Serious Fraud Office

Lord Maxton Excerpts

Wednesday 13th December 2017 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Williams of Trafford]

I am aware of what the Scottish Conservatives are saying. Nevertheless, the desire for devolution, not only in Scotland and Wales, has been strong. Therefore, because this is a devolved matter, it is probably beyond my remit today. Of course, the Scottish Government have been strongly in favour of devolution.

[Lord Maxton (Lab)]

My Lords, I point out to the noble Baroness that of course transport is not just a Scottish matter; some transport crosses the border and comes into England as well. I travel down here every week by train; does that mean that the transport police will now stop at Carlisle and a new police force will have to take over thereafter?

[Baroness Williams of Trafford]

I take the noble Lord’s point. I never realised that this Question would go down the transport line—otherwise, as I say, I would have listened more carefully to the noble Lord’s points in debate.

Identity Documentation

Lord Maxton Excerpts

Thursday 14th January 2016 Lords Chamber

[Lord Maxton (Lab)]

My Lords, I, too, thank my noble friend Lord Campbell-Savours for obtaining this debate and for the excellent way he introduced it. I hope the noble Lord, Lord Marlesford, will not mind if I do not follow him directly down that route, but I can inform him that I believe his suggestion is very close to what the Government intend to propose at some point in the near future.

I will take this debate one stage if not several stages further. We are living through a technological and scientific revolution that has changed the world more in the last 50 years, and will increasingly do so in the next five or 10 years, than has ever happened before in the history of mankind. That is the world we live in. I want to move from the idea of an ID card to what I would call a smart card for all. Such a card would of course do all the things my noble friend said as regards introducing security, giving people the right to know what is on it, and so on. However, I want that to be a smart card which enables people to put on to it all the information we hold.

Every one of us in this Chamber and probably in the Houses of Parliament as a whole has a form of identification. I hang it around my neck, because I do not assume that the policemen at the gate automatically know who I am. At the end of the day, that is an ID card. It opens doors—I have only to put that on to a door and I can open it. I have a driving licence in my wallet, a passport at home, bank cards and a whole series of membership cards for different organisations. Why should I not just have one card, with some form of identification on it—a fingerprint or an eye scan, or whatever it might be, or even DNA, as my noble friend suggested? That would mean that I could get rid of all the various forms of ID I have at present because I would have one card. I accept that people might say, “But you might lose it, so maybe we should have three or four cards”. Despite what the noble Lord, Lord Marlesford, says, people will not find it easy to reproduce it, so even if you lose it, it will become just a piece of detritus that you can leave. Eventually, however, there will be a chip in the back of your hand, all the information will go on to that, and you will put that on to things.

Turning to the commercial aspect, the Government are talking to the banks about the idea of them paying for some of this. Banks and those who deal online, such as travel agents, or people who sell online on Amazon, will increasingly want some form of ID—a way in which they can establish the identity of the person who buys their goods or who goes to the bank machine, and know that that person is who they claim to be. Therefore, the banks may in the first instance put an extra slot in the bank machine so you can put in your ID card and then your bank card. It would be even better if the bank could put its banking services on to that single card, so you put one card in the machine, put your fingerprint on it or let it scan your eye, and then the bank could say you are the right person.

That is the world we live in. The technology is already there. I am sorry to have to say this to my noble friend Lord Harris of Haringey, but the fact is that the Apple iPhone 6 is available with a fingerprint control, and you can bank with it and buy almost any goods with it. So we already have the technology. You have to use some form of card—although, I accept, not an ID card—on London Transport buses because they will not allow you to use cash any more. Cash will be a thing of the past—in the next 10 or 15 years it will have gone. Cheques are already going and cash will go next.

That is the world in which we live. If this place does not keep pace with that technology, we will be in very grave danger of not keeping up with what is going on in the world outside, and if that happens, we will start to lose democracy itself.

[Lord Marlesford]

Perhaps I may tell the noble Lord that in York, none of the machines taking cards would work because of the awful floods, and people could not buy food from the supermarkets. They needed cash.

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[Lord Bates]

The short answer is no by my noble friend’s definition, but at the principal ports of entry and departure 100% are checked.

Let me cover some of the additional points that have been raised. The noble Lord, Lord Ramsbotham, raised some very interesting points about prisoner numbers. I will share them with the Ministry of Justice and look at whether there could be greater use of existing identity numbers for people in prisons to allow better and easier access to different sorts of information.

The noble Lord, Lord Campbell-Savours, made the point that better identity information might lead to greater tax revenues. The UK has one of the smallest tax gaps in the world, which is a reflection not only of the effectiveness of Her Majesty’s Revenue and Customs but of the tax rates that are levied on people.

On the argument that we ought to have more information in fewer places, to the point where we receive all information in one place, as the noble Lord, Lord Maxton, postulated might happen in future, multiple sources of data help reduce some security risks. If all DWP, health, passport, criminal record, DVLA, HMRC, DBS and DNA data were in one place, it would make their cybersecurity extremely vulnerable. My noble friend Lady Shields is Minister for Internet Safety and Security, and I will make sure that the contents of this debate and noble Lords’ contributions to it are drawn to her attention.

It is right to talk about the balance between liberty and security, as the noble Lords, Lord Scriven and Lord Oates, said, but it is also correct that without security there can be no liberty. However, their points were made, and I have noted them. An important guarantee of those liberties is the rigorous, independent system for checking where access may have occurred. For example, we have a Biometrics Commissioner, an Information Commissioner and even a Surveillance Camera Commissioner. They are all important guarantees to citizens that their information is handled carefully.

The noble Viscount, Lord Simon, mentioned the Disclosure and Barring Service. I shall write to the noble Viscount about that. There is a service standard on the Disclosure and Barring Service which would be substantially less than the three-month to four-month term that he mentioned. We will therefore need to find out why, in those particular circumstances, that was not being met.

The noble Lord, Lord Blair, challenged me—this is a very important point—to say from a Conservative perspective why Conservatives are so opposed to this. As a number of noble Lords have mentioned, this is not an ideological position; it was a Conservative Government who first introduced and discussed the idea of having an identity card, so it is not something to which we as a party are ideologically opposed. However, we have hardly been guilty of changing our mind on this at frequent intervals; we set out our position very clearly, from 2005 onwards, that we were opposed to ID cards. I recall taking part in debates from the other side of the House during the passage of that legislation and around that time, so we have been very clear for 10 years that we do not believe that to be the way forward.

The noble Lord, Lord Blair, is a distinguished former Commissioner of the Metropolitan Police. As we were preparing for this debate, I asked what representations we had received from the police and security services saying they believed that an ID card as proposed would be essential for them in tackling fraud or crime.

[Lord Maxton]

Will the Minister make clear exactly what the Government are doing about identity numbers, or whatever they might be, in relation to the provision of services by the Government?

[Lord Bates]

Let me finish this point, then I shall come to that one. The point that I was making is that this is not something that has been repeatedly asked for. We are not repeatedly approached by ACPO, the College of Policing or the security services asking us to consider reintroducing it. I hope the noble Lord, Lord Harris, will appreciate that that is not an insignificant point; there is no growing clamour from the police and security services that our society is at risk and there is a great gap here. What they are asking for are additional powers such as those proposed in the investigatory powers Bill and in the counterterrorism legislation that was introduced last year.

With regard to people coming to this country, where the noble Lords, Lord Scriven and Lord Oates, both had a point was in saying that where countries have ID cards there is little evidence that their crime levels are significantly lower than ours—our crime levels continue to fall—that their experience of terrorism was greater or less or was affected by that, or that they had less legal migration to the country. Through the Immigration Bill, we are seeking to make it much more difficult for those people who are here illegally to operate within this country—to gain employment, get a driving licence or a bank account, or to rent accommodation. All those things are being put forward in this system.

As I draw to a close, I shall deal briefly with the point made my noble friend Lord Attlee, who asked about DNA. We have looked at the match of DNA. One of the things that we have signed up to is the exchange of DNA databases. I know he is arguing that the DNA database ought to be much more widely held, and even compulsory. We would not go that far, but we believe that DNA can play a crucial role in resolving crimes and acting as a deterrent. That is why we signed up to the Prüm measures, which will allow those exchanges of information to be made.

A number of other points were raised in the debate, but I can simply say that the Government have certainly not set their face against this in an ideological way. We have considered the case that has been made and have found it wanting. That debate will continue. The noble Lord, Lord Campbell-Savours, said in his introduction that this area of debate will not go away. I suspect that it will not; we will continue to look at it but will also make vigorous and critical arguments as to the many things we are doing to maintain our security and keep our civil liberties in place as well.

Anti-social Behaviour, Crime and Policing Bill

Lord Maxton Excerpts

Wednesday 4th December 2013 Lords Chamber

[Lord Taylor of Holbeach]

My Lords, I welcome this opportunity for debate. The quality of speeches that we have had has shown that the House is good at debating issues of this type; indeed, my noble friend Lord Ahmad took a debate only recently on this subject. It is a good thing that we are reviewing policy in this area. As the noble Lord has explained, these new clauses seek to address the open sale of new psychoactive substances.

[Lord Maxton (Lab)]

On that point, I noticed that the title of the new clause says “new”, but that word does not appear anywhere else in the amendment. Does the title therefore take precedence over everything else?

Phone Hacking

Lord Maxton Excerpts

Tuesday 6th December 2011 Lords Chamber

[Lord Davies of Coity]

My Lords—

[Lord Maxton]

My Lords—

[Lord Phillips of Sudbury]

My Lords—

[Lord McNally]

We shall hear from the noble Lord, Lord Maxwell, please.

[Lord Maxton]

My Lords, Maxton is the name. Why are this Government quite happy, as is Parliament and as previous Governments have been, to regulate television, radio and even the internet but are not prepared to undertake the statutory regulation of the print media?

[Lord Henley]

My Lords, I repeat what I said earlier: we will consider the results of this report and make the appropriate response at that stage.

Identity Documents Bill

Lord Maxton Excerpts

Tuesday 21st December 2010 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Neville-Jones]

My Lords, consideration of the Bill during its passage through this House and the other place has recognised that the decision to scrap the ID card and destroy the national identity register was a commitment in the general election manifestos of the Conservative Party and the Liberal Democratic Party. That commitment formed part of the coalition agreement published on 12 May, and the Government introduced this Bill to Parliament on 26 May. We have acted swiftly in achieving our manifesto commitment and believe that the Bill’s purpose, which is to remove the intrusive ID card scheme and the national identity register from the statute book, has widespread support in the country.

Noble Lords are today focusing on the detail of the decommissioning process rather than on the significance of a Government destroying a national database. The Bill is a major step in removing the state from unnecessary and undesirable intrusion in the personal life of the individual. We should not forget the significance of the Bill, nor should we minimise the landmark action of a Government legislating to get rid of a national database. However, there are costs associated with dismantling the scheme. In incurring those costs, the public must be confident that taxpayers’ money is being spent effectively and efficiently. The ID card scheme and associated work on biometrics and policy development has to date cost the taxpayer £292 million. Further costs of about £5 million will be incurred in dismantling the scheme.

Further spending would be required if we were to provide refunds. I am aware of the strength of sentiment that has been expressed on this point, but this proposal would cost around £400,000. That may not seem much in the grand scheme of spending to date by the previous Administration on ID cards, and it may be that some Members of this House consider it an insignificant sum, but this is not how the coalition Government look at public finance. We are tackling the deficit which we inherited. We are doing that by ensuring that moneys are spent only where necessary and that such spending delivers more for less. Providing a refund on ID cards does not meet any of those criteria.

I am not ignoring the fact that cardholders spent £30 each on a card for which there will be no further use on enactment of this Bill.

[Lord Maxton]

If no compensation is to be paid, then presumably the card will become the property of the person who holds it. We briefly debated that point when we considered the Bill. Does that mean that the person who now holds the card as their own property, as they are not being given any compensation for it, will be able to use it to prove their identity in certain circumstances, such as for young people in pubs, or whatever else it might be?

[Earl Attlee]

My Lords, I think that it would be for the convenience of the House if we allowed the Minister to lay out her stall, as in doing so she may very well answer the noble Lord’s point. I know that the Minister is very keen that all noble Lords’ questions are answered.

--- Later in debate ---

[Lord Maclennan of Rogart]

My Lords, before the House reaches a judgment on the Commons reason, there ought to be absolute clarity about the intention of the House of Commons. It is far from clear in the reasons that have been provided that it is the intention of the House of Commons to claim financial privilege. A single reason is given and that is that the amendment that we are considering, which was carried in this place, would impose a charge on the public revenue. In opening the debate, my noble friend explained that as the Government giving priority consideration to the taxpayer over those who have paid for their identity cards. That does not sound like the invocation of the right of the House of Commons in respect of financial privilege. Without some greater authority indicating that that was the Government’s intention, there seems no bar to this House paying serious consideration to the law officers’ views on the legality of what is proposed under the terms of the human rights convention. I hope that the House will not be forced to take a decision without those views being made abundantly clear and without absolute clarity about the intentions of the Commons in bringing forward this sole reason for their disagreement. To my mind it is far from clear. We will establish a bad precedent if we determine that claims can be made lightly, not by the Commons themselves, that their privilege in this respect has been breached.

[Lord Maxton]

I shall be brief, although I thought that the actions of the noble Earl, Lord Attlee, and the noble Lord, Lord McNally, were provocative, to say the least, forcing some of us to make longer speeches than we would have done otherwise.

On the relationship between ourselves and the House of Commons, the important question was asked why we were allowed to vote on the amendment in the first place if, in fact, it was not legally our right to do so. If we voted for it and it went back to the Commons, surely we should be allowed to look at it again and vote on it again if we so wish.

I am one of very few people in the House who came out publicly in support of the ID card and opposed this piece of legislation. I think that we will come back to the issue. I listened to some of the debates last night on the register and the census and that sort of thing and I thought to myself that, if we all had ID cards, it would all be irrelevant and we would not need to go through that process. I am still not at all clear in my own mind as to what the standing is of the ID cards that have been issued. The Government are claiming that the cards are their property, so surely they should ensure that every one of them is returned to them. They should not be leaving that in the hands of private individuals; it is up to the Government to say that the cost of claiming back all the ID cards would be as much as paying compensation to those who have them.

The other point is one that I have consistently raised. Can someone actually use the ID card—perhaps in an exchange between two people, such as a barman or pub owner and a young person? The youngster might say, “I’ve got an ID card”, and show it to the barman, and the barman could say as a result, “That’s fine, I accept you’re over 18”. Is it legal for that person to do that? If the card belongs to the Government, surely the person has no right to use it in that way. Can we get an answer to that question from the Minister? We seem to be in limbo on it. I do not quite know what the standing is of the ID cards held by individuals if they are not being compensated for them in any way whatever.

[Lord Palmer]

As a compromise to this extraordinarily heated debate, would it not be worth considering that those people who have invested £30 on an ID card could put that cost against their next tax return?

Identity Documents Bill

Lord Maxton Excerpts

Wednesday 17th November 2010 Lords Chamber

[Lord Pannick]

My Lords, I support noble Lords who have spoken. Will the noble Baroness tell the House whether she disputes that the card is property for the purposes of Article 1 of the First Protocol to the European Convention on Human Rights? Its cancellation is therefore a deprivation of property and compensation is payable. It would be most unfortunate if those whose cards are being taken away need to litigate this matter.

[Lord Maxton]

My Lords, unlike the noble Lord, Lord Phillips, I supported the introduction of ID cards. I still oppose this Bill in abolishing them. But certainly I think that the Government are being very petty in terms of refusing compensation to those who bought the cards, particularly as it appears that they are paying compensation to contractors which supplied machinery, software and everything else to set up the ID scheme. They will be paid full compensation. The argument is that they have a contract between the Government and them.

I would argue that the people who bought ID cards equally have a contract between themselves as individuals and the Government from whom they purchased the card. If that is the case, they are as much entitled to compensation as the companies which are being compensated for loss of earnings and profits as a result of the card scheme being cancelled. Will the noble Baroness spell out exactly what compensation is being paid to these companies? I gather that the computers holding the information will be physically smashed up. Will she also include the cost of that smashing up? There must be a cost to the public purse involved in all of that. Perhaps the noble Baroness will spell some of that out during her speech.

[Lord Stoddart of Swindon]

My Lords, the people who hold these cards, and there were not many of them, were inveigled into getting them on the basis that the scheme would go ahead and eventually would apply to everyone. In fact, they were helping the Government out. Although it was not this coalition Government, it was a Labour Government. Nevertheless, those people had every reason to trust the Government and trust a future Government to give them some recompense if the system of ID cards did not go ahead.

I have to say to the noble Baroness that the coalition is in need of support at the present time. Would it not be in their own interests to show good will and to show that they are cognisant of people’s feelings and do not want them to feel offended? Would it not, for a small cost, be better if the Government supported, or accepted, this amendment, which might do them some good electorally? You never know.

--- Later in debate ---

[Baroness Neville-Jones]

The noble Earl is quite right. It has always been the intention, whether in opposition or in government, to scrap the ID cards scheme at the least possible extra cost to the taxpayer. Our primary purpose has been to prevent further expense being incurred when we can avoid it. We have no option but to pay compensation to some contractors because we are tied in by the contracts negotiated by our predecessors. That is a contractual agreement, and we are negotiating at the moment what that final sum should be. We do not agree that there is a contract between the Government and cardholders who received a service, nor do we believe that there is any expropriation of property or rights under it. The cardholders are not card-owners; the noble Lords who said that the card was government property were quite right to say so.

[Lord Maxton]

I hear what the noble Baroness has just said about the card being government property. Is she saying, therefore, that it would be illegal for a person who had that card to use it in any way for identity purposes? In other words, if a young person was asked for ID in a pub who still had their ID card, if they produced their ID card would they be committing an offence by using a government document?

[Baroness Neville-Jones]

I think not, any more than if one uses a passport for that purpose, which is also a government document. The basis is the same.

[Lord Maxton]

But the passport is being retained. It is still going to be a legal document, whereas presumably the ID card, once it is abolished, ceases to be one.

--- Later in debate ---

[Baroness Hamwee]

My Lords, perhaps the Minister could confirm that he would be happier—I am not quite sure that I took this from his speech—for such lessons as there may be from a relatively short and limited experience to be included in the wider work that the Government are doing. Of course, one would not disagree that any available lessons should be learnt; but I doubt whether that work is as useful to Parliament if it is provided separately and discreetly from other work being done on cyber crime and related areas. It is an enormously important area and Parliament will look forward to debating it further. I am not convinced that this is precisely the way to go.

[Lord Maxton]

My Lords, at Second Reading of this Bill, I suggested that, while at the moment an identity card would not help to stop fraud on the internet, it will come. There will eventually come a point when, in view of the rising number of people purchasing goods and services online, the banks and the people selling goods will insist that there is some form of identity involved in the transaction. Whether it will be putting a card into your computer or a camera that will show that you actually are the person, I do not know, but I would think the banks in particular will insist on this in the longer run, both for their own hole-in-the-wall cash machines and for buying online. The ID card, as it was originally proposed, if it had been made compulsory from the word go, as I wanted it to be, would have been one of the answers to that and would have saved the private sector very considerable sums of money in the long run.

[The Earl of Erroll]

My Lords, I fully understand the sentiment behind this, but I am not sure this is the best way to go. I do not think it is really the Home Office’s forte to produce such a report. I entirely agree with the noble Baroness, Lady Hamwee; there are a lot of lessons to be learnt and a lot of people studying this sort of thing. As for the figures used by the noble Lord, Lord Rosser—and taking the point just made about the banks—that is the whole point. People confuse theft of credit card details with identity theft. Identity theft is when someone’s identity is taken over and used to do many other things, such as entering into contracts, travelling across borders and perpetrating crimes. Nicking a credit card and its details is something completely different. Those provide the huge figures, and the people who can stop that are the banks and the credit card companies by increasing their security. They are always looking at this, and they are trading off between the losses they make on transactions where cards are not present, and the cost of additional security. We are seeing new security measures coming through, but it is not a government job. There is no point at which you would take a national identity card that is not designed for online transactions, and a credit card that at the moment is not designed for them, and hope that one is going to help with the other. Actually, the entire problem about security for the credit card is contained there, and the people know what to do about it. They are getting on with it rather slowly to my mind, but when the fraud figures get big enough they will do something about it. I agree there are lessons to be learnt, but I do not think it is an identity card lesson. There are some other lessons to be learnt, but I think that there are other bodies better qualified to do the job than the Home Office writing expensive reports.

--- Later in debate ---

[Baroness Neville-Jones]

I am not quite sure how the noble Lord gained that impression. All I said, I think, was that identity authentication, which is not anything like the identity card, is an issue. If you have a transaction with the bank, it does not know who you are, and you want to know who they are.

[Lord Maxton]

Does the noble Baroness not agree, however, that an identity card would be the easiest way of authenticating identity?

[Baroness Neville-Jones]

I think that this is a debate perhaps of a more expert kind, but I do not agree that that is the case. I should like to make one other point on combating fraud. We also said in Committee that we would review whether there was overlap or duplication of the offences which are being re-enacted as a result of this Bill with those in the existing Fraud Act 2006. We are looking also at the Forgery and Counterfeiting Act 1981 in an exercise to make sure that the legislation is tidy and, if we can, to simplify it. Both on the legislative front and on the question of actual action in government to combat fraud, vigorous action is being taken. I therefore ask the noble Lord to withdraw his amendment.

--- Later in debate ---

[Lord Phillips of Sudbury]

Oh my gosh. I shall go back to school.

This is a basic and simple matter. I shall be interested to hear what the Minister says in response to the amendment.

[Lord Maxton]

My Lords, the noble Lord who moved the amendment may be slightly surprised to know that I support it, but for reasons that are rather different from those that he put before the House. A friend of mine described the Bill as the King Canute Bill; in other words, it is doing away with something—identity cards—which, in a relatively short time, whatever Government are in power, will have to be reintroduced. That is almost inevitable. I would hope that an appointed independent person would give that recommendation to the Government of the day and say, “Sorry, we have got it wrong. It is time that we reintroduced ID cards”. I agree entirely with my friend’s view, except that poor old King Canute is the most maligned man in English history, because he never suggested that he could hold back the tide. What he said to his courtiers was, “I cannot hold back the tide”. I suppose that it is the first example of PR going badly wrong.

There will come a point where the need for smart card technology will become such that we will have to introduce an identity cards Bill. This amendment would at least allow an independent person to look at it and say, “Sorry, we’ve got it wrong. Let’s have another look. Let’s introduce ID cards”.

[The Earl of Erroll]

My Lords, if I had got my act together a bit more quickly, I would have added my name to the amendment, because it is very sensible. There are some residual powers in the Bill which we need to keep an eye on. Although an Information Commissioner exists, he does not have the power to march in and look at things unless there are complaints. He would also be overextended.

We need to look out for residual powers that could give rise to concern. They come in Clause 10. Subsections (8) and (9) sensibly state that certain information which is gathered to prove someone’s identity when a passport is being issued should be destroyed after 28 days. Given that the Government will destroy the information within 28 days, I am happy for them to consult other databases—I mentioned in Committee electricity bills, which is probably the quickest way of finding whether someone has changed address or where they really are. I have no problem with the Government doing that to verify a person’s identity for the purpose of producing a passport.

However, then we get to subsection (10), which is the good old catch-all. It says that the Government can retain the information beyond 28 days for the purpose of “preventing or detecting crime”—I remember this sort of wording in RIPA, which led to a lot of grief—and “apprehending and prosecuting offenders”. Well, that depends on how quickly they apprehend them again. We should have oversight by an outside commissioner who reports to Parliament and not by a Home Secretary, because this sort of thing can get out of hand and, later, suddenly rise up to bite a Government in the future. We have several commissioners doing this sort of job elsewhere in the security world. We either add it on to someone’s job or create another one, but it is sensible for protecting the public.

Identity Documents Bill

Lord Maxton Excerpts

Wednesday 3rd November 2010 Grand Committee

[Baroness Neville-Jones]

The advice that I am getting is that that would not be the case because a TV licence or similar document does not identify the individual but relates to them. That is right. You get back a receipt for the money that you have paid but it does not verify in any way the identity of the person who has paid the bill.

[Lord Maxton]

Perhaps I may briefly clarify that. A TV licence does not relate to an individual; it relates to the property to which it applies.

[Lord Phillips of Sudbury]

It would seem that I have given a bad example. Does it not have the name of the licence holder on it?

[Lord Maxton]

It has the name of the person who paid for it.

[Lord Phillips of Sudbury]

Right. It therefore identifies that person and there is a number in relation to it.

--- Later in debate ---

[Lord Maxton]

I am not even sure that it does that.

[Lord Phillips of Sudbury]

I will hold my peace and think more about it.

Identity Documents Bill

Lord Maxton Excerpts

Monday 1st November 2010 Grand Committee

The coalition made clear its position on refunds at the time of the 2006 Act—we did not support it—and during the election campaign. It is simply not true to say that this was tucked away in manifestos to be seen only by Westminster anoraks. It was widely reported and commented on. It was widely known that the coalition would scrap the cards. The approach to refunds was also covered in the newspapers. It was not a secret. It was referred to in television and radio programmes. It was an ongoing story.

[Lord Maxton]

Will the noble Baroness tell us exactly when this information was made public vis-à-vis those who had bought their cards? Was it before or after they had bought their cards? If it was during the election campaign, many people had already bought their cards before the election campaign had started.

[Baroness Neville-Jones]

The question of the cards and whether they would be valid after the election, and everything associated with it, was a continuous process. Certainly, a large number of people bought their cards fully aware of the fact that there was controversy about them. As the noble Lord, Lord Bach, indicated at Second Reading, the House has always taken account of the content of manifestos, which is true today of the Opposition Benches.

The noble Lord, Lord Hunt, asked about the impact assessment.

Identity Documents Bill

Lord Maxton Excerpts

Monday 18th October 2010 Lords Chamber

[Lord Maxton]

My Lords, it would appear that I may be the only Back-Bencher to oppose this legislation. I spoke during the Second Reading debate on the main Bill and I said then that it was necessary. I also said that the one mistake I thought was being made by the Government of the day was that they were not making such ID requirements immediately compulsory for all British citizens.

I think that this Bill is a backward step because we are in the middle of a major technological revolution that is transforming the country we live in and the way in which we carry out a whole variety of different functions, such as the way in which we access our services and the health service. Eventually it will transform the way in which we vote and do business over the internet, as the noble Baroness, Lady Hamwee, suggested. Yet, at the same time as this revolution is taking place, here we are going backwards and taking away biometric identification cards, which would allow people to access a whole range of services in different ways—something that they cannot do at present but would be able to do in the future.

However, the point is that all of us will be able to do that. The Minister introducing the Bill has an ID card hanging round her neck, as do I. We all have to have an ID card to be Members of this House: we have to produce some form of identity to get into the building. Even visitors who come into this House now have to have their photographs taken to ensure that we know who they are when they walk round and to ensure that they cannot switch identification with someone else. I have a wallet full of cards which give me various rights of access. The noble Baroness in front of me, Lady Kennedy of The Shaws, is busily saying that, “It’s not this and it’s not that”. Does she want the drive to move forward with ID cards to rely entirely on the market, which is what will happen?

The noble Baroness, Lady Hamwee, rightly said that most identity fraud takes place on the internet. That may very well be true. At some point the banks and the people who provide services on the internet are going to wake up to the fact that that fraud costs £2.8 billion and they are going to ask you to put some form of ID card into your computer to ensure that you are the person doing the deal. My noble friends are saying that some do that already. Therefore, the market will drive this forward. There will be a whole series of means by which we produce ID in order to get the services that we want but, if the push for that is market-driven—which is my major objection to what this Government are doing—that will increase the technological divide and wealth divide between those who have access to ID cards and those who do not. Perhaps it is taking a hammer to crack a nut, or whatever expression the noble Baroness, Lady Hamwee, used, but those who do not have such access are the young, the deprived, the poor and the people who are stopped by the police on our streets who cannot prove who they are. These are the people who need ID cards. These are the people whom we want to have some form of identity so that they can say, “This is who I am; I can prove it. If you want to put my ID card into a machine, it will prove who I am through the biometric system”. If we do not have some form of identity cards, we will find that the technological gap between the young and the deprived people who live in poor areas of our country and the rest of us will grow and we will live in an even more divided society. That is what this coalition Government are about, so perhaps I should not be very surprised by it. However, I certainly oppose the Bill and, to some extent, I regret that the opposition Benches are not opposing it more thoroughly, as they should be doing.