has occurred? Otherwise, the impact will be discriminatory, as only people required to register by virtue of a factor such as their age will need to carry their cards. The amendment
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would ensure that compulsion under clauses 15 and 18 did not take effect for British citizens until such time as compulsion became universal.
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