Identity Documentation

Lord Rosser Excerpts

Thursday 14th January 2016 Lords Chamber

[Lord Rosser (Lab)]

My Lords, first, I add my thanks to those expressed already by so many others to my noble friend Lord Campbell-Savours for securing this debate. It provided us with a real trip down memory lane to be reminded by my noble friend Lord Harris of Haringey of an early episode of “Fawlty Towers” and then to be fascinated by hearing about his favourite places.

As my noble friend Lord Campbell-Savours said, both Conservative and Labour Governments, and the Home Affairs Committee in the other place, have at differing times expressed an interest in, or introduced, identity cards. In May 1995, the Conservative Government published a Green Paper on identity cards. In 1996, the Home Affairs Select Committee in the other place concluded in a report that the balance of advantage to the individual citizen and to the public as a whole was in favour of some form of voluntary identity card, subject to a number of provisos. The committee also stated that only a compulsory card, or one that carried details of immigration status, would have an impact on preventing illegal immigration. The Queen’s Speech of the 1996-97 parliamentary Session then included a commitment by the then Government to publish a draft Bill on the introduction of voluntary identity cards.

In 2004, the House of Commons Home Affairs Committee published a report, following its own inquiry and the publication of a draft Bill by the then Government, which concluded that the Government had made a convincing case for proceeding with the introduction of identity cards. The committee said that the test should be whether the measures needed to install and operate an effective identity card system were proportionate to the benefits such a system would bring and to the problems to be tackled, and whether such a proposed system was the most effective way of achieving this goal. It also expressed the view that the scheme proposed by the then Government would represent a significant change in the relationship between the state and the individual—a point raised by the noble Lord, Lord Oates, who was opposed to going down the road advocated by my noble friend Lord Campbell-Savours.

The Labour Government then passed the Identity Cards Act 2006, which created a framework for national identity cards in the UK and a national identity register. The rollout of compulsory ID cards for foreign nationals began in November 2008 and the rollout of the identity card to UK residents began on a voluntary basis in November 2009. The then Government argued that the Act would achieve less illegal migration and illegal working, enhance the UK’s capability to counter terrorism and serious and organised crime, reduce identity fraud and lead to more efficient and effective delivery of public services. That was not a view shared by the incoming 2010 Conservative-led coalition Government, who immediately passed an Identity Documents Act cancelling identity cards, which ceased to be a legal document for confirming a person’s identity in January 2011 and ceased to be a valid travel document. However, as has been said, the UK Border Agency continues to issue biometric residence permits to non-European Economic Area foreign nationals staying in the UK for more than six months to provide evidence of the holder’s immigration status in this country.

In his speech, my noble friend Lord Campbell-Savours made his case for identity cards in his typically powerful and persuasive manner, and raised a number of points which require a full answer from the Government if this debate is to have any meaningful purpose and not simply turn out to be little better than a talking shop. On previous, very recent occasions when the issue of identity cards has been raised, both in this House and in the other place, the Government’s response has been that they considered money that would have been spent on identity cards had been and was being more usefully spent on better equipping security forces and better securing our borders.

There are two points on that. First, to suggest that we have improved and are improving control of our borders by using money not being spent on identity cards seems a rather doubtful claim from a Government who are nowhere near achieving their own declared objective of net migration in the tens of thousands, who apparently have large numbers of asylum seekers whose claims they have rejected still in this country without even knowing where they are, and who have no real idea how many people are in this country with no authority to be here.

The second point is that the Government appear to see identity cards as an inferior option to investing in other means of improving security and control rather than as potentially another complementary string to the bow. If that is the Government’s argument and I have not misrepresented it, they have to make their case, including by responding in detail to the specific and clear points made by my noble friend Lord Campbell-Savours about the potential wide-ranging benefits of identity assurance and an identity database. As has been said, many other European countries have identity card systems in one form or another in which they appear to have confidence, so it is not some revolutionary, untested idea.

As my noble friend Lord Harris of Haringey and others have said, we also live in a society where, in the light of technological developments, the amount already known about an individual, or which can relatively easily be found out about an individual, by both commercial and other organisations and the state is considerable and seems to expand by the year. As a result, the extent to which it can be claimed that an identity card system and an identity register represent some further unacceptable intrusion into privacy is one on which there are likely to be very different views.

In the House of Commons earlier this week, the Government were asked by both a Conservative and a Labour Member to reconsider the question of ID cards in the light of issues concerning immigration and the identification, detention and deportation of illegal immigrants, as well as the introduction of digital services, national security and the protection of UK citizens from terrorism. In his speech, my noble friend Lord Campbell-Savours laid emphasis on how he considered the benefits of identity assurance went way beyond those areas and into addressing the increasingly worrying area of identity fraud.

I have to say that this is a Government who are prone, on occasions, to making hasty decisions on security and border control issues. There was the issue of control orders, which the Government decided they could not countenance but then found they had to bring back in all but name. Then there was the Government’s determination to opt out of EU directives on justice and home affairs issues, only to find, when reason prevailed, that it was in the national interest to opt back in to the key matters. Perhaps this was when the Government finally appreciated that Europe and co-operation were not the causes of security issues and other problems, but rather the potential solutions to them.

Given this Government’s track record in this area of, on occasions, acting first and thinking second, the issue raised by my noble friend Lord Campbell-Savours deserves not to be hastily dismissed as it has been on previous occasions. Instead, the case that my noble friend has made today deserves to be considered carefully in the light of the current situation—particularly in respect of increasing identity fraud, the need for identity assurance, the threat of terrorist activity and apparent levels of illegal immigration—and given an evidence-based response, irrespective of whether the Government decide they are going to change their approach or not.

I hope that that is what the Government’s line will be today: that, without any commitment to change their current stance, they will nevertheless set up a review of the advantages or otherwise of the introduction of an ID system giving identity insurance, including looking at the position in other countries that have such systems and the benefits or otherwise that those systems actually bring—an issue raised by the noble Lord, Lord Scriven.

In today’s environment, all measures that might further enhance security and address other significant problems and issues, including identity fraud, merit careful and full consideration of their advantages and disadvantages so that decisions made on what measures it is in the interest of our nation and our citizens to adopt are clearly evidence-based.

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[Lord Bates]

In the strict way in which the noble Lord poses the question, of course, the answer would be—

[Lord Rosser]

Yes.