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"( ) the address of his principal place of residence in the United Kingdom;
( ) the address of every other place in the United Kingdom or elsewhere where he has a place of residence;
( ) where in the United Kingdom and elsewhere he has previously been resident;"

The noble Baroness said: My Lords, I hope these government amendments will find favour with noble Lords opposite, not least because in the main they respond to requests and pleas from Members all around the House. With the leave of the House, I will speak also to government Amendments Nos. 27 and 117, as well as to Amendments Nos. 8, 10, 25 and 26, in the name of the noble Baroness, Lady Anelay. I hope that it will be clear that government Amendment No. 7, which introduces a new form of words to replace paragraphs (b) and (c) of Clause 1(5), responds to points raised by the noble Baroness and noble Lords opposite in Committee.

I hope that we have demonstrated that we are a listening Government. Therefore, we have listened carefully and responded. We have been persuaded that it would make the Bill clearer and remove any doubt if we inserted a specific reference to principal residence in this subsection; and that we should also provide for the possibility of holding an address outside the United Kingdom. Although the national identity register is intended for United Kingdom residents, there could easily be cases, such as foreign students, for whom it might make sense to retain an address abroad and for this to be held on the register. I very much hope that your Lordships will accept this amendment and the consequential amendments, Amendment No. 27 to Schedule 1, and Amendment No. 117 to Clause 43.

Amendment No. 27 acts in a slightly different way from Amendments Nos. 25 and 26, in the name of the noble Baroness, Lady Anelay, to allow addresses outside the United Kingdom to be held on the register by including them in Schedule 1, and I hope, therefore, that she will agree not to move those amendments.

Amendment No. 8, in the name of the noble Baroness, as an amendment to government Amendment No. 7, is concerned with the aspect of the
 
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Bill which allows address history to be held on the national identity register as part of the registrable facts. We made clear in Committee that applicants for identity cards will be asked for information about current principal address, any current alternative address and previous addresses. However, there will be no need to ask about every single address at which they have lived since they were born and in nearly every case we would not expect to ask people for details of where they have lived any earlier than six years previously. I know that that causes the noble Baroness and the noble Lord, Lord Selsdon, some concern.

However, it would be wrong to write a limit of six years into the Bill. Previous addresses are needed to enable a background check to be made to ensure that a gold standard of identity is entered into the register. There may be some cases where it is just not possible to check the past six years but for which there might be earlier information available—for example, someone who has been working abroad but has an earlier address history in the United Kingdom. We should also bear in mind that it is much harder for a fraudster to create false historic records and so if there were any doubt over an applicant's true identity a check back on evidence of where they have lived, say, earlier than six years ago might help to resolve those doubts.

In addition, once an identity card has been issued, historic data of information previously recorded will continue to be held on the register so long as it is consistent with the statutory purposes. That means being able to retain information on previous addresses. Thus, if the police were investigating a crime that had taken place in the past, they should be able to seek information about an individual's previous addresses which could then be provided in accordance with Clause 19.

Of course, previous addresses would be archive information and so would not be part of the current record and could not be provided when a person consented to an identity check against the register under Clause 14. We amended the Bill from the version introduced before the election so that previous addresses are not now held in the information recorded in paragraph 1 of Schedule 1 but could be provided under Clause 14. This means that it would not be possible for, say, a commercial organisation to seek provision of an individual's complete address history on the national identity register even with that person's consent.

In extremis, if, say, someone wanted to be reminded of previous address details that they had forgotten they could obtain it by making a Data Protection Act data subject access request. I hope that your Lordships will accept that holding address history on the register will be a help rather than a hindrance.

Amendment No. 10 would preclude treating as a place of residence the residential accommodation at a place of higher education. We do not see the need to do that and especially not to place such a detailed provision in the Bill. Some students may want to continue to regard their parents' address as their principal one while others may prefer to nominate
 
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their term-time address whether in halls of residence or private accommodation. The details on which addresses should be recorded should be left to the individual and any detailed provisions on what information needs to be provided to update address information on the register including any exceptions should be left to the regulations which will be made under Clause 12.

I do not believe that it would be helpful to be constrained by the provisions in the noble Baroness's amendments and I ask her, therefore, to withdraw Amendment No. 8. I hope that she will find that we have taken the meat of her amendments and ensured that it is present in the Bill; as indeed we have taken in the comments made by noble Lords around the House of the same import. I beg to move.

Baroness Anelay of St Johns moved, as an amendment to Amendment No. 7, Amendment No. 8:

Line 6, after "where" insert ", during the last 6 years,"

The noble Baroness said: My Lords, the noble Baroness opened by saying she hoped they were a listening Government and that their amendments have been tabled in response to debates in Committee. I hope that I may say without being opposed by any of my noble colleagues that we always think that the noble Baroness is a listening Minister. Our difficulty is that she does not run the Government. I hope that that does not kill her career stone dead today. We know full well that there are times when she listens but does not agree with us. There are times when she listens and agrees but is unable to carry the matter into legislation. That is one of the interesting facets of a political life. In most of these amendments, the noble Baroness has met the concerns we expressed. I welcome Amendment No. 7 in so far as it does that. My amendments in these groups today are probing in nature and are not intended to go further than that.

On Amendment No. 8, the noble Baroness has taken us much further today than was possible in Committee or in another place. She has talked about some of the exceptions where the Government would need to consider a period before six years—exceptions that, so far as I am aware, have not been debated previously. I shall consider what she said because she has adduced very reasonable arguments. There could be people without any history in this country in the past six years. They may have been homeless or rootless during that time and are unable to produce that information. For whatever reasons, they may have historic evidence overseas. I accept that that is a good argument.

There are other circumstances in which it is still intrusive as a matter of course to require that people should go back beyond six years. I do not intend to revamp the Committee stage argument: we pointed out how onerous it could be on individuals to go back 40 or 50 years. However, I recall the noble Baroness saying—I do not wish to put words into her mouth—that perhaps as a matter of good practice the Government might say that if you have lived somewhere for less than three months the place or the dates might not have to be revealed. That is in my
 
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mind. I can then move on to the way in which she has dealt with my other amendments. I am grateful to her for that.

My amendment on students was badly drafted. I sought to put down words which fairly reflected some of the concerns put to me by universities. It does not cover all the issues raised but it was the only one I could find that was admissible. I was intrigued to hear the Minister say that students might wish to choose either their home or college address. I understand the sense in that; however, I suspect that they would not live more than three months at a time at their college address; therefore, the college address might be exempted. I shall need to consider that issue further and perhaps talk to the noble Baroness.

Universities and colleges have been concerned about how students might be affected. I am aware that the Government would be in great difficulty in exempting students per se because there are many different kinds of students. As a very mature student in my late 30s, I did a taught MA when I was living at home. Other students who had taken lodgings for that time kept their original address. Many of those students were sponsored civil servants. I know that the Government are in a difficult position but the statement in the Bill is very wide. I have been trying to get some assurance for outside bodies that at least their concerns are recognised. The noble Baroness has gone some way towards doing that today, and I shall have to think very carefully about what she said about Amendment No. 10.

The noble Baroness has exactly met my queries with regard to Amendments Nos. 25 and 26, although perhaps for a reason different from mine. I am very happy with what she said. I thought that my amendment and that moved by the noble Baroness might also have a relevance to the position of UK citizens. During our debates in Committee, my noble friend Lord Northesk mentioned that he sometimes lives in the United States. Indeed, I know that the noble Baroness's noble friend, the noble Lord, Lord Acton—he is not in his place so I will let him know afterwards that I referred to him by name—gives in Dod's as his principal address an address in the USA, perfectly properly. So I accept that her amendment is right but perhaps for different reasons.

Overall, I think that we need to consider a little further—perhaps by debate; it may not be necessary to do so by way of a later amendment—how far back one goes in tracking addresses and why. However, I accept the noble Baroness's amendment today and I certainly shall not press my Amendment No.8, although as a matter of course I have to beg to move.

7 pm

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