---

Lord Waddington: My Lords, no one seriously doubts that there is a difference in principle between a scheme which is voluntary—even if it is only partly voluntary, as a result of requirements to register if certain steps are taken—and one which makes registration compulsory. There is a world of difference between them. How can it possibly be right to move from a compulsory scheme by the use of secondary legislation, even with the super-affirmative procedure? That is the question.

If the use of the super-affirmative procedure meant that both Houses had to agree that the time had come when the scheme should become compulsory, I would have thought that the super-affirmative procedure provided a real safeguard. Yet, as my noble friend has pointed out, that is not the case at all. The Government apparently take the view that this House would have no right to reject an order under Section 7 making the scheme compulsory. That is certainly what the
 
23 Jan 2006 : Column 983
 
Minister said in Committee in the Commons on 12 July at col. 216. He said that the elected House will decide whether the order making cards compulsory will go forward. In other words, the Government are saying that this step of grave principle, making the scheme compulsory, can be taken on the say-so of the Commons without even the safeguard of the Parliament Act to ensure that there was delay while further thought was given to the proposal. It is quite wrong for the state to make a voluntary scheme compulsory without primary legislation.

5 pm

Baroness Scotland of Asthal: My Lords, to clear this up, I confirm that what I said previously about how the super-affirmative procedure would work is correct. If both Houses did not agree, the matter would have to come back by separate primary legislation. So this House would be able to amend and/or alter, as would the other place.

Lord Waddington: My Lords, I am very grateful to the noble Baroness for saying that. I hope that what she says is not later repudiated, because it runs entirely counter to what was said in the other place. In view of what she has said, I hope that we will soon have a statement from the appropriate Minister in the other place that what he said was wrong and that he retracts it. Otherwise, we are still left in the extraordinary position of a categoric statement having been made by the responsible Minister in the Commons and the noble Baroness saying precisely the opposite. That puts us in some difficulty.

Lord Marlesford: My Lords, I strongly support my noble friend Lady Anelay. I start from a simple premise, which is that we have far too much legislation in general and far too much secondary legislation. Much secondary legislation has been ill digested, ill drafted and ill conceived and is highly bureaucratic and burdensome on the people of this country. That something as important as this should be suggested for secondary legislation is, to me, absolutely absurd. Although I personally strongly support the need for a national identity register, I have severe doubts whether the scheme proposed by the Government will work.

My noble friend Lord Crickhowell was kind enough to refer to the shambles and chaos of the firearms register. I noted that the noble Baroness, Lady Scotland, said that the new register will be administered by the Passport Agency. I agree with her that the Passport Agency has recently performed rather well, but I remind her that my noble friend Lady Anelay and I visited the Passport Agency about two years ago. We detected a huge shambles in many of its procedures and safeguards. I do not for one moment claim that anything that I said—or even, perhaps, anything that my noble friend said—at our meeting with the heads of the administration of the Passport Agency resulted in its improvement, but I welcome the improvement.
 
23 Jan 2006 : Column 984
 

The identity card scheme as introduced in the Bill may well need significant amendment before we move to a universal, compulsory system. That must mean that there should be primary legislation. If this House has any role at all—and, of course, it does—it is that of detailed scrutiny of the practicality of schemes, legislation and the administration of this country. I therefore hope that the Government will accept the amendment.

Viscount Bledisloe: My Lords, there is a particular reason why compulsion must be introduced under primary legislation. If the order is made rendering registration compulsory, under Clause 6(2), that imposes on every individual an obligation to apply to the registrar. The consequence of making an application to the registrar is that the person must pay a fee—a fee for something that he specifically does not want but that he cannot get out of having. As the noble Baroness, technically correctly, says: "If you feel so strongly about an identity card, you can go without a passport and a driving licence. Then you do not have to have an identity card". But once the scheme is compulsory you have to have one. To my knowledge, for the very first time, a government are saying that every inhabitant of this country is required to have a document which we shall give him and he has to pay for it. To my knowledge, that is unique and wholly objectionable.

The noble Baroness could say, "If you feel so strongly about it, you could emigrate". But the trouble is that if she has her way I shall not have a passport and I shall not even be able to emigrate. So, finding I cannot emigrate, I suppose my only choice is to go to Beachy Head, jump off and do away with myself—and then, I accept, I shall not need to have one. But that is a somewhat strange definition of voluntary.

Lord Phillips of Sudbury: My Lords, I am grateful to the noble Viscount for giving way. I think that he may be wrong. If he does not kill himself, he will find that before getting treatment at the hospital he has to produce his ID card.

Viscount Bledisloe: My Lords, that is all right because then if I do not get treated I shall die and, therefore, I shall not have to have the card.

Can the Minister give us another example of someone who is compelled to do something, and to pay a fee for something, he did not want? I did not choose to come into this world. If the Government's proposition is right, the only people who should be made to pay for the ID card are my parents, not me.

Lord Crickhowell: My Lords, I am glad that the noble Viscount has put into place the extraordinary argument advanced by the Minister in our previous debate about what constitutes a voluntary scheme. I thought that to describe the scheme as voluntary simply because there was no obligation for you to apply for a passport, and that you could exclude yourself from the pleasure of going abroad, was a pretty thin argument; but it has been made even thinner by the noble Viscount.
 
23 Jan 2006 : Column 985
 

I am also glad that the noble Lord, Lord Marlesford, made the point about the previous record of the Passport Office. Yes, it has done quite well recently but initially it made an absolute shambles of things. So I am not sure that I am filled with quite the degree of confidence that I was supposed to be on being told by the ministerial Bench that it was not going to be like the firearms scheme where the Government had to rely on the Home Office incompetence but that they were handing it over to someone else who might do the job better. It says something about the confidence of Ministers now in the Home Office of their ability to run a scheme that they advance such an argument.

There are two phases of this great project. First, there is what might be called the "You all love it, you all want it, you will all want to have these identity cards and therefore we shall go along with it and we are giving you a great privilege" phase. Then there is the second phase. At some time in the future, the Government will say, "No, it is not a question of what you want but what we want". They will insist that you have it whether or not you like it. We heard from the Minister that the system was being phased in in that way—that they were trying to avoid the big move to compulsion.

One of the most extraordinary features of the project is the timescale, to which the Minister referred earlier—the initial consultation in, I think, 2002; the announcement in the House in November 2003; and here we are at the start of 2006. Yet even that first phase, debated in the previous amendment, will not be implemented until 2008; and the really compulsory phase, when everyone is brought in, will be quite a long time after that. I cannot remember exactly when, but Ministers have made it clear that there will be quite a long pause before we get there.

Yet we are told that the whole object of this compulsory scheme is to deal with serious problems afflicting the nation: fraud, crime, illegal immigration and terrorism; so we have to have this great scheme. But it cannot be as urgent as that or we would be introducing it now. I find it extraordinary that, while we are waiting to see how the scheme works and for the reports of the commissioner on how it operates in practice—I hope we will have those reports before we reach the final compulsion stage—we are told, "Oh well, we can rely on the debates held at the introduction of this legislation. We may then be content with the order-making power", enhanced or fallible though it may be in the way that has been hinted at. By then, our experience may be so different from what the Government have indicated at this stage that our knowledge about the effective ways to address the political problems of issues such as fraud and crime may be quite different. We may have changed our view on terrorism by then. Surely we ought to be able to debate these matters in the normal way, thus making sure that the detailed legislation then introduced is correct and able to deal with the situation at the time. It would build on the experience gained during the long period of the scheme's introduction.
 
23 Jan 2006 : Column 986
 

Over the years, surely we have learnt one thing: the devil is in the detail. I remember how the great parliamentarian Tam Dalyell would repeat that saying again and again during our constitutional debates. How right he was to do so. It is as true today as it was then. Just because the timescale is so extended there is an overwhelming case, in addition to that so eloquently described by my noble friend in moving the amendment, for ensuring that we start again and look at the situation as it exists at that point. Parliament should have its normal rights and freedom to carry out the job of seeing legislation through in the appropriate manner.

---