Identity Documents Bill

David Winnick Excerpts

Wednesday 9th June 2010 Commons Chamber

[The Secretary of State for the Home Department (Mrs Theresa May)]

I beg to move, That the Bill be now read a Second time.

I am very pleased to introduce the first piece of legislation that the new Administration are putting before Parliament. It signals a profound change in the way in which Government will interact with the people they serve.

The national identity card scheme represents the worst of government. It is intrusive and bullying, ineffective and expensive. It is an assault on individual liberty which does not promise a greater good. The Bill is, therefore, partly symbolic. It sends a message that the Government are going to do business in a different way. We are the servants of the people, not their masters, and every action that we take must be considered in that context.

Of course our first duty is to keep people safe. That truism cannot be repeated often enough. We will do whatever it takes to honour that covenant. Sometimes, respecting the rights of the few while protecting the many will be a delicate balancing act. Not on this occasion. We have no hesitation in making the national identity card scheme an unfortunate footnote in history. There it should remain—a reminder of a less happy time when the Government allowed hubris to trump civil liberties.

Last month, the coalition set out its plans to abolish ID cards and the national identity register. The register contains the biographic and biometric fingerprint data of cardholders. In bringing forward this stand-alone Bill, we are now seeking swift approval to enable us to abolish both.

The Government are of course also bringing forward a freedom Bill, and will launch a consultation on the laws that the British people want to see repealed. So the Identity Documents Bill is just our first measure as we begin to restore the balance between national security and civil liberties—the crucial, delicate balance which was so carelessly abandoned during Labour’s years in office.

[Mr David Winnick (Walsall North) (Lab)]

I opposed identity cards from the very beginning and I have not changed my views, but will the Home Secretary bear in mind that in 1996 the Conservative Home Secretary, Michael Howard, announced that the Conservative Government intended to bring in an identity card scheme? It was described as voluntary—whatever that meant. It was not possible to do so for obvious reasons: because of what happened in 1997.

[Mrs May]

I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman for reminding us of what was done in 1996 by a former Conservative Home Secretary and what was proposed. That Conservative Government did indeed look at the possibility. We have looked at the idea brought forward by the Labour Government and we do not think that it is right. We take a different view, which is that we should abolish the identity card scheme. The hon. Gentleman referred to his opposition and indeed a number of Labour Members objected to the proposals of their Front-Bench colleagues.

--- Later in debate ---

[Mr David Winnick (Walsall North) (Lab)]

To avoid any misunderstanding, I make it clear that I am not making my maiden speech—I did that quite a few years ago! I pay tribute to the hon. Member for Elmet and Rothwell (Alec Shelbrooke) for his fine speech, and to everyone else who has spoken today, including my hon. Friends the Members for Birmingham, Erdington (Jack Dromey), for Clwyd South (Susan Elan Jones) and for Gateshead (Ian Mearns). They will I am sure all make valuable contributions to the House and the parliamentary party.

I have opposed identity cards from the start, and I dispute with the Home Secretary, who gave the impression that the Conservatives hold the high ground, that they—and they alone—have stood against identity cards from the beginning. That is not the position. Inevitably, if we are frank, there have been divisions within the two main parties over identity cards—some being for, some opposed. My right hon. Friend the shadow Home Secretary referred to a ten-minute Bill put forward by a Conservative Member, but I shall go back further. In July 1988, a ten-minute Bill was proposed by another Conservative Member, who is no longer in the House, with the purpose of bringing in identity cards. It is interesting to note that the Bill was defeated, even though the Conservatives had a majority, and that not one Labour Member voted in favour. Everyone who voted for the unsuccessful Bill was Conservative, so no high-ground propaganda please, because it serves no purpose. Incidentally, taking part in that Division 22 years ago, in the No Lobby of course, was someone we all know—Tony Blair. I think his views somewhat changed later on.

As my right hon. Friend the shadow Home Secretary said, in August 1996, when Michael Howard was Home Secretary, it was announced that the Conservative Government intended to introduce an ID cards scheme. So, again, there is clear evidence that the Conservative party, at one stage, considered ID cards to be essential. The Conservatives thought that not for dubious reasons, but for the same reasons my party concluded—wrongly, in my view—that ID cards were necessary. My opposition persisted when the Labour Government decided to bring in the cards. Moreover, under a Labour majority, a comprehensive inquiry was conducted by the Home Affairs Committee, and I was the only person on that Committee who voted against the scheme. Conservative Members voted with Labour Members in favour of ID cards in 2004.

I have always taken the view that my opposition is absolutely firm, except for one factor: if I could be persuaded that ID cards would help in the fight against terrorism, I would change my mind, because I believe—I am sure the same applies to all Members of the House—that the security and safety of our country and people must come first. Were there such evidence, I would reluctantly support ID cards. However, as has been said enough times today, there is no evidence that terrorism would be prevented by ID cards. The atrocities on 7 July 2005 would not have been prevented. Reference has been made already to the atrocity a year earlier in Madrid, where more than 100 people were murdered by al-Qaeda, and there is no evidence that ID cards in Spain could have prevented, or did prevent, such atrocities.

As to the argument sometimes put forward that, although identity cards would not and did not prevent such atrocities—I only wish they could have done—they nevertheless helped to bring the culprits to justice, I have to say that there is very little evidence for that. We need to bear in mind, of course, that for years, Spain faced a different terrorist campaign from ETA, but again identity cards have hardly helped in any way.

The police remain in favour of identity cards, but no one is surprised by that. In making his maiden speech earlier today, the hon. Member for Finchley and Golders Green (Mike Freer) made a valid point about what happened in 1952, I believe, when a person refused to show his identity card to a police constable. What happened to the person was upheld by the courts and identity cards were abolished.

[Mr Richard Shepherd (Aldridge-Brownhills) (Con)]

No, the person was found guilty; the law was the law. In the judgment, however, the reason why the law was intolerable was given: its maintenance for a security or emergency situation such as war should not prevail in peacetime. It was the Churchill Government, elected in 1951, who then did away with that law.

[Mr Winnick]

The hon. Gentleman, who is my constituency neighbour, and I never agree on economic issues, but we tend to share certain views on civil liberties. He is right in what he says about the Churchill Government, and I am sure that the Attlee Government would have done the same, had they been re-elected in 1951. We are going back a long time, but I am not aware that the Conservative Opposition in the 1945 Parliament argued for the abolition of identity cards. I am glad that those cards were abolished; I did not want to see them come back after half a century.

[Dr Huppert]

rose—

[Mr Winnick]

If the hon. Gentleman will forgive me, I want to move on to function creep, which is another factor. In evidence to the Home Affairs Committee, the point was made that when identity cards were introduced in 1939—and rightly so in the circumstances of those days—there were three reasons for doing so: conscription, national security and food rationing. By 1950, there were no fewer than 35 stated purposes as to why an identity card was necessary, one of which, incidentally, was the prevention of bigamous marriages. We have not heard an argument in the recent debate that ID cards are necessary for that purpose.

[Dr Huppert]

I am sorry to intrude on an Attlee versus Churchill argument, but the hon. Gentleman should perhaps remember that Clarence Willcock was a Liberal candidate, and when asked to explain what he did, he said:

“I am a Liberal and I am against this sort of thing.”

That is a clear precedent. Had there been a Liberal Government at that time, ID cards would definitely have been scrapped.

[Mr Winnick]

The chances of having a Liberal Government in 1950 were as remote as having a Communist Government, but be that as it may; the hon. Gentleman has made his point.

It has sometimes been argued that biometrics provide an additional important difference from previous identity cards in Europe, but when evidence was given by experts—their expertise was not in doubt—before the Home Affairs Committee, considerable technical doubt was thrown over the extent to which biometrics would necessarily always be reliable. As for the national identity register, I have listened over the years to the arguments as to why it is necessary and all I can say is that, again, I have not been persuaded. It is suggested that such information is necessary for national insurance and passports and therefore why should we worry about it for identity cards, but surely the difference is that, although the other documents are not the subject of any controversy, identity cards are, because in the main they are one step too far, which remains the view held by many people in this country.

I am not arguing—it would be a foolish argument—that if identity cards had been introduced into Britain, we would have become a sort of semi-police state. That is absolute nonsense, but I do believe that they would have been an infringement of civil liberties. When we look at other European countries and fellow members of the European Union that do have identity cards, we find that they are certainly not police states. Some have a very dubious past, but we are very pleased that they are now no less democratic than we are. They have a different history, and our history—one that I want to see maintained—suggests that in peacetime we should not have identity cards, as they do not do what they are supposed to do. I wish that the whole issue had not been raised either by the Conservatives or by Labour over the past 22 years.

I have many differences with the Conservative Government. Only yesterday I gave an indication of my feelings about the cuts: along with my Labour colleagues, I will defend the position of those who are least able to bear the burden. There will be many battles with the Conservative Government, and, as I have said, we will not hesitate to defend the people who sent us here. However, I am pleased that identity cards are to be abolished.

Who knows what may happen in four or five years, but I think it most unlikely that we in the Labour party will employ identity cards as one of the features of the next general election campaign. I want to see the issue buried for good. There is no necessity for identity cards, and I hope that, at long last, both sides in the House of Commons will reach the view held by me and by a number of other Labour Members that we should not have them in peacetime.