Identity Documents Bill

Baroness Neville-Jones Excerpts

Monday 18th October 2010 Lords Chamber

Moved by

[Baroness Neville-Jones]

That the Bill be read a second time.

[The Minister of State, Home Office (Baroness Neville-Jones)]

My Lords, the Bill is short, and it is precise in achieving its aim of scrapping the identity card scheme and destroying the national identity register. Enactment of the Bill will meet the commitment set out in the coalition agreement and deliver the commitments made in both the Conservative and Liberal Democrat manifestos for the 2010 election. We very much welcome the opportunity for debate today and will consider the matters raised in this House together with the content of the legislative scrutiny report of the Joint Committee on Human Rights. I have not yet seen the contents of the report but I understand that it supports the Government’s approach.

A number of your Lordships will recall consideration of the Identity Cards Act 2006 and the fact that our opposition to the introduction of the scheme was focused on preventing the state from intruding unnecessarily into the private lives of individuals and wasting taxpayers’ money. We have not moved from that view, or on the inadequacy of the implementation of the 2006 Act, which has served only to confirm why we were right. The ID card scheme has not delivered the promised benefits. It has been an unjustifiable burden on the taxpayer and very poorly received by the public, with only 15,000 cards in circulation, of which some 3,000 were issued free of charge by the previous Administration.

[The Countess of Mar]

My Lords, I am sorry to interrupt the noble Baroness. Before we go any further, I must say that I am finding it very difficult to concentrate on what she is saying because of the conversations that are going on on the Back Bench. Could the Chief Whip, or the noble Lord who is a Whip, remind noble Lords that if they wish to have a conversation, the Companion suggests that they retreat to the Prince’s Chamber?

[Baroness Neville-Jones]

My Lords, I am sure that the House will take note of what has just been said.

Those are the exiguous outputs of the scheme and confirm our long-held concerns that the scheme was expensive, ill thought out and unlikely to find favour with the public. I will return to those aspects and to the issue of passport security later, but I will concentrate for a moment on our fundamental concerns, which lie in the gathering by the state of information that is neither proportionate nor necessary.

The setting up of the national identity register has meant gathering voluminous biographical and biometric personal data on the individual, on the sole criterion of having applied for an identity card. Under the 2006 Act, the individual is required by the state to notify any change in personal details—for instance, a home address—for the lifetime of the card. As things stand, any failure to do so within that period of 10 years could result in the cardholder paying up to £1,000. One has to ask what kind of big brother state that is.

The crux of our deep concern with the ID card scheme is that the purpose of gathering and retaining data was not clear either in the 2006 Act or in how the national identity register operated since its inception. There is the potential for the state to use gathered information for any purpose which it thinks fit. In effect, each cardholder has paid £30 to be photographed, fingerprinted, put on a database and tracked by the state for the following 10 years. Your Lordships may consider this an exaggerated view of the ID card scheme, but sadly it is the reality. We do not always agree with Liberty, but in this instance it is spot on. In its oral evidence in Committee in the other place, the director of Liberty said:

“One of our fundamental concerns about the national identity register was that it was a multi-purpose and non-purpose-specific database, which meant that by definition the amount of information on it would inevitably grow and by definition it was not necessary and proportionate to a particular cause”.

That view was echoed by Justice in the same Committee, and it reflects the importance of ensuring that databases are subject to openness, accountability and proportionality. In our view, the ID card scheme meets none of those key requirements. Instead we have a scheme with little or no purpose that allows the state to intrude into the life of the citizen. There was no attempt in the legislation to achieve the right balance between national security and public protection and the rights to safety and privacy of personal data. The ID cards legislation is a measure without equal in gathering large quantities of personal data from members of the public not suspected of any wrongdoing, which added insult to injury somewhat by requiring them to pay £30 for the privilege.

On cost, the previous Administration expended a total of £251 million. This went on projects to establish identity cards, passports with a second biometric feature and other related programmes. Prior to that, the Home Office spent an additional £41 million developing the policy, legislation and business case for the introduction of identity cards. Furthermore, it was estimated that a further £835 million would have to be spent on the national identity scheme by 2018. This is a huge waste at a time of financial stringency.

When promoting ID cards, the previous Government indicated that the existing and proposed spend was an investment and that the return from ID card sales would recoup taxpayers’ money, but the reality has been different; £251 million to issue 12,000 chargeable cards might be called reckless, which is why we have stopped all spending on the scheme and closed down the existing card-issuing operation, pending the outcome of parliamentary consideration of this Bill. We anticipate savings of £86 million over the next four years through cancellation.

Your Lordships will be aware from consideration of the Bill in the other place that there was a great deal of debate on the issuing of refunds or the provision of discounts or credits against future passport applications. The cost of providing refunds would be in the region of £400,000, which is not a trivial sum. We have come to the conclusion that it would not be right for the taxpayer to foot this bill and to add to the already excessive spending on the scheme.

We realise that some people who spent £30 for a card with a 10-year life expectancy will be disappointed that it will be cancelled later this year without any refund, but those who chose to buy a card did so in the full knowledge of the unambiguous statements by the coalition parties that the scheme would be scrapped if we came to office. They cannot now expect taxpayers to bail them out.

[Lord Hunt of Kings Heath]

My Lords, is the Minister saying that it is a general principle that members of the public are meant to read through the manifestos of all the parties before making a decision, and that that decision is at risk if another party wins? That is an extraordinary argument.

[Baroness Neville-Jones]

My Lords, citizens have to be aware of what is going on around them. It was clear that this scheme would have a risky future ahead of it. I shall deal in a moment with one or two of the other points that were implicit in the noble Lord’s question.

Another idea that was advanced in Committee in the other place was to allow existing cards to remain valid until expiry. That would have required maintaining the infrastructure for the next 10 years or so—another problem. The cost of so doing would have been in the estimated region of between £60 million and £80 million, and we do not consider that spending at that level is justified.

My final point on refunds relates to the statutory basis for the issue of ID cards. There is no contract here; an identity card has been provided in the context of a statutory framework and is not available for the remedies that might be forthcoming where an agreement is governed by contract or consumer law.

The 2006 Act makes no provision for a refund policy, either in the case of early cancellation of the scheme or withdrawal of the card by the issuing authority, or by the individual who simply wishes to get out of the ID card scheme. There has been no provision in the law.

[Lord Phillips of Sudbury]

I am most grateful to my noble friend for giving way. Will she give sympathetic consideration to the possibility of refunding those who took out their ID cards before the manifestos were published? They seem to me to be innocent citizens, if I can put it that way, and I am sure that it would please a lot of people if it were possible to do that.

[Baroness Neville-Jones]

My Lords, the opposition of both coalition parties to ID cards was well known well before we incorporated that in our manifestos. This was not a surprise to the world. I am afraid that I cannot hold out any prospect of acceding to the noble Lord’s suggestion.

I turn to one other aspect of the 2006 Act that affects the integrity and security of the British passport. The UK passport is a highly secure and well respected document, both nationally and internationally, and it complies fully with international standards. The recent design changes announced on 5 October this year further enhanced the security of the document. It is essential that we ensure that there are sufficient powers available to help prevent and detect fraud. That is why we have proposed to retain the offences set out in the 2006 Act that deal with fraudulent access to, and use of, identity documents other than identity cards. They result in about 3,000 prosecutions each year for an offence with potentially very serious implications for both national security and, indeed, for crime prevention.

The second issue relates to the decision of the coalition Government to halt the introduction of the second biometric indicator in passports. The second biometric would of course have been fingerprints, in addition to the existing facial imaging. We do not believe that adding the second biometric indicator increases the security of the document, which is already at a very high level. By halting plans to introduce a second biometric, we are saving the taxpayer a further £134 million. Furthermore, we do not consider that the holding of a database of fingerprints of some 80 per cent of the British population—all those who make passport applications—is a proportionate response to the level of risk. National security and public protection are of paramount importance to the coalition Government, and we will not allow them to be compromised or endangered. We keep such issues under continuous review, but as things stand we do not consider that a second biometric is required to enhance the existing very high security levels of a British passport, or, indeed, to enhance its acceptance by border agencies around the world.

EU countries subject to the relevant provisions of Schengen will require their citizens to provide fingerprints, but we also know of other countries that will not be making this requirement. A country as border-conscious as the United States does not, nor do Canada, Australia and New Zealand. They have no current plans to use fingerprints in passports but are instead focusing, as we are, on the enhanced use of biographic and facial imaging based on identity authentication techniques: so we do not consider that a convincing case for having fingerprints in the passport has been made.

The Identity Documents Bill is about getting rid of an expensive and intrusive scheme that placed unnecessary and disproportionate requirements on the individual to provide information to the state. The Bill is a major step along the route of returning power to the citizen. At the same time, we have been careful to retain existing powers to tackle those who choose to commit, or attempt to commit, identity fraud. We have tabled a government amendment to Clause 10 in the other place to increase the safeguards for the individual in relation to the acquisition and retention of data in connection with passport applications. So while we add necessary precautions, the core function of the Bill is to remove from the statute book the costly, unsuccessful and invasive card scheme, to the benefit of the taxpayer and the freedom of the individual. On that basis, I am pleased to present the Bill for your Lordships’ consideration, and I beg to move that the Bill be now read a second time.

--- Later in debate ---

[Baroness Neville-Jones]

My Lords, we have had an interesting and wide-ranging debate. My first point is that the various speeches have shown a philosophical divide in the House between those who think that it is a good idea for the state to amass information about citizens and that this is somehow empowering, and those who think that it is a good idea for the state to have as little as is necessary for the discharge of its duties and functions. That is one of the things that divide us regarding the national register and it lies at the heart of the way in which this scheme was constructed.

The Benches opposite challenged me personally on why I had changed my view. I will tell them. My reasons were expressed more eloquently than I can put them by the noble Lord, Lord Shipley, who raised all the charges that one could about the flaws in the system, and he was right. This national register would have contained up to 50 items about individuals. That is a very large amount of information and would have included ephemeral details such as one’s address. A constant process of change would need to have taken place and there would have been a penalty for failing to provide the information.

Some noble Lords mentioned the view of Microsoft. It was Jerry Fishenden, an expert in this area, who said that bringing together in a single place all this information about the citizens of this country was a great honey pot and that the likelihood of it being invulnerable to attack and hacking was zero. Those were the moments when I began to have very serious doubts about the wisdom of this scheme, and the more I saw of it the less I liked it. It is partly for practical, but also for many philosophical, reasons that I concluded that the scheme was a bad idea.

The history of the way in which the previous Government’s thinking evolved was spelt out by other Members of the House, and I will not go into that again. Various arguments were put forward and eventually the scheme turned from being a good security precaution into being a good entitlement route. Part of the difficulty shown in defending this was the fact that the previous Government had constantly to change their justification for this extremely expensive scheme. I repeat that it is extremely expensive and it is quite right to say that it was to be the only one of its kind. One could have imagined that every time a swipe was made and the register had to incorporate a transaction—because it was going to be used in that fashion—the number of transactions would undoubtedly have crashed the system.

The design had many flaws. It also has limited validity and limited use because, as was rightly pointed out, the area of online fraud and losses, which increasingly is where identity authentication is needed and where fraud is taking place, would not have been helped at all by the existence of this register. So the design did not deal with one of the main areas where identity authentication was needed.

The noble Lord opposite asked how we would deal with identity issues. I entirely take the point that they are very serious and that further work and protection are needed. However, I am quite clear that the national register as it was constructed, with its associated card, was not the route to go down to get that degree of identity assurance.

Some noble Lords also raised the question of whether we would retain any of the technology that has been developed in relation to second-generation passports. As I said, the Government take the view that it is not necessary for the security of the British travel document, which we all agree is of high-quality, that it should incorporate second biometric data. Most Schengen countries are going down the route of asking for fingerprints. We are not going to do that and a large number of other countries are not going to, either. We do not take the view that there will be any barrier to the acceptability of our document. We also believe that other ways of increasing the security of the biometric data such as facial imaging, which we can certainly do at much less cost, are the way to go. Having said that, we will retain the technology in the Identity and Passport Service to ensure that, should we need to use it or should it be useful, we will have it available. However, we do not consider that it is needed as things stand.

Several noble Lords asked about how the destruction of information would be done and whether we could be sure that it would be done. It is a very important issue. As has been said, all biometric data and the vast majority of the personal data will be destroyed within two months of enactment. We have shared our approach with the Information Commissioner's Office, which is satisfied that all areas have been covered. The data destruction will be handled in accordance with the decommissioning guidance issued by the Cabinet Office and by the information assurance arm of GCHQ, the CESG. I believe that I am right in saying also that my honourable friend the Immigration Minister in the other place said that he would report to the House. I, too, am very happy to report to this House on the destruction process. We entirely agree that if we say we are going to do that, the public must be assured that it is happening. That will be a systematic process. We will not allow data that should no longer be legally held to be held by the Government.

Some noble Lords also raised the question of the power under the Act to sell data. Perhaps I may clarify that. Section 12 of the Act provides for the Identity and Passport Service to provide information to third parties for verification purposes. This permits the Secretary of State, under that power, to supply information to a person registered under the Act. The provision of this information requires the consent of the individual: at least that is a relief. For example, they may be applying for goods and services, which is why the information about them is required. Section 35 allows for a fee to be charged for the application of this provision, so one can see the intention potentially to make this a profit-making possibility for the Government. Our anxiety would have been about whether the information being provided was always accurate.

Some noble Lords asked whether there was an anomaly between our desire and intention to abolish the identity cards system and register and our continuation of biometric permits for foreign workers in this country. In fact, the latter is an EU requirement and, obviously, we undertake to continue to maintain our EU obligations. These are residence permits; they are not identity documents.

On costings, I cannot supply an immediate answer to the question raised by the noble Lord opposite. Our figures are very different, but I will write to him on that subject, as I realise that it is important to have clarity.

[Lord Hunt of Kings Heath]

The point is that most of the long-term cost would have been met by people paying the cost of the card. It is rather inaccurate to give a globalised figure and to say that that is the total cost.

[Baroness Neville-Jones]

The fact is that there is significant sunk investment and there would have been future costs if we had operated the system. Those future costs will now not be incurred.

Here is more precision on the point that the noble Lord has just raised. In October 2009, the cost report provided the figure of £835 million for future investment. Noble Lords will be aware that fewer than 15,000 cards have been issued, which has been against an investment of £292 million. The difficulty is that one cannot be as confident as the noble Lord that the costs would be recouped from fees. Irrespective and independent of the attitude of the Opposition at the time, which I am sure acted as a dampener on the general public’s enthusiasm to purchase a card, it was clear that the public were voting with their feet. A total of 12,000 cards is not a large number of applicants.

[Lord Brett]

The point has been made about the restricted areas—one in Manchester and one in London—but there was also a general inquiry register, to which members of the public from other parts of the country could apply so that they could have access to their cards when the cards became available. That is a rather different issue and a rather different figure.

[Baroness Neville-Jones]

I hope that the noble Lord will acknowledge that, at the end of the day, this was not going down a bomb.

If the question of refunds is the only complaint that the Opposition can find, that shows that there is not a great deal to object to in the legislation. Several points were raised. I was asked about refunds and whether we could supply discounts against other documents or at least allow the documents to have their full-life validity. As I pointed out, full-life validity would mean keeping the system open, which would probably cost an extra £60 million to £80 million. We simply do not think that that is justified or sensible. Noble Lords have said that this would involve a small sum of money, but we believe that £400,000 can be spent to the benefit of the general public in a rather more useful fashion than on a refund of £30, which is rather less than probably most people pay for a monthly subscription to Sky. We have to have a sense of proportion about this.

One or two noble Lords said that they found the Bill unnecessarily complex. In fact, when one gets into the detail of the Bill, there are quite a large number of complexities to unwind. However, I am happy to talk to them about the issues that they have raised and, if the Bill can be simplified, I shall be most delighted to do so.

A point about fraud was raised. The National Fraud Authority and the National Fraud Intelligence Bureau have produced a strategic threat assessment of the harm impact of identity crime—a matter with which I think we in the House are all concerned. It will lead to an action plan, which will be overseen by the Home Office. We have started work on it and the first meetings have begun to take place. I am personally very interested in this subject. The House probably shares the view that identity, and its protection, is something that we have to get right. It relates to issues such as how we combat crime that takes place through cybernetworks, so I do not underestimate the importance of getting this right. As I said earlier, we do not believe that the national register is the way to tackle it. However, we have a great concern about the need to protect victims of crime relating to people’s identities having been swiped.

In conclusion, we believe that the Bill is in the public interest and we are pleased to have brought it forward this soon. We believe it is right to start getting the balance that we think should pertain between the citizen and the state more where we would like to see it, and of course other legislation is coming forward which will swing further in the direction of the liberty of the citizen. I ask the House to give the Bill a Second Reading.

[The Countess of Mar]

My Lords, before the Minister sits down, I asked two specific questions. If she does not have the answers to them now, will she assure me that she will write to me with them?

[Baroness Neville-Jones]

The noble Countess is quite right. I do indeed have some information and apologise for not having given it. I think that one of her questions related to the UKBA. She asked about provisions within Sections 5 to 15 of the 2007 Act. We comply with the EU requirements and we have complied ahead of the 2012 deadline. I realise that the noble Countess raised one or two other aspects, but I am not in a position to answer them at the moment and so shall write to her.

[Lord Selsdon]

Before my noble friend sits down, can she help me? Would she be willing to share with the House her full name and her legal name?

[Baroness Neville-Jones]

I know a trick question when I see one. I shall certainly share my name as registered on my birth certificate. It is Lilian Pauline Neville-Jones.

Bill read a second time and committed to a Grand Committee.