Identity Documents Bill

Debate between Baroness Neville-Jones and Lord Deben

Wednesday 17th November 2010 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Neville-Jones]

The point I was answering before noble Lords intervened was the inference somehow that we are inflicting great hardship on cardholders. We do not believe this to be the case.

We do not believe that the statutory basis of the issue of ID cards creates a contract or anything akin to a contract in relations between the Secretary of State and the cardholder. Remedies that would be available in the courts if the contract were governed by the law of contract or consumer legislation—which I think is the point raised by the noble Lord—is not available for identity cards.

One or two noble Lords have raised the issue of compromise and of whether it would be a good idea to have one. Could we not, for instance, set the cost of this against the cost of the next passport or, indeed, use the lifetime for which the present card was available? There are associated problems. I do not want to detain the House extensively on this, but the fact of the matter is that the two databases—that is to say, the identity register and the passport database—are not the same. They contain different information, issued for different purposes; their legislative frameworks for what you pay are also different. We cannot therefore simply transfer the one across from the other.

That construction of two differently governed databases with different information on them was the construction of the legislation put through by our predecessors. Unfortunately, in addition to that we are going to destroy the database. We would otherwise have the continuing cost of maintaining it. That is why it cannot be regarded as a valid document for its lifetime; there is nothing behind it against which anybody needing to check your identity would validly be able so to do. There is a problem in that it simply is not a useful document any longer.

[Lord Deben]

I understand that there may be technical reasons why my proposal does not work, but surely they do not apply to the question of a passport. If you sent your form in, it would be quite clear from all the other documents that that little card was for the same person who sent in the form. You do not have to look it up on the two databases; you just know that that is one of the cases in which they could have £30 off. I do not see that that costs anything at all.

[Baroness Neville-Jones]

I am sorry; I thought that the noble Lord was suggesting that this card should be available for use during its previously indicated lifetime. It is of course a separate issue as to whether you could ask for a refund. There are many problems about the refund issue, one of which is that we would have to verify whether the person presenting a card was actually entitled to that refund, which would mean referring to the database. We would have to notify everybody. The costs involved—

Drugs: Classification

Debate between Baroness Neville-Jones and Lord Deben

Tuesday 9th November 2010 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Neville-Jones]

My Lords, we believe that all drugs that are classified on the list are extremely harmful to society; we do not believe that alcohol taken in moderation is harmful to society. Clearly, there is alcohol abuse, but the Government already have a strategy—and we will add to it—on reducing the possibilities of that abuse. This Government are taking measures that are rather more stringent than those of the previous Administration.

[Lord Deben]

Will my noble friend take very great care before she takes seriously the recent report of this independent committee on drugs? Its judgment is based on a methodology that to most of us, when looked at carefully, is shown to be entirely flawed.

[Baroness Neville-Jones]

My Lords, the Government have confidence in the independent advice given by their own statutory commission and we trust that advice. I am inclined to agree with the comments just made by my noble friend.