Identity Documents Bill

Debate between Lord Maxton and Baroness Hamwee

Wednesday 17th November 2010 Lords Chamber

[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.