Identity Documents Bill

Countess of Mar Excerpts

Monday 18th October 2010 Lords Chamber

[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.

--- Later in debate ---

[The Countess of Mar]

My Lords, as one of many who frequently expressed extreme unhappiness about the Identity Cards Bill as it passed through all its stages in your Lordships’ House, I was delighted to hear the announcement by the Government that most of its provisions would be repealed. I am even more delighted that the Identity Documents Bill has reached this stage so soon.

It was not just identity cards that presented a problem; of much more concern to me and others was the national identity register. As Liberty always maintained, these were a costly and completely unnecessary intrusion into our personal lives. Several noble Lords warned about the complexity of implementing such a scheme, the details of which were left to secondary legislation. All went unheeded by the previous Labour Government as, relentlessly, they ploughed on in their determination to get ID cards and the register into law. Now it seems that at least some members of the Labour Party have changed their view, for the new leader of the Opposition and another leadership candidate declared that they, too, are strongly against ID cards.

The cost and intrusive nature of ID cards and the register were not the only objectionable aspects of the Identity Cards Act 2006. Time and again, the previous Government were warned about the lack of security of the database and the detrimental impact on race relations. Of primary concern was the fundamental shift in the relationship between the state and the individual that would have occurred had the legislation been brought into effect.

I was fortunate to have worked with the Earl of Northesk. The breadth and depth of his knowledge about the functioning of computer databases were without parallel in your Lordships’ House and I am sure that his expertise will be sorely missed. He consistently warned that no database could be totally secure and that one as large and unwieldy as the national identity register was sure to be attacked. Recent warnings of cyberterrorism appear to endorse his belief.

I am probably not the only noble Lord to have received a briefing paper from the Northern Ireland Human Rights Commission, which expressed its concerns about the likelihood that racial discrimination would have been exacerbated by the Act. I was reminded of an occasion in the late 1950s when I worked in the Ministry of Pensions and National Insurance in Birmingham. In those days, a national insurance card to which stamps were attached was issued to each working person. This would show the contribution year, the gender of the person and the class of stamp. Additionally, as the colour of the card changed each year, the colour was written in words below the gender. I vividly remember chaos breaking out at the counter when an Irishman demanded that his card be changed for one of a different colour. It transpired that he had not understood that the separate words “orange” and “man” did not indicate that he was an Orangeman. It took quite a while to calm and reassure him, for clearly he felt that both his privacy and his religious affiliations had been affronted. This is an indication of the sensitivities that must be considered when enacting measures such as this.

The exorbitant cost of setting up and maintaining the register has never been justified, but that issue has already been thoroughly aired, so I will not labour the point.

Article 8 under the Human Rights Act relates to the citizen’s right to privacy. The Minister will be aware that there is still a great deal of unrest about possible infringement of this right by the UK Borders Act 2007. Both Liberty and the Northern Ireland commission have expressed their concerns that the gold-plating of that Act goes beyond the requirements of EU regulation. Does the Minister share those concerns or does she hold that the documents required are a requirement of EU law? If the latter, will she please tell the House which powers, purposes and sanctions under Sections 5 to 15 of the UK Borders Act 2007 are over and above the requirements of EU law?

Sections 25, 26 and 38 of the Identity Cards Act 2006 are to be retained in Clauses 4 to 10 of this Bill. As a former long-serving member of the Asylum and Immigration Tribunal, I am well aware of the number of false documents that are encountered in this jurisdiction. Clause 6 lists documents whose possession is an offence, but there is no definition of “reasonable excuse”. Will the Minister define that phrase, please? I also take this opportunity to make a plea for the consolidation of all the law that relates to immigration, asylum and border control. There has been such a welter of primary and secondary legislation in this field over the past two decades that I am amazed that anyone can ever get a full grasp of the subject. There really is a need to rationalise the law, to simplify the requirements for the identity of non-EU nationals and to bring the law into line with European law.

I look forward to the further stages of this Bill in your Lordships’ House and wish it a fair wind.

--- Later in debate ---

[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.