UNCORRECTED TRANSCRIPT OF ORAL EVIDENCE To be published as HC 51-iHouse of COMMONSMINUTES OF EVIDENCETAKEN BEFOREHOME AFFAIRS COMMITTEE
THE WORK OF THE IDENTITY COMMISSIONER
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This is an uncorrected transcript of evidence taken in public and reported to the House. The transcript has been placed on the internet on the authority of the Committee, and copies have been made available by the Vote Office for the use of Members and others.
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Any public use of, or reference to, the contents should make clear that neither witnesses nor Members have had the opportunity to correct the record. The transcript is not yet an approved formal record of these proceedings.
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Members who receive this for the purpose of correcting questions addressed by them to witnesses are asked to send corrections to the Committee Assistant.
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Prospective witnesses may receive this in preparation for any written or oral evidence they may in due course give to the Committee.
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Transcribed by the Official Shorthand Writers to the Houses of Parliament: W B Gurney & Sons LLP, Hope House, Telephone Number: 020 7233 1935
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Oral Evidence
Taken before the Home Affairs Committee
on
Members present
Keith Vaz, in the Chair
Ms Karen Buck
Mrs Ann Cryer
David T C Davies
Mrs Janet Dean
Patrick Mercer
Gwyn Prosser
Bob Russell
Martin Salter
Mr Gary Streeter
Mr David Winnick
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Witness: Sir Joseph Pilling KCB, Identity Commissioner, gave evidence.
Q1 Chairman: Good morning. I would like to apologise for keeping people waiting. We were not looking for our various forms of identity, Sir Joseph, we were agreeing a report - which is always a matter of robust debate in this Committee. Thank you very much for coming. This is a brief, one-off session into the role of the new Identity Commissioner. I will begin, on behalf of the Committee, by congratulating you on taking on your new appointment. Were you surprised at getting the job?
Sir Joseph Pilling: I was very surprised. It was not a job that I was seeking. I was asked if I would take it on for a relatively short term. I do not have a long appointment. I agreed to do it for 18 months, which is what I was asked to do.
Q2 Chairman: Do you mean they just phoned you out of the blue? You never applied, but you were sitting at your home one day and the phone rang and the Home Secretary said, "You are the new Identity Commissioner"?
Sir Joseph Pilling: Not quite like that but something akin to that. I was sitting at home and the phone did ring, and I was asked if I would be willing to do it on behalf of the Home Secretary, whom I saw a little later in the process.
Q3 Chairman: And you never applied for this post?
Sir Joseph Pilling: No, I did not apply for it.
Q4 Chairman: Goodness, it sounds like being appointed to be a minister.
Sir Joseph Pilling: Lots of things, in my experience, come that way.
Q5 Chairman: We will all be sitting by our phones - not me, but others might be. I would like to begin by asking you, Sir Joseph, what you consider to be the most important aspects of your new role.
Sir Joseph Pilling: The role is quite wide. The legislation which Parliament passed requires the occupant of the post to look at all the arrangements made under the Act but also picks out some things quite specifically and expects the Identity Commissioner to pay attention to those. And a nod is as good as a wink, so that is what I propose to pay attention to. It involves the confidentiality of information that people offer and its accuracy or integrity; it involves the use that is made of the information which is provided; and it involves looking at the complaints system which the Identity and Passport Service have in place to deal with any complaints they receive about either the register or identity cards from members of the public.
Q6 Chairman: You say on your website that you wish to consult widely with the public on the issue of identity cards. Has that consultation begun?
Sir Joseph Pilling: Yes. I have written to rather a lot of people asking them if they would be willing to see me, and arrangements have been made for some of those meetings to be held, but the postal strike did not help the process forward.
Q7 Chairman: You have written to people. You talk about consulting widely. That is more than just writing to stakeholders; it is presumably asking the public what they think about identity cards.
Sir Joseph Pilling: Yes.
Q8 Chairman: Knowing that the public is now very used to using emails, I assume they must be sending you lots and lots of emails.
Sir Joseph Pilling: Not lots, so far; some. The IPS have set up two public panels as well, one in Manchester and one in London I went to the first meeting of each of those panels to explain my role and to ask for their help in giving me their feelings.
Q9 Chairman: Presumably members of the public can just write in.
Sir Joseph Pilling: They are very welcome to and the website makes that clear.
Q10 Chairman: What will happen if the vast majority of those writing in to you are saying, "We don't think identity cards are a good idea. We don't believe that we should have them in this country." How will you react to that if thousands of people send you emails saying they are against identity cards?
Sir Joseph Pilling: I have made it clear to everybody, including in the Department which asked me to do the job, that that is an issue on which I have no professional view. And nobody is going to hear my personal views while I am doing this job. I see it, essentially, as my job to help people to reach a better informed conclusion on that issue, among other things.
Q11 Chairman: I am a bit confused here. You see it as a public education role.
Sir Joseph Pilling: Public information.
Q12 Chairman: What if you have 10,000 emails from the public saying, "We do not want identity cards" and 50 emails saying, "Welcome to your new post, Sir Joseph. Good luck with what you are doing." What will you do as a result of those? It is not a question of having an opinion. Those would be facts, would they not? How would you react to that situation?
Sir Joseph Pilling: I will ensure that that information itself comes into the public domain through the reports that I write. Essentially I see it as the task that Parliament set out for this post to find out what is going on, which all my correspondence inevitably will not be able to do. The Home Secretary cannot find out what is going on because he is a busy man and he has lots and lots of other things to think about. On his behalf and on everybody else's behalf, it is my job to find out what is going on, and then, of course, to make sure people who are interested know what I have found.
Q13 Chairman: Rather than being an independent figure - which is what I think people might think of as being a commissioner - you see your role as being part of public education, to explain to people, basically, the value of identity cards.
Sir Joseph Pilling: No, I see it as entirely independent.
Q14 Chairman: You do.
Sir Joseph Pilling: Entirely. I am not sure what the contrast is between independence and public education. That is not a phrase I would use. I would say "publication information". "Education" sounds to me a little bit patronising and I do not want to patronise the Home Secretary or the Great British public or anybody else.
Q15 Chairman: In our previous inquiry, 2003-04, a number of witnesses argued that it would be much better if the Identity Commissioner reported to Parliament rather than reported to the Home Secretary. There would then be an independent element of scrutiny. For example, the chief inspector for immigration now reports to us and others do likewise. Is there any problem in preparing an annual report and placing that before Parliament or, indeed, writing to this Committee on a biannual basis and telling us precisely what you have done?
Sir Joseph Pilling: I would not see any problem. But Parliament answered the question for me, as it were. The House of Commons and House of Lords together produced the Act under which I have to operate. You will recall, I am sure, that the Act obliges the Home Secretary to pass to Parliament anything I send to him, with a couple of what I hope will be genuinely non event exceptions. If he feels that something I have written might itself threaten national security or undermine the prosecution of an offender, he is entitled to blue pencil those bits of what I have written, though he is obliged to tell this House that he has done so, if he does so.
Q16 Chairman: You are not against the idea of writing directly to Parliament, to this Committee, every six months, keeping us informed of what you are up to?
Sir Joseph Pilling: If the law were changed to give me that responsibility, I would be very supportive of it, but I propose to write to the Home Secretary.
Q17 Chairman: You would not require a change in the law to write to the Home Affairs Select Committee, I can assure you.
Sir Joseph Pilling: But I would require a change of law to write to anybody before I write to the Home Secretary.
Q18 Chairman: Absolutely.
Sir Joseph Pilling: It is his job to convey to Parliament what I send to him. What I can promise is that you will be the second to hear about anything I have to say. You will not be the first to hear.
Chairman: That would be acceptable to this Committee, I am sure.
Q19 Mrs Dean: Sir Joseph, could you tell us what your budget is and how many support staff you have?
Sir Joseph Pilling: I have a budget this year, I believe, of £560,000. I have full-time support staff of four people at the moment.
Q20 Mrs Dean: Is that sufficient for you to undertake your role effectively?
Sir Joseph Pilling: It is an acceptable place to start and I would be surprised if it turned out to be too generous. I did not particularly want to start with a staff that turned out to be slightly under-occupied and bored, and then we had to ease some of them out. I wanted to start relatively modestly and have people stretched a bit and then see where we got to. I will not be inhibited about saying that we need more if I feel that people are being exploited.
Q21 Mrs Dean: Have you been able to make any estimate as to how much finance and staffing you will need in the future?
Sir Joseph Pilling: Not beyond what we have at the moment. It is early stages. You can imagine this is a completely new office. We had no accommodation, we had no IT system, we had no telephones, so rather a lot of effort has had to go into some very boring bread-and-butter business at the moment. It is too early to reach a conclusion, I think.
Q22 Mr Streeter: Is it a matter of public record, Sir Joseph, what you are being paid to undertake this job? If it is, could you enlighten the Committee?
Sir Joseph Pilling: As far as I know it is not in the public domain at the moment, but I do not feel any inhibition about saying what it is. I am working part-time. I am doing three days a week for part of the first six months, two days a week for another part of the six months, and receiving £44,000 for that six-month period.
Mr Streeter: Thank you.
Q23 Patrick Mercer: Sir Joseph, do you have any concerns that you are excluded from reporting on information provided to the security services?
Sir Joseph Pilling: Not great concerns. Of course it was not an issue it was open to me to influence; it is settled in the legislation. I know enough about the intelligence agencies to realise that they raise special sort of issues and I understand why Parliament wanted the identity cards issue, as far as the intelligence agencies are concerned, to be dealt with by the Intelligence Services Commissioner. If I thought I was not going to have enough to do, I might feel a bit aggrieved, but I think there will be plenty to look at. The key to making sure that nothing goes wrong is that the Intelligence Services Commissioner and I to talk to each other and work out how to ensure that nothing falls between the cracks. I am seeing him next month with exactly that intention.
Q24 Patrick Mercer: Have you had to have any special clearances or vetting to do this job?
Sir Joseph Pilling: I am vetted and cleared up to the eyeballs for other reasons, so I did not have to have anything.
Q25 Patrick Mercer: That was enough.
Sir Joseph Pilling: Yes.
Q26 Chairman: Nothing beyond the eyeballs.
Sir Joseph Pilling: Nothing beyond the eyeballs.
Q27 Mr Winnick: Sir Joseph, I hope you will not misunderstand the question, but looking at your background, which I am sure is that of distinguished public servant - Permanent Secretary to the Northern Ireland Office, for quite a number of years and other such positions - do you feel there is a possibility - it is a leading question but, nevertheless, somewhat subjective on your part in trying to answer - that the Government felt you were a safe pair of hands to handle this very sensitive position?
Sir Joseph Pilling: That is a possibility, of course. I have noticed, inevitably, since I agreed to take this on, lots of situations where my former colleagues have been discharging duties where their independence has sometimes been called into question and sometimes deplored, depending on who it is who has been reflecting on it. I am probably well enough known for the Home Secretary to have been warned that I might turn out to be rather independently minded. When I met him, he went out of his way to tell me that he wanted me to be independent and I went out of my way to tell him that I have every intention of being so. If it was entirely a safe pair of hands they were looking for, they probably did find the wrong person.
Q28 Mr Winnick: That is a very welcome reply. And of course you are Chairman of the Koestler Trust, which puts you to a very large extent on the side of the angels.
Sir Joseph Pilling: Thank you for saying that.
Q29 Mr Winnick: Are you concerned about "function creep"? Evidence was given to us before that when identity cards were issued in war time, and rightly so in all the circumstances in 1939, we started off with the basic information but by 1950 the government found that there were other reasons to have identity cards, and we ended up with 39 stated reasons, including marriage and so on, all related to identity cards, before, as a result of public pressure and a well-known case with which I am sure you are familiar, the government of the day decided to do away with them in 1953. Is there a danger, in your mind, that this could occur again and, as I have said, could be described as function creep?
Sir Joseph Pilling: Let me explain why I do not find the question very easy to answer. Genuinely I am scratching my head about it at the moment. I noticed, looking at the debates on the bill when it was a bill and not an Act, that both sides of the House were concerned about function creep - the ministers talking about it as a concern, as well as people on the Opposition frontbench and no doubt backbenchers on both sides as well. In the Second World War and when the bill was being introduced, the focus was on a rather different animal than we have now because compulsion was the order of the day - either in reality in the Second World War or in prospect in 2005-06 when the bill was passing through Parliament. At the moment we have an entirely voluntary system and I cannot quite see how functions can creep without undermining the present Government's commitment to voluntary ID cards. But, as I say, I have not quite got to the bottom of it and I have not had a chance to talk to very many other people about it, and I do not want to suggest I have the last word to utter on it today when I barely have the first word to utter on it. It is an issue I have seen has concerned people. It is an issue to which I think I should pay attention, but I have a feeling it may turn out to be irrelevant as long as the Government is committed to voluntary cards.
Q30 Mr Winnick: That is where you put the emphasis, on a voluntary scheme.
Sir Joseph Pilling: Yes.
Q31 Mr Winnick: Certainly not compulsory.
Sir Joseph Pilling: Yes.
Mr Winnick: Thank you very much.
Q32 David Davies: Sir Joseph, how easy do you think it would be to forge identity cards?
Sir Joseph Pilling: I do not yet have expert evidence on that subject, but I know that very, very considerable efforts have been put into making it extraordinarily difficult to do so.
Q33 David Davies: Is there any figure that has been suggested, a percentage if you like, of cards that may end up forged or in the wrong hands or taken on by the wrong people?
Sir Joseph Pilling: I have not seen such an incident, but based on what I am being told about passports, with identity cards, as with passports, and possibly even more so because forgery will be so much more difficult, there may be an attempt to get an identity card that is, as it were, apparently accurate, not forged, but actually applying to the wrong person. That kind of deceit may be attempted. I know it is attempted in relation to passports very often each year. Obviously I must go into how IPS intend to manage things to make it very difficult. My guess is that fingerprints will be quite discouraging for people. If you have to provide your fingerprints, it will be quite difficult to have two entirely different identity cards with the same fingerprints.
Q34 David Davies: I understand that. At the moment it is voluntary and it is suggested that take-up is not going to be that high. If somebody takes up an identity card, puts their fingerprints on it but convinces the authorities that they are someone else - in other words, they take somebody else's identity by using their own fingerprints - it is going to be very hard indeed, is it not, to reverse that process. It is already quite hard at the moment when people steal people's identity, but if they have a card which the authorities say is almost impossible to forge or get wrong, who at the end of the day is going to sort out who is whom, and has this been thought of?
Sir Joseph Pilling: They certainly are engaging
in various checks to make it difficult to do that. I have seen some of those checks being
deployed on a screen in
Q35 Gwyn Prosser: Sir Joseph, following on from your discussion with Mr Winnick, if the identity card had been compulsory, as according to the first draft bill, would you have felt quite comfortable about taking up this job?
Sir Joseph Pilling: Yes, I would have been. It would not have affected me in the least, in the sense that there is a job there to be done to find out what is going on and to tell people about it, and the better that job is done, the more reliable will be the views that people come to either for or against either voluntary or compulsory identity cards. In taking this job on, it was not a vote of confidence by me in identity cards, voluntary or compulsory, nor an expression of any opinion. I started with this point, and I still may not have got it over quite as clearly as I ought to, but I see my task as helping citizens generally, including their elected representatives, to find out how it is working and then to come to the conclusion either it is a brilliant idea or it continues to stink, in a sense according to what I have found out and say.
Q36 Gwyn
Prosser: Most people who have concerns about the Act
are more concerned in my view about the Register rather than the card
itself. We know that the Border Agency
have already issued something like 75,000 identity cards and the main system
voluntarily is being rolled out very shortly in
Sir Joseph Pilling: It is up and running, although the foreign nationals' details are not on the Register. I believe that on about Thursday of last week, which is the most recent date for which I have information, there were 538 people's details on the Register and 537 of them were British citizens and one was a citizen of another country within the European Community. The foreign nationals may be on in due course, but they are not on at the moment.
Q37 Martin Salter: Sir Joseph, the Act provides that the National Identity Register will contain registered facts about individuals to be ascertained and verified "wherever this is necessary in the public interest". It gives a number of definitions as to what public interest is, including the slightly strange one of "for the purpose of securing the efficient and effective provision of public services". Could you explain to us what you think is meant by that and how you will go about ascertaining what is truly public interest, because clearly it is a subjective judgment.
Sir Joseph Pilling: Certainly the words on the face of the legislation will need quite a lot of detailed explanation for the relatively junior staff. I am sure they will not be very, very junior staff, but they will need guidance, as is common in public administration. You have picked perhaps the one element which seems particularly broad-brush in the list of five different definitions of the public interest in that bit of the Act. I have written to ask the Identity and Passport Service for information about how they intend to approach the sharing of data, what guidance they propose to give to their staff. My aim is to put that information into the public domain as soon as I can.
Q38 Martin Salter: You are seeking clarification.
Sir Joseph Pilling: Yes, so that people can come to a conclusion about whether it is reasonable or not.
Q39 Martin Salter: The Home Secretary told this Committee earlier this year, "We have made it absolutely clear, if you do not want an ID card and you just want to use your biometric passports as your ID, fine." Is it your understanding that all those applying for a biometric passport would be automatically entered on the National Identity Register and are therefore halfway to having an ID card in all but name?
Sir Joseph Pilling: It is my understanding that people's details will be on the National Identity Register, yes. I am not absolutely sure that that will make an enormous difference compared with the present position. You have to have people's details somewhere or there is very little point in them having a passport in the first place. Somebody has to be able to check that this is a genuine passport, so you find out if there is an entry for that passport on the Register or whether you are looking at a forgery. I am struggling a bit at the moment to understand the significance of that point, but I think you are dead right.
Q40 Chairman:
Sir
Joseph, a number of other European countries have identity card schemes. If you look at Eastern Europe, in some
countries, like
Sir Joseph Pilling: I am, as it were, the second line of defence in all of this. Some people are putting this scheme into practice. I have the benefit of looking at all the work that they have done in examining other jurisdictions. Certainly I do plan to do that, but I will be doing my best to do it in the comfort of my own home as far as I can, and I will only think about spending taxpayers' money investigating it on the ground if there is no sensible other way of finding out.
Q41 Chairman: You have told the Home Secretary that you are proposing to do this job for only 18 months.
Sir Joseph Pilling: No, I was asked if I would do it for 18 months and I said I would do it for 18 months. It is an open question as to what would happen after that.
Q42 Chairman: If there is an agreement, you might continue to do it after 18 months.
Sir Joseph Pilling: There is an event between now and 18 months which this Committee are even more concerned with than I am which may just have an effect.
Q43 Chairman: You are referring to the Henley Regatta.
Sir Joseph Pilling: Not the
Q44 Chairman: Sir Joseph, thank you very much for coming to see this Committee. We are most grateful. We wanted to start a dialogue with you right at the start of your appointment and we look forward to being kept informed. Whenever you feel that you should write to us, do not hesitate to do so. I am sure that we will see you again, if not in the near future, certainly in about six months' time.
Sir Joseph Pilling: Thank you so much.
Chairman: Thank you, Sir Joseph.