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Lord Stoddart of Swindon: My Lords, it is absolutely right that we should be having this discussion this afternoon on the estimated costs of the scheme. I am sorry that the Bill has come to us without having been through the Commons and examined by them. After all, the House of Commons are the guardian of the taxpayers' pockets. I would have thought that they would send to us a Bill that had been properly costed, especially bearing in mind the various estimates made, ranging from about £3.1 billion to £27 billion. I would have thought that the House of Commons would want to know all about that before they submitted the Bill to this House for consideration.

I have expressed myself as opposed to the Bill in principle and on cost. I opposed it on principle, as did many or probably all of the present Government when they were in opposition. I just happen to believe as I did when I supported the Opposition in this House and for a time in another place.

It is essential that when we are dealing with taxpayers' money—because it is taxpayers' money, not government money—we should make sure that we use it properly and that we will achieve the objectives proposed. But in a Bill of this sort, which alters the arrangements and relationships between government and governed, it is important that we ensure that there is wide agreement between the political parties. It is quite clear that there is no such agreement.

If we are not careful, we may be throwing money away. Yesterday the Leader of the Opposition, who might one day be in government, said that he would scrap the ID scheme. The Liberal Democrats are against the scheme and would co-operate in scrapping it. We may spend billions of pounds in starting a scheme that has been agreed to by only one political party, which may not be in government for much longer than a few years. I object to the Government spending money, on the basis that that money is not being well spent for a long-term project.

I support this amendment because it at least has the merit of ensuring that the House of Commons, if they agree to it, require the Government to produce realistic estimates which can be supported. We know all about cost overruns, which have been referred to several times during this debate. The NHS computer programme has been mentioned in previous debates. It was estimated to cost £1 billion and it is now estimated to cost £30 billion. We are also made aware virtually every day of the costs of the Child Support Agency, which was supposed to garner £400 million per annum in benefit to the Treasury. It now costs the Treasury hundreds of millions of pounds every year to run. So we really must be careful. I hope that this amendment
 
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will be passed so that the House of Commons can properly do their duty and ensure that taxpayers' money is spent not wastefully, but productively.

Lord Marlesford: My Lords, I support my noble friend's amendment. As the noble Baroness, Lady Scotland, well knows, I have always been in favour of the concept of a national identity register, for the reasons that I set out at Second Reading. I am not in favour of cards. I regard them as a provocative, expensive complication, but I shall not go into that now.

The reason that I support the amendment so strongly is that the wholly spurious, commercial arguments which the Home Office has put forward for denying Parliament the necessary information underwrite its incompetence to administer this project. As the noble Baroness, Lady Scotland, will know, we shall be debating later this week another, much smaller Home Office computer project, which is the attempt to put all the police's firearms records on to a central register. That was required by an Act of Parliament in 1997. That it still has not happened is what we will be looking at on Thursday afternoon. I remind the House that the late, lamented Lord Williams of Mostyn estimated in February 1999 the cost of that important but much smaller project to be £300,000 to £500,000. The noble Baroness, Lady Scotland, updated that estimate in November last year by saying that the Home Office has already spent £5.6 million and the project has not yet been completed. We simply cannot give to the Home Office a blank cheque.

The Earl of Northesk: My Lords, like the noble Lord, Lord Stoddart of Swindon, I have deep reservations about this Bill on grounds of principle. Nevertheless, I have some sympathy with the view of the noble Lord, Lord Soley, that costs are dependent on the technology to be used. Accordingly, I shall follow up on the opening remarks of my noble friend Lady Noakes on the gateway review process.

I note that various organisations, notably the IT magazine Computer Weekly, have resorted to the Freedom of Information Act to elicit information about the status of a variety of IT procurement projects across government. So far as I am aware, the identity cards project is one of the few projects, if not the only one, where the relevant information has not been forthcoming. As your Lordships will be aware, the whole point of the gateway review process is to obviate the inherent risks in IT procurement by categorising various stages of any given project via the mechanism of a traffic light system. If a green signal is given, it implies that the project is in good order. If red is given, urgent remedial action is required. Needless to say, this is relevant to the ongoing viability of the project. Yet, not only do we not know whether ID cards have been given a red, green or amber light, we do not even know to which of the process's six stages it has been taken thus far.

It is impossible to make rational judgments on the viability, affordability and proportionality of the scheme without this information. Nevertheless, the
 
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justification for refusing to release the information is, as far as I am aware, rooted in issues of commercial confidentiality. Perhaps I am being unnecessarily obtuse, but I simply cannot conceive of how the release of appropriate information about which stage of the gateway process the ID card scheme has reached, and the status of each stage within the traffic light system, could impinge upon commercial confidentiality.

Therefore, I invite, indeed, urge, the Minister to provide some insight about that to enable us to scrutinise the Bill properly. Without the reassurance of that sort of information, and wider information about costs, it is little wonder that the concerns and anxieties of noble Lords, not least those of the noble Lord, Lord Wright of Richmond, are provoked.

Baroness Henig: My Lords, perhaps I may say something about costs and benefits. I declare an interest as president of the Association of Police Authorities. As is the case with many on these Benches, I strongly believe that the ID cards scheme will bring a whole range of benefits across a variety of services. I am aware that many noble Lords opposite do not believe that and are making clear their concerns, but it seems an extreme step to advocate a completely new constitutional approach, as in Amendment No. 123. I echo the concerns expressed by my noble friend on that amendment, because it contains a number of elements that would be extremely difficult to carry out in practice.

I am clear about the need for containing the costs of this scheme and preventing overruns. We are all concerned about that, but this scheme has already been scrutinised extensively—at this stage, probably as extensively as any other scheme has been. We have already heard that it has been stringently reviewed in the Office of Government Commerce gateway process and that review is continuing. Thus far the scheme has been given a green light in relation to estimates of cost and benefit, which have passed their rigorous inspection. We have heard that KPMG's independent review of the cost methodology and the cost assumptions in the outline business case produced a very favourable report. It especially praised the high quality of the outline business case. It is fair to make that point.

The Treasury is keeping tabs on the scheme and, of course, expenditure will be subject to the usual audit procedures by the National Audit Office. Risk assessments have been undertaken. I understand that an independent assurance panel has been established to offer a further layer of oversight with its private sector expertise in ensuring effective implementation. In the final analysis, estimates have to be approved by Parliament by being voted through the supply estimates process. Surely, that is a fairly comprehensive list of reviews and scrutiny to ensure that the project does not overrun significantly and continues to offer value for money. These are the stages that past schemes have gone through. I understand the concerns, but I do not believe that they should overthrow the process that we have been following for many years.
 
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Other departments will opt into the technology on an incremental basis, and presumably absorb a lot of the costs some way down the line as part of system or IT upgrades. But I wanted to put into the equation the considerable benefits to be realised by other departments. The Department for Work and Pensions has already come up with estimates for significant savings by being able to combat fraud and identity crime much more effectively—and there are figures for that. There will be benefits for a whole range of departments and services in being able to check identities—and we know that one of the main benefits that the general public most want to see is more effective vetting to make sure people are who they say they are. That is a big benefit.

I would also like to comment on behalf of the police service, to which this scheme will be of considerable value. Police will be able to expose false identities much more quickly and establish early identification of suspects. Road traffic policing and checking suspects will be much more secure, as drivers will be much less likely to give false names—and I should tell the House that they do that at present in a surprisingly high number of cases. Simply ensuring that people are telling the truth when they give their names will save a lot of time.

4.45 pm

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