Identity Cards

Lord Empey Excerpts

Thursday 3rd May 2018 Lords Chamber

Asked by

[Lord Empey]

To ask Her Majesty’s Government what consideration they are giving to the introduction of identity cards for United Kingdom citizens.

[Baroness Manzoor (Con)]

My Lords, in 2010 the Conservative-Liberal Democrat coalition decided to scrap the identity card scheme and the associated national identity register because it was expensive and represented a substantial erosion of civil liberties. This Government have no plans to revisit that decision. That is because we have seen no evidence that countries with physical identity cards, including most of Europe, offer greater protection against terrorism, greater control at the border or greater protection from fraud.

[Lord Empey (UUP)]

I welcome the noble Baroness to the Front Bench and wish her well. When the Labour Party produced this idea originally, I, like many others in the House, was very sceptical. However, events have conspired to make it absolutely clear that the system we are operating is—in the phrase coined by the noble Lord, Lord Reid—“not fit for purpose”. Anybody who has watched events over the last few weeks would have to say that the truth is that we do not know who is or who is not in this country, and we do not seem to know who we should be removing from this country. With a Bill coming forward in the next few months, does she not agree that the time has come to look at all options and that, instead of taking things off the table, we should be putting things on to it because what we have now is not functioning?

[Baroness Manzoor]

I thank the noble Lord, Lord Empey, for his best wishes—I think I am going to need them. He makes a very important point and he will be aware that we already issue migrants with biometric residence permits—BRPs—which are credit card-sized documents that include a facial photograph and two fingerprints of the holder. Noble Lords will know that yesterday, in a debate in the other place, the Home Secretary announced a full review of lessons learned in Windrush, with independent oversight and external challenge. We should allow this to happen first and then consider what policies and initiatives we need to take forward.