Lord Watts
Main Page: Lord Watts (Labour - Life peer)Department Debates - View all Lord Watts's debates with the Cabinet Office
(6 years ago)
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Lord Young of Cookham
I am not convinced that compulsory ID cards would stop the illegal entry into this country of a whole range of people. The noble Lord will know that in 2010, legislation was passed to scrap the ID legislation introduced by the previous Labour Government. We have no plans to reintroduce such legislation.
Lord Watts (Lab)
Can the Minister say how much has been paid in consultancy fees on this issue? Given that departments and the Government centrally keep no records of how much they are spending on consultancy, is it not about time that we were more transparent?
Lord Young of Cookham
There is an issue of commercial confidentiality in publishing the amount paid to the five identity providers, but if the noble Lord wants to know the cost of the Verify programme, I should be more than happy to write to him and place a copy in the Library.