Identity Documents Bill

Keith Vaz Excerpts

Wednesday 15th September 2010 Commons Chamber

[Julie Hilling]

I remain absolutely convinced that my constituents deserve fair treatment. They deserve either to have the money refunded—sadly, this mean-spirited Bill does not allow that to happen—or for their identity cards to continue, although I accept that this might be difficult. The easiest thing would be to allow them £30 credit towards a passport.

People have talked about alternative means of identification, but I wonder whether those hon. Members who are present know how much they cost. All those alternative means of identification cost more than the identity card. Those who are disabled—for instance, those with a visual disability or other conditions—cannot get a driving licence; and indeed, if someone was never going to drive, why would they apply for one? However, a driving licence is one of the few photographic means of identification that we have in this country. The identity card was therefore valuable as a tool with which people could prove their identity, which is becoming increasingly important and difficult to do nowadays.

Let me finish by saying that I believe that the Bill is mean-spirited. The Government should give £30 credit to those affected, and I very much hope that hon. Members will vote for that later.

[Keith Vaz (Leicester East) (Lab)]

I have known you long enough to know that when you frown in the way that you have, Mr Deputy Speaker, you wish and expect short speeches from hon. Members. I therefore intend to be brief.

I came into the Chamber mindful of the Opposition amendment and with a view to supporting the proposal to pay compensation to those who have taken out voluntary cards. However, I have listened to what hon. Members have said, including the thoughtful speech by the hon. Member for Hexham (Guy Opperman). It is probably right that people should have been cautious in taking out a voluntary card, knowing that the policy was not carried in all parts of the House. However, it would have been better for the Government to pay the money back as a good-will gesture than for us to be fighting about £30 multiplied by 11,000 on the Floor of the House. I understand that the principle is important, and I say to my hon. Friend the Member for Bolton West (Julie Hilling) that the 12 constituents and others who may have written to her are obviously deeply concerned. Perhaps £30 is not a lot to some people, but it is certainly a great deal to the constituents whom she mentioned.

[Catherine McKinnell]

Just to clarify whether £30 is a significant amount, in fact, we are not talking about £30; we are talking about the additional £50 that will be required to get another valid form of identification. An extra £50, making £80 in total, is a lot of money for some people, and particularly for pensioners, who have to save for some time to afford it.

[Keith Vaz]

I agree with my hon. Friend: it is a lot of money for some people, but it is not clear whether there is a huge point of principle, based as it is on the fact that people were clear that identity cards were an absolutely partisan policy on the part of the previous Government. Only my hon. Friend the Member for Walsall South—

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

Walsall North—the hon. Member for Walsall South (Valerie Vaz) is your sister.

[Keith Vaz]

I thank my hon. Friend for reminding me—I think I just about know the difference between my sister and my hon. Friend, who was so often the conscience of the Select Committee on Home Affairs when it considered the issue in the previous Parliament. We accepted that the previous Government had an absolute right to put through their legislation on ID cards. It was only my hon. Friend who reminded the Committee on so many occasions that he thought that the policy was wrong.

[Mr Winnick]

As for the previous Government, obviously there was controversy among Labour Members on the subject—it would have been odd if that were not so—but does my right hon. Friend not agree that the original idea for identity cards came from Michael Howard, when he was the Home Secretary in, of course, a Conservative Administration?

[Keith Vaz]

I cannot say for certain, but my hon. Friend is wiser and has been in this House for longer than me, so if he quotes Michael Howard from a few years ago, I accept what he says.

[Mr Jim Cunningham (Coventry South) (Lab)]

I certainly agree with my hon. Friend the Member for Walsall North (Mr Winnick): Michael Howard had a proposal for something called the smart card. He tried to get it through this House, but he could not do so.

[Mr Deputy Speaker (Mr Lindsay Hoyle)]

Order. Let me remind hon. Members that we are discussing new clause 2. These points are not relevant. I am sure that you will wish to return to the new clause, Mr Vaz.

[Keith Vaz]

Unfortunately I did not know about those points until they were made. Had I known that they would be raised, I would not have given way. However, as you say, Mr Deputy Speaker, this is not a debate about Lord Howard; it is a debate about new clause 2.

Although I came into the Chamber wanting to support those on my Front Bench—and I still want to, because I have great respect for my hon. Friend the Member for Hackney South and Shoreditch (Meg Hillier), who was a superb Minister, appearing many times before the Home Affairs Committee on identity issues, including the cost of identity cards and their implementation—I am probably minded to abstain if there is a vote.

I understand that the Minister has written to—[Interruption.] Let me say to my right hon. Friend the Member for Rotherham (Mr MacShane), for whom I have enormous respect and affection, that I do not think that what is proposed is the equivalent of the nationalisation of British Steel, with the Government moving in to take away somebody else’s property, including his own. As the Minister said, the card that my right hon. Friend is waving before me is the property of the Government. However, that is a side issue. I understand that when he makes his point, he comes from the steel capital of Britain, but we are not talking about the nationalisation of British Steel.

[Mr MacShane]

I am grateful to my right hon. Friend—for whom I worked as a Parliamentary Private Secretary for many happy years—for giving way. I would be quite happy to concede the financial point if the Government were prepared to cut a deal and let me keep the card until it expired. That seems quite reasonable, because it is a European card. Every time I have used it to go through airports in the past three months, people have said, “Ooh, that’s a good idea! The Brits are becoming like us.” Well, thanks to the coalition, now we are not.

[Keith Vaz]

Let me say to my right hon. Friend, the former Minister for Europe—

[Chris Bryant (Rhondda) (Lab)]

We have a set of former Ministers for Europe in the Chamber.

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[Keith Vaz]

Indeed. Let me say to my right hon. Friend the Member for Rotherham (Mr MacShane) that he is the last person who needs an identity card to get into France. He is probably the only former Minister for Europe to be fluent in half a dozen European languages. His very face is sufficient to get him into the European Union.

[Mr MacShane]

But we are in the European Union.

[Keith Vaz]

I meant the mainland European Union.

Anyway, before this becomes a debate about the European Union, let me say that I shall abstain on new clause 2. However, I am attracted to amendment 8, which stands in the name of my hon. Friends the Members for Birmingham, Selly Oak (Steve McCabe) and for Houghton and Sunderland South (Bridget Phillipson), and not just because they are distinguished members of the Home Affairs Committee, as the hon. Member for Cannock Chase (Mr Burley) is, but because there is a lot of merit in what they say. The Minister should take amendment 8 seriously. I do not know whether my hon. Friends will push it to a vote, but the destruction of the data is an important issue.

When I raised this matter on the Floor of the House, following the Home Secretary’s announcement that ID cards were to be abolished, either she or the Minister—I cannot be sure which—said that there would be a huge event in which all the data would be destroyed. I think that it was said, perhaps playfully, that there would be a big bonfire, and that Members of the House would be invited to attend such an event. I know that that was meant in jest, but this is a serious point.

I support what the Government are doing to remove the names of innocent people from the database. That is absolutely a move in the right direction. The hon. Member for Perth and North Perthshire (Pete Wishart) asked whether the previous Government had lost their way on civil liberties issues, and I would say that we did a little, partly because of a lack of scrutiny by this House, rather than through any intent on the part of the Government. We should have been better at scrutinising legislation.

I hope that, when the Minister responds, he will give us a clear statement on how the data are to be destroyed. My hon. Friends who have tabled amendment 8 have proposed a time limit of four months, within which a statement must be made to the House. I do not believe for one moment that that is an unreasonable request. I hope that the Minister will give my hon. Friends the assurances that they seek. This is not a huge issue, but it goes to the heart of what the coalition Government say that they are going to do with these data. We must not keep the data unless it is absolutely necessary to do so, and I hope that he will give some comfort to my hon. Friends, and an assurance that the data will be destroyed within four months.

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[Keith Vaz]

That is very reassuring, but in his mind and that of the Home Secretary is there a time scale by which this should be done? We appreciate that contractors have been instructed, but has the Minister said that the Government would like that done in a certain number of months?

[Damian Green]

It would be slightly premature for me to give too much detail now because the legislation has not been passed. We have tried to be as clear as possible in saying that we will do it as quickly as possible after the Bill has passed through all its stages, but I do not wish unnecessarily to annoy or provoke the other place by saying anything else.

--- Later in debate ---

[Keith Vaz]

It is a great pleasure to follow the former Home Secretary, my right hon. Friend the Member for Sheffield, Brightside and Hillsborough (Mr Blunkett), who took us all the way back to the birth of ID cards and has now read out their last rites in the Chamber of the House of Commons. I do not think he should take the criticism of the last Labour Government personally. People say many things in leadership election campaigns. Let us see what happens next week when, in opposition, we have an opportunity to fashion our new policies. I pay tribute to my right hon. Friend for all he did as Home Secretary on so many issues to do with his portfolio.

I also pay tribute to the Minister. Anyone who has followed Home Office debates over the past few years since he has been on the Front Bench will have noted the enthusiasm, delight and intellectual vigour that he put into the campaign against identity cards. I am sure it gives him great satisfaction to be here to read the last rites of the identity cards and to do so very modestly. I suppose that when faced with the Liberal Democrats, the Conservative party, the Scottish National party, Justice and Liberty—a very odd combination—it is probably right that the official Opposition have, in a sense, thrown in the towel. The shadow Minister accepted that there was no appetite among Labour Members to oppose the Bill on Second Reading and she tabled some carefully thought-out amendments, but the Government, with their majority and with this Bill as a central part of their Home Office agenda, have got their Bill through, after only 12 weeks.

I hope that the Minister will take seriously—I know that he will—the concerns expressed about the destruction of data. The Select Committee on Home Affairs will be writing to him in two months’ time. I know that he did not give that as the absolute timetable, but he mentioned two months and then a further two months, and he then said that this would depend on what happens in the other place. I do not think that it will be a problem there, so by Christmas or, at least, by the new year we should be in a position to know that these data have been destroyed. I am sure that we will be writing to him to ensure that now that the funeral is over, the ashes will be scattered in about four months’ time.