National Identity Cards

Debate between Lord Blunkett and Baroness Williams of Trafford

Tuesday 14th March 2017 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Williams of Trafford]

The noble Lord has highlighted the merit of exit checks, which we have previously discussed. They were reintroduced in May 2015 and those data will prove valuable.

[Lord Blunkett (Lab)]

My Lords, it is a great pleasure to agree with the noble Lord, Lord Green. If biometrics are so easily attacked and discredited, why have the Government introduced them for passports?

[Baroness Williams of Trafford]

The identity card was a tackle-all type of card. The Government are now trying to be far more robust at identity assurance from a problem-solving perspective rather than seeking a particular solution.

National Identity Cards

Debate between Lord Blunkett and Baroness Williams of Trafford

Wednesday 16th November 2016 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Williams of Trafford]

I think that my noble friend is saying the same thing as me but in a different way. In this country we have passports and driving licences. As I said, there is no evidence that identity cards have improved security in the European countries that have them.

[Lord Blunkett (Lab)]

My Lords, as the Minister who introduced the original identity register and card—I still have mine—I ask whether the noble Baroness would concede that, if people do not like the term “identity card”, it might be a possible way forward for all British citizens over 16 to have a mandatory passport and for all non-British citizens to carry a card that registers their status in this country. Surely that would be a way round what has become a very sterile argument.

[Baroness Williams of Trafford]

My Lords, I would congratulate the noble Lord on introducing the identity card—but the Government do not agree with them and his identity card is probably invalid by now. I cannot help but repeat that we have passports. In fact, our passports now, particularly the e-passports, where facial identity can be cross-referenced with the actual document, are an improvement on what we had before.

Orgreave

Debate between Lord Blunkett and Baroness Williams of Trafford

Tuesday 1st November 2016 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Williams of Trafford]

My noble friend is absolutely right. I am grateful that noble friends and noble Lords were in government or in this House at the time of Orgreave. The job is to get on with improving policing, and inquiries are not always the answer. The Policing and Crime Bill seeks to make further reforms and efficiencies in the police service to make it better.

[Lord Blunkett (Lab)]

My Lords, I was leader of Sheffield City Council at the time and subsequently lived for many years a mile away from Orgreave. It strongly rent my heart. I entirely understand why people do not want to spend millions of pounds on legal fees or to have the disruption that an inquiry would cause to the existing programme, but evidence has been produced over the past decade and there has been a genuine feeling that the truth has been withheld. Even at this late hour, is it not possible to have the kind of very light-touch review which the elected police and crime commissioner, the Reverend Dr Alan Billings, who leads the South Yorkshire Police, has suggested? It would avoid the catastrophe of a very prolonged inquiry which, as has been described this afternoon, often leads to people not being satisfied at the end of it.

[Baroness Williams of Trafford]

My Lords, there was a discussion—I think yesterday—about a small Select Committee inquiry. Of course, that would be a matter for Parliament. The IPCC considered things last year, but as I said earlier, if any fresh information comes to light, it will take it on board and consider it.

Planning: Trees

Debate between Lord Blunkett and Baroness Williams of Trafford

Thursday 14th April 2016 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Williams of Trafford]

My Lords, I would have thought that that was a matter of highway trees rather than coming under the Town and Country Planning Act that the noble Lord refers to. I also understand that the Streets Ahead initiative, which perhaps he is talking about, was implemented under his administration.

[Lord Blunkett (Lab)]

My Lords, is it not an extraordinary reformulation of localism from the Liberal Democrats to demand that national legislation be used to settle a local dispute? Would the Minister reflect on whether she has ever received a Question in this House from the leader of a city which was responsible for drafting the contract and service-level agreement, who then, when his party was in coalition, continued to claim credit for the deal signed off in 2009, and who now comes to ask your Lordships’ House to intervene on something that is deeply sensitive—and for which I have a great deal of sympathy—but which requires to be settled locally as part of democratic local procedures?

[Baroness Williams of Trafford]

My Lords, I agree with the noble Lord.

Devolution: England

Debate between Lord Blunkett and Baroness Williams of Trafford

Wednesday 2nd December 2015 Lords Chamber

[Lord Blunkett (Lab)]

Will the Minister discuss with her colleagues the fact that there is no structure whatsoever for any form of accountability or input by the electorate to the northern powerhouse because a framework does not exist to do so; and that, where there are combined authorities, unlike London, there is no assembly or direct democratic input? Without this, the legitimacy of the changes will not be sustained and people will become as mistrustful of what is happening at subregional level as they are of what is happening at national level.

[Baroness Williams of Trafford]

My Lords, in terms of accountability with government, clear expectations will be laid out in the agreement between combined authority areas that have devolutionary agreements and the Government. This Government have absolutely no intention of revisiting the assembly model. It was made very clear in Greater Manchester that when it agreed to have a mayor, it did not want another layer of government but an eleventh leader.