Identity Documents Bill

Debate between Lord Shipley and Baroness Kennedy of Shaws

Monday 18th October 2010 Lords Chamber

[Lord Shipley]

My Lords, this Bill is a most welcome step by the Government. Many people have argued for many years that the introduction of ID cards and the national identity register was flawed on political, technical and financial grounds and would do very little to prevent terrorism, crime or fraud. As we have heard, a national identity register database could actually increase the risk of fraud and terrorism.

At its heart, the ID card and database proposals would, if proceeded with, change irrevocably the relationship of the state with the individual. It is one thing to have some form of personal identification during wartime, as we did 70 years ago, and quite another to create a massive national identity database for which identity cards themselves are simply a means to an end and not an end in themselves. Every swipe of the card could be recorded, as my noble friend Lord Phillips of Sudbury pointed out.

Why did the previous Government want such a database? Why did the obvious flaws not stop them? Why was the attack on individual civil liberties not seen as an issue? Why did the cost not seem to matter, given the serious structural weaknesses of the national identity register, which would have devoured far more money than the Government suggested? This Bill will stop the trend to a society in which private information becomes available on big databases that are accessible to large numbers of people, the vast majority of whom have no need of the information to which they would get access.

Never, since 2002, when the proposal for identity cards and the national identity register was first discussed, have I understood the justification for it. I cannot recall any reasoned, logical analysis of the need for it; that is because the proposal was never properly thought through. The official rationale seemed to be that the cards and the register would help in the fight against terrorism, but when terrorists are UK nationals entitled to an ID card or when they hold valid identification, as in the Madrid bombings, the case does not stand up to scrutiny.

Another ostensible reason was the need to prevent identity fraud, except that that is much more likely if you place lots of personal data in one place on one big database. Proponents of ID cards began to change the emphasis of the grounds of their arguments as the arguments were so convincingly won by those opposed, so we were told that there would be a convenience factor for young people when going to a pub or buying alcohol. As Liberty has pointed out, however, it is a very weak argument that we should construct a massive state database containing billions of biometric and other data, at a cost of several billion pounds, so that people can secure entry to a pub. Then we had the suggestion that ID cards might replace the concessionary bus pass for pensioners. Just imagine it: a multibillion pound scheme for identity cards being used to produce bus tickets.

The whole sorry exercise would have cost around £5 billion, at least—and that for a project that began life as a solution to a set of problems that were never clearly defined. Once the reasons were examined, they were found to be wanting and it became a project in search of a customer for, despite the fact that the Act has been on the statute book for over four years, only 15,000 ID cards have ever been produced. Of those 15,000, meanwhile, 3,000 were given free to airside workers. It now costs £5 million a year to run the current scheme, which is a cost of £400 per head each year. One is left with the impression that the previous Government, having finally grasped the nature of the flawed system they were creating, decided to head for the long grass under the guise of a slow start.

I am still left wondering why the previous Government believed so strongly in the value of big databases in which costs were rarely controlled and the security of data was so often not guaranteed. There are two kinds of scrutiny: first, who has access to what information; and, secondly, how secure it is from hacking or loss. As we know, there have been many major lapses in big government IT projects in recent years, and it seems pretty clear that the bigger the database, the higher the number of people who will need to access it and the weaker the security will inevitably be as a consequence. We should take note of some research undertaken by the Centre for Technology Policy Research at the London School of Economics, which tells us that,

“Despite a spend of as much as £21bn”,

a year,

“on public sector IT, it is difficult to find any compelling examples of direct productivity gains and improved public services”.

This is not just about waste on ID cards, but much more—not least the NHS database.

This Bill will stop the waste on ID cards and the national identity register, and stop the substantial erosion of civil liberties that was promoted by the previous Government. It is part of a broader rejection of intrusion by the state into people’s daily lives, for when the state acts it should be proportionate to the problem that needs resolution. The Bill will now prevent the second generation of passports, which would have added fingerprints to the facial biometric data already present on the biometric chip in UK passports. The previous Government’s plans for ID cards and a national identity register have been described by the director of Liberty as a grand folly. Well, that must be right; follies are created by people who have access to large sums of money and who have a fondness for frittering it on grand gestures. That seems to sum it all up.

[Baroness Kennedy of The Shaws]

My Lords, may I beg the indulgence of the House and be permitted to speak in the gap?