Identity Documents Bill

Debate between Lord Brett and Lord Brooke of Sutton Mandeville

Monday 1st November 2010 Grand Committee

[Lord Brooke of Sutton Mandeville]

My Lords, the Minister has invited the mover of the amendment to withdraw it, but that still leaves the opportunity to make a brief intervention. I did not speak at Second Reading—indeed, I was not present—but I have had the considerable privilege of listening to the whole of the debate today, except the very first words that the noble Lord, Lord Brett, uttered.

I am a mildly interested party, for quite irrelevant reasons, in the way that the noble Lord, Lord Mandelson, introduced the car scrappage scheme. My car became relevant to it precisely 24 hours after the scheme ended, and I have behaved impeccably towards the noble Lord and indeed all members of the previous Government by not alluding to that fact until this very moment. I am also perhaps the only member of the Committee to be over the age of 75 and therefore entitled no longer to pay a television licence. I have always regarded that as a generous concession by the state—although you do not realise, until you have to do so, that securing it is a little like proving that you are not a money launderer.

The jury must be out on the country’s enthusiasm for the ID project. There was some reaction that the Government were wrong to suggest that it was wholly unpopular, but the fact that only 12,000 people had bought these ID cards since 2006 did not suggest an overwhelming popularity and that they would do well as a loss leader in a supermarket. I think that we can say that there is something to be said on either side of that argument.

[Lord Brett]

First, it was a phased rollout, starting in 2009 and ending in 2012-13. It was restricted to Manchester Airport, London City Airport and the area of Manchester. It would have been rolled out across the rest of the country over the period. There is also a register of applications for people in other areas who had to wait because the cards were not available, so to say that there was a take-up of only 12,000 is actually to pretend that the whole country could have applied when in fact it was very restricted.

[Lord Brooke of Sutton Mandeville]

That is an entirely fair point, which I am happy to take. The fact remains, though, that even under the provisions that the noble Lord issues, I still stand by my statement: the figure of 12,000 does not indicate overwhelming popularity for the scheme. People were not fighting in order to get their own cards.

On the fact that compensation is available for contracts but not in different languages with regard to ID cards, presumably that occurred because the original contracts allowed for what would happen in the event of the scheme in any way being interrupted. That is the way in which contracts are usually written. I have heard everything that has been said about what this Government have not done but I notice that the previous Government, in selling the ID cards, did not appear to have built in a provision in relation to compensation calculations, perhaps for the good reason that they did not want the thought to enter the public mind that they might not be returned at the next general election and that therefore the ID scheme would be interrupted.

On the same point, I have to say quietly that although, in their rush towards modernisation, the Government were keen to remove Latin entirely from public life in this country, the phrase “caveat emptor” is presumably one that still rested in their mind when they brought in the scheme in the way that they did.