Identity Documents Bill

Baroness Featherstone Excerpts

Wednesday 15th September 2010 Commons Chamber

[Meg Hillier (Hackney South and Shoreditch) (Lab/Co-op)]

I echo the comments made by my hon. Friend the Member for Bolton West (Julie Hilling).

In Committee and through subsequent correspondence, I have pressed the Under-Secretary of State for the Home Department, the hon. Member for Hornsey and Wood Green (Lynne Featherstone), on the consultation that she and her Department undertook when putting the Bill together. However, I have received no answer, so I hope she will tell the House the groups that she consulted, given that the issue did not even feature in the Government’s impact assessment. This House is a tolerant House, and I know that the hon. Lady is a relatively new Minister, but if a mistake has been made, I hope she will have the decency at least to acknowledge that in the House and to apologise to the people affected, who have very little voice. However, there is a vocal group in her Department who have been influential in shaping policy across Whitehall and beyond.

We recognise that the problem is not easy to solve—either here and now on the Floor of the House or more generally—but a small but nevertheless important provision of the Identity Cards Act 2006 was introduced to bring about the existing benefit. We do not necessarily expect a detailed answer from the Minister today, but she has not reassured me, either through correspondence or in Committee, that serious action is under way in government to address the situation. The matter is not so much one for the equalities unit, which she indicated in her last letter was examining the situation, but one for the Identity and Passport Service, which deals with identity issues for the Government as a whole.

We want a real commitment to action today, but all I have heard from the hon. Lady—perhaps she will expand on this during the debate—is the suggestion that the Government are looking to work with international partners to remove gender markers from passports entirely. That proposal could be subject to a huge debate, and I am not sure that we would want that to happen—I think that Government Back Benchers agree. The approach would seem to be a sledgehammer to crack a nut. It would also confuse a lot of people, but even if it was an answer that could be agreed as a way forward, such international negotiations would take a long time, meaning that the proposal is a long-grass solution. We are looking to see a timetable for action and a commitment to action. I once again remind the hon. Lady that she is now a Minister. Whatever her previous record, words are easy. Action may be harder, but action from the Minister is what we are after today.

[The Minister for Equalities (Lynne Featherstone)]

As Members know from my comments on a similar amendment in Committee, I very much support initiatives that will advance the rights of transgendered people. In Committee I acknowledged the role of the hon. Member for Hackney South and Shoreditch (Meg Hillier) in providing a measure in the Identity Cards Act that enabled a transgender person to be issued with two identity cards, one in the gender of birth and another in the gender of their choice.

As hon. Members know, only one of those cards is available for use for travel in Europe. The second card issued in the second identity is available only for use in the UK for identification purposes. The person was required to choose which identity applied to which card at the time of application.

The hon. Member for Bolton West (Julie Hilling) described to us in detail some of the complex and difficult issues faced by transgender people—I should say people with gender identity issues, because they can be anywhere on the spectrum. It is not simply a case of being one gender or the other. As the hon. Member for Hackney South and Shoreditch said, the transgendered community can at times be marginalised, difficult to communicate with and difficult to gather together. Her Government’s approach to transgendered people and identity cards did not, however, extend to passports, which it could have done. There was ample opportunity both before and since the identity cards legislation was passed in 2006 for the previous Government to apply the same provisions to passports, but they chose not to do so. There are good reasons for that.

In speaking to the amendment, Opposition Members did not explain why passports did not benefit from the same provisions. I intend to set out briefly some of the issues involved and what we will be doing to seek a consolidated solution on identity and for transgendered people. I will deal in due course with the points raised by the hon. Ladies.

Current passport policy enables a passport to be issued in a person’s acquired gender without a gender recognition certificate, on production of medical evidence indicating that they experience gender dysphoria, or a report to some such effect. A passport in the acquired gender can be a key facilitator in gaining evidence to put before the gender recognition panel to show that a person is living their life in the acquired gender, thus allowing them to get the certificate.

The passport is, of course, an international travel document. It is a good argument that one can get two passports if there is a difficulty with the stamp of a particular country, but there are identity issues associated with passports that are more complex than the same physical image and the same or a similar name appearing. A passport is issued on the basis of nationality and citizenship. It is a secure document that meets strict international standards and enjoys a high international reputation. The standards are agreed and set by the International Civil Aviation Organisation.

We are not aware of any member state that issues two passports on the basis of transgender, and there are a number of reasons why we do not currently envisage the issuing of two passports—I made some inquiries about that possibility—to the same person but in different identities and with different facial images. There are fairly obvious security and immigration control issues arising from a person travelling to a country in one identity and perhaps leaving in another identity. There is also the personal situation for a transgendered person.

I do not know whether hon. Members are aware that following the Committee sitting I wrote about it on my blog. It was clear—[Interruption.] That is often a good way of communicating with the transgendered community.

[Meg Hillier]

I am amazed that the Minister tells us that she wrote on her blog about the issue, as though that is a formal Government process. I have asked her repeatedly what formal Government consultation took place and her answer is her personal blog. Is this the way the Government intend to continue?

[Lynne Featherstone]

The hon. Lady is pushing it. That was not an answer to the formal question. I mentioned my blog to illustrate the point that security issues in relation to travel are not the only consideration. There is also the personal situation of a transgendered person. The responses to that blog post indicated, as my hon. Friend the Member for Cambridge (Dr Huppert) identified in Committee, that—

[Catherine McKinnell (Newcastle upon Tyne North) (Lab)]

Will the Minister give way?

[Lynne Featherstone]

No, I will not give way at the moment. I will finish the point I am making. The responses to the blog indicated that transgender people felt that would make them stand out—it would out them.

--- Later in debate ---

[Mr Deputy Speaker (Mr Lindsay Hoyle)]

Unfortunately, the blog is not a document, so that is not the case.

[Lynne Featherstone]

Thank you, Mr Deputy Speaker. I will answer the formal question from the hon. Member for Hackney South and Shoreditch about consultation. The scrapping of ID cards formed part of the manifesto for the 2010 general election for both the Liberal Democrats and the Conservatives. The policy received considerable media coverage and our opposition to ID cards has been in the public domain from the outset. The coalition agreement clearly sets out our aim to scrap ID cards and to destroy the national identity register. Therefore, although a formal consultation was not undertaken, we have been open and transparent in what we intended to do and what we are doing.

It is clear from the messages—Opposition Members may think a website is not a formal place—from the community that transgendered people do not welcome the state emphasising their individual circumstances. That is why we will be engaging with the transgendered community and others to determine what they consider is the best approach and how we can best achieve a suitable outcome to the issue raised by Opposition Members, which I agree is extremely important—how to deal with the state of not quite being one gender or the other, or in process between the two.

[Bridget Phillipson (Houghton and Sunderland South) (Lab)]

So what the Minister is telling us is that the Government did not carry out an equality impact assessment, and that the substitute for that is correspondence with individuals on her blog. That takes the place of an impact assessment, which is a legal requirement.

[Lynne Featherstone]

No, that is not exactly what I said. The impact assessment for the Bill was published on 4 June 2010 and is available on the website of the Identity and Passport Service. The impact assessment indicates that the policy of scrapping ID cards does not have an impact on statutory equality duties.

As the Minister for Immigration indicated in his letter of 19 July to the Chairs of the Committee considering the Bill, the ID card is just one form of identity and although the policy in respect of issuing two cards to a transgendered person may be considered as innovative, scrapping ID cards would not impact on their ability to access services or to travel in their chosen gender. It ill behoves the Opposition to make light of the transgender community communicating through whichever means it wishes.

We need to be careful that in seeking to extend the rights of the transgendered person when travelling, we do not create the potential for additional difficulties. That is why we intend to work with the transgendered community and others on determining what they consider is the best approach and, in conjunction with the Government Equalities Office, consider how we can move this important issue forward. It is important that we listen to those who are most affected. As my hon. Friend the Member for Cambridge mentioned in Committee, a number of his constituents who would be affected and with whom he has had discussions do not favour the approach suggested by the amendment.

At the same time, through the International Civil Aviation Organisation, we will discuss with our international partners the issue of gender recognition in passports. It is possible for a passport to be issued with an X instead of an M for male and F for female. However, we anticipate that the use of an X may raise more questions than answers. Instead, we will consider other options, including whether it might be possible to remove gender identifiers from passports, and look at any potential consequential security implications of this. We aim to consult groups in the UK this autumn and with the ICAO and others over the coming months.

[Meg Hillier]

I am puzzled that that proposal has come out of leftfield one might say—but perhaps with this coalition, out of rightfield—as a solution. It seems like a sledgehammer to crack a nut, and it is a very big proposal to suggest that “male” and “female” be removed from a document that 80% of the British public use.

To return to an earlier point, however, the Minister’s ego is quite extraordinary. Her blog and no official consultation seem to be her answer to things, and I worry about the civil service. There are some excellent civil servants in her Department, as I well know, and they have to act on the basis of two political manifestos and a personal, political blog. Within government, there are statutory and other requirements for consultation, but the Minister has come to the Dispatch Box to explain that this Government do not take them seriously. They prefer party political routes, with all their imperfections, to what one might reasonably expect, which are proper Government routes.

[Lynne Featherstone]

As I have already explained to the hon. Lady, we are taking formal Government routes, too. Indeed, we will proceed with more formal routes and properly consult a wide range of transgender groups.

The new clause is impractical and fails to recognise its impact on transgendered people. It asks that ID cards that have been issued to transgendered people remain valid until expiry or until another system is in place, but in practice that would mean that only transgendered people would have ID cards. Apart from the huge cost of maintaining the ID infrastructure, whenever that card were used the gender background of the cardholder would be immediately identifiable. Rather than enabling transgendered people to get on with their lives without interference, the proposal would bring them unnecessary and potentially harming attention and focus, and the same problems would arise if transgendered people were issued with a bespoke identification document other than a passport.

This Government are producing the first action plan on transgender equality ever produced by an Administration. Perhaps Opposition Members did not realise the unintended consequences of their new clause, but I recommend that it be withdrawn.

[Julie Hilling]

I am a new Member, and this is the first time that I have been through this process. However, a Bill has been introduced to get rid of previously enacted legislation that served some members of our community well—a small proportion, but it served them well—and I am deeply shocked that, without any formal consultation or proper discussion with that community, we are now saying that we will get rid of it.

[Lynne Featherstone]

We have agreed that it is an important issue and I understand that there was only one case of dual issuing—of issuing two identity cards.

[Julie Hilling]

I was not a Minister and cannot answer that point, but I thought that we were supposed to have impact assessments before we made legislation. The Government are making legislation without them, and I am deeply shocked.

I wish that I were reassured, but I am not sure that I am. I listened to what the Minister said about the need to go forward on the issue and the transgender community being consulted on the solution. I hope that she will undertake that consultation.

Believe me, I recognise that the situation is difficult to resolve. I understand the difficulty of saying, “Let’s not have a gender in the passport” because that would not be a solution; and I understand the difficulty of issuing people two passports. The House should not misunderstand me; I understand that difficulty. However, it is so important for that small group of people that we do not allow our citizens to be humiliated as they go through passport control or people to lose their careers because of the difficulties that they face. On the basis of the Government’s guarantees that they will take the issue forward, take it seriously and work on it, I beg to ask leave to withdraw the clause.

Clause, by leave, withdrawn.

New Clause 2

Passport fees for holders of ID cards

(1) This section applies to a person (“P”) who—

(a) held a valid ID card on the day on which this Act was passed, and

(b) paid a fee for the card.

(2) On the first occasion after the passing of this Act on which P applies for a passport, the fee charged for the passport shall be reduced by £30.’.—(Meg Hillier.)

Brought up, and read the First time.