Alternatives to Child Detention

Meg Hillier Excerpts

Thursday 17th June 2010 Westminster Hall

[Meg Hillier (Hackney South and Shoreditch) (Lab/Co-op)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Weir.

I have some questions for the Minister, and to help him respond fully it may help him if I go through them before I make any other comments, and pick up on hon. Members’ points. As to Dungavel, what, currently, will happen if a family in Scotland are required to leave the country—to be deported? Where are they sent, and how is that dealt with?

The Minister spoke about local authorities, and working more closely with them. I wonder whether the Government are planning to work with all local authorities equally, or whether they will build on the existing model that applies to unaccompanied asylum-seeking children. It is a slightly different model, and involves specialist local authorities that are particularly adept at dealing with these challenging issues.

What discussions has the Minister had with local authorities to make them aware of the situation regarding children liable to be removed, and of how the process will work? I know that it is early days, but I wonder whether he could give some guidance, because I am sure that the Local Government Association and individual authorities will be keen to know how it will work practically.

I am also interested to know how the Government propose to work with community organisations. We hear a lot about the big society. Like many people, I am keen to know what it actually means. I shall touch on some of the work with community organisations that was under way while my party was in government, but I am keen to hear a bit about the Government’s plans. Perhaps, if the Minister is unable to answer here and now, he could provide some information in writing in due course.

This debate is about alternatives to child detention. I have had the opportunity to speak to those who are responsible for the project in Glasgow. I do not know whether the Minister managed that on his visit to Glasgow this week, but I am pleased that he is going around the different nations of the UK to discuss the matter. What progress has there been on the Glasgow project? To date, has any family actually left voluntarily as a result of that very intense intervention, which I believe involves two social workers working with around four families at a time? I wonder whether there has yet been a success story, because, sadly, there had not been one as I left office, but I have great hopes that the project can deliver some results. It is still early days, but I would be keen to hear an update on it.

The Minister mentioned the assisted voluntary returns package but did not absolutely pledge that it will continue, although I did not hear him say that it would not. I would be keen to hear some clarification on the future of the package, particularly in the current financial situation. It is a reasonably generous package of up to £5,000 per individual, and I wonder whether the Government plan to keep it at that level, and whether the Minister has a hotline to the Chief Secretary to the Treasury, who is his right hon. Friend these days, to ensure that that money will be there to enable the alternatives to progress. I welcome the fact that the Minister is cautious about the separation of families, and I shall touch on that in a moment.

An interesting issue in this area is the impact on human trafficking. Clearly, children are trafficked. If they are never detained, there is a risk that that could become a pull factor for those who have mal-intent towards children. In constructing the review and taking account of views, is there any particular oversight of that threat, so that as the review progresses and proposals come forward, it is considered, and there are not perverse outcomes which none of us in the House would want?

On that, would the Minister pledge to monitor the impact on children in what we might call private fostering? As the previous Minister, I was responsible for this area. There were occasions when adults were detained but the children would be elsewhere, and it could take some time to locate the children when the parents and family themselves had decided to separate. That lays open terrible potential risks to children in terms of child protection and safety. Again, if the review is well done and well constructed, the matter could possibly be dealt with, but there is a potential perverse outcome which the Government need to be aware of and plan against.

Has the Minister had any recent legal advice about section 55 of the Borders, Citizenship and Immigration Act 2009 on the duty of care for children, as mentioned by the hon. Member for Cambridge (Dr Huppert), and its impact on the review? There has been previous legal advice, but I wonder whether the Minister is seeking legal advice about the impact of that legislation.

There has been some discussion of the importance of legal advice, with which I certainly agree. I wonder whether any further action has been proposed, either as part of the review or separately, on improving legal advice, which has dogged all of us as constituency Members who deal with casework but also anyone in government who has to deal with these challenges. Does the Minister have any thoughts on that?

The current proposal is to continue some detention, but, according to the coalition agreement—I stand to be corrected if I have misunderstood it—there is an intent to hold a family with children for between 24 and 72 hours only. What would happen in the current situation if a family with children who are already in detention launch a judicial review at the 11th hour? Will the Minister ever continue to detain the family? Does he rule that out, or do the Government not currently have a definite position? I hope that because I have given him notice of questions, he will be able to answer them fully.

We heard some useful contributions from Members. My right hon. Friend the Member for Leicester East (Keith Vaz) has spoken many times on this subject. I should point out that the backlog has been a bugbear for us all as constituency MPs, and for anyone in the House who has any interest in the matter, but it has reduced. As a constituency MP and in my previous role, I have seen that and can testify to it.

I do, however, share a concern with my right hon. Friend about resources. Will progress go backwards now, given that there will be tight controls on and reductions in Government spending? Let us be honest: we are interested in this issue, but many people up and down the country would not see it as a priority. I wonder whether it is a priority of the current Government to make resources available to ensure that the backlog continues to go down, and that there is support for those going through the system so that they can get the right advice.

My right hon. Friend rightly highlighted the fact that the backlog does not help the situation regarding detention. Families who see other families staying for a long time because they have been caught up in the backlog are led to believe that there is not a real prospect of their leaving.

[Keith Vaz]

I do not want to prejudge my hon. Friend’s memoirs detailing her period in government before they eventually come out, but is it the case that the Home Office did not ask for more resources, or was it just not given more resources? Was there a plea to the Treasury that if there were more resources, more could be done about the issue?

[Meg Hillier]

I worked with two Home Secretaries who were robust in defending the Home Office’s need for resources for several areas, but, as the Minister will find out in his new role, resources are always challenging in a Department such as the Home Office. There are many priorities, and every time resources are put into one area, there is a risk that another area will bubble up, as I believe he with his greater experience dealing with these matters in Parliament will know.

Resources were always an issue, but it was not as simple as that. Often, local authorities did not want cases decided as quickly as they could have been because of the challenge of then housing and providing for families. There had to be some negotiation so that families who were able to stay were properly provided for in local authorities.

[Ms Abbott]

Would my hon. Friend agree that delays, which bear on child detention, are part of a process that feeds on itself? The more delays there are, the more people have shoddy legal advisers who tell them, basically, to play for time. If at some point we could bear down on the delays, it would save us money in the medium term.

[Meg Hillier]

I believe that my hon. Friend would agree that, as constituency MPs, we have seen reductions in the delays. I certainly am seeing that, and the figures that the Government can provide will show that they have reduced. Yes, as she rightly says, there is a self-propelling, negative cycle.

The hon. Member for Croydon Central (Gavin Barwell) raised some questions about the Opposition’s position, and I shall make that clear. Actually, the approach of the Government is very much the approach that was under way as the previous Government left office.

My hon. Friend the Member for Hackney North and Stoke Newington (Ms Abbott) said that she has visited detention centres and seen what goes on there. I, too, have visited them, and that was one reason I was keen, as the Minister then responsible, to have a review and to work with organisations that had an interest in the matter. As I communicated to her and, in particular, to the hon. Member for North East Bedfordshire (Alistair Burt), who is now the Under-Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs, and who was very interested in the matter, I was frustrated that a great deal of energy was being spent on argument and disagreement, not solutions. Any solution would not have solved the problem overnight. Do Members not think that in the past 13 years the Government would have stopped detention overnight if it were that easy? It is not that easy, and that is the reality of government.

[Ms Abbott]

Will my hon. Friend give way?

[Meg Hillier]

Could I make some progress, please? Let us be clear that Yarl’s Wood also houses foreign national prisoners, not just families with children. We should get it into the debate that families with children are not the only people housed there.

I worry that my hon. Friend has forgotten our conversations in which I explained my plans to revisit some of the issues surrounding children in detention. Some work was done by previous Ministers responsible for immigration to improve support for unaccompanied asylum-seeking children, create expert local authorities that were able to deal better with those children, and create a children’s champion within the UK Border Agency.

At the end of last year, my hon. Friend the Member for Oldham East and Saddleworth (Mr Woolas), who in the past had focused more widely on the issue of children in the immigration system, spoke to me about his desire to see a particular ministerial focus on the issue of children in detention. He asked me to take on that responsibility. As I have said, I wanted to look at the whole picture, and I began that process by meeting a number of organisations involved, and the hon. Member for North East Bedfordshire and the former Member for Bedford, because of their particular interest in this matter. Out of that meeting, held under the Chatham House rule—I will not name those who were there, although hon. Members would not be worried about that—we came up with the view that early legal advice was important, and that the early legal advice project already under way needed to be boosted. I subsequently met the Diana, Princess of Wales Memorial Fund and ensured that we worked closely with it, because of its desire to see a difference in that area. That was a helpful partnership and I also worked with local groups.

[Ms Abbott]

I remember our conversations with great clarity. My hon. Friend is a good friend and colleague, but we took diametrically opposed views on the issue of children in detention. I thought that it was wrong, and I have always thought that. One argument is that there is a problem because this is not an easy matter, but the real Home Office position was revealed in many statements, which claimed that ultimately, children in detention were not the responsibility of the Government but that it was the fault of their parents. Behind that lies a narrative on immigration that suggests that the more punitive the system is made, the less likely people are to abuse it.

[Meg Hillier]

I disagree with my hon. Friend. Perhaps I could remind her that we both agreed that we should not let the better be the enemy of the good. I was attempting to improve the system, and I am pleased that we are now seeing further steps along those lines. A better take-up of assisted voluntary return was a particular issue, and I pushed hard for third parties to do that. The Government felt that it was not always appropriate if such matters were dealt with by the person who was deciding on the immigration claim, and I hope that that will be a major part of the review. Excess baggage is not a new issue, but it is an equally important one to help people settle back. We need a clearer process in which people know from the beginning what the options are, and work on that with community groups has been important. Removal directions should be provided in the community. Those things are all part of the plan and the intense work that the UK Border Agency was beginning to undertake, prior to the election.

The previous Government were learning from the best models from abroad, and the new Government are continuing with that. However, we must recognise that even those models from abroad—in Australia and Sweden, for example—allow for children to be detained under difficult circumstances. I refer the House to an Adjournment debate from 10 February 2010, in which I flagged up some of those issues, although at that point I had not met a number of the groups.

I wish this approach well, as it is the way in which the previous Government attempted to deal with the situation. However, it was not easy, and I am a little puzzled. Today the Minister reiterates an announcement of the end of children being detained, and he re-announces a welcome review that was already under way. In his opening speech, he clearly highlighted the likelihood of detention immediately prior to a flight. I refer back to my point about what would happen in the case of a late legal challenge; that is an issue that needs to be tackled and supported by the whole legal process. The Minister also mentioned the Afghanistan centre for Afghan teenagers, and I wonder whether that marks a division in the coalition, especially given the remarks made by the hon. Member for Cambridge.

--- Later in debate ---

[Damian Green]

Absolutely. This is the second time this week that something has happened to me that I suspect will never happen again. I attended the Citizens for Sanctuary summer party where, as the new Minister for Immigration, one expects to get brickbats, but instead I was given a bouquet. I suspect that that will be the last time, so I thought that I would enjoy it while it lasted. This debate is a metaphorical conclusion of that experience.

I am grateful to hon. Members from all parties for their contributions. The only comment that verged on the slightly churlish was the conclusion reached by the hon. Member for Hackney South and Shoreditch (Meg Hillier), who was attempting desperately to find splits in the coalition. I am extremely pleased and proud to be advocating our policy, which was in the Liberal Democrat manifesto. The hon. Lady will toil in vain if she seeks to find splits in that area.

A number of important practical points were raised and questions asked in the debate, and I will now deal with those. First, let me say that I was remiss in not thanking the hon. Member for Hackney South and Shoreditch for all the expertise and personal kindness that she showed when she was in government and I was in opposition.

The right hon. Member for Leicester East (Keith Vaz) rightly mentioned the review by the Home Affairs Committee. As he said, he recognises many of the ideas that the Government have put forward, as many were mentioned in past reviews by that Committee. I look forward to further expert contributions from the Committee. He also went through some of the statistics for children in detention, which I think bear greater examination. He mentioned the figure of just over 1,000 for the number of children in detention in 2009. If that annual figure is broken down, one finds the slightly depressing fact that the numbers go up as we go through the year: the figure for the third quarter is higher than that for the second or first quarters.

As the hon. Member for Hackney South and Shoreditch said, the central difficulty is about what should be done at the end of the process if a family simply refuses to go. Detention under the system that we are getting rid of was not necessarily effective. Of the 1,068 children who departed from detention in 2008-09, only 539 were removed and 629 were released back. There are clearly difficulties with the efficacy of removal and with taking away detention as an option—something that we are doing for all the reasons that have been advanced during the debate—but even with detention, more children were released back into the community than were removed. The old system was not particularly effective, and I am grateful to the right hon. Member for Leicester East for stating the actual figures, as they illustrate that fact tellingly.

[Meg Hillier]

Will the Minister confirm that those who were taken out of detention were never brought back into detention so as to be removed from the country again, or indeed removed from the country by another route?

[Damian Green]

I am not entirely sure that I understood that question. Is the hon. Lady saying that those who were eventually removed had never been detained and then released, and then detained again and later removed? Is that what she is saying? The honest answer is that I do not know. I was not the Minister at that time. She was. If she says that that is the case, I am grateful for the information.

Many hon. Members have mentioned Yarl’s Wood and other detention centres. I have visited Yarl’s Wood on several occasions, and in my experience the regime got markedly better over the years. Last time I visited, a functioning school was in operation and so on, and it was a much more humane place than it had been in previous years. I pay tribute to the Ministers who were involved in supervising that, as well as to the staff of the UK Border Agency who made sure that it happened. I suspect that we have all had the same experience. However, even when that place was in its most humane phase, it was still disturbing to see children locked up behind bars. That is one of the things that impels our policy.

There was mention of children at Harmondsworth. I may have misunderstood the right hon. Member for Leicester East, because it is my understanding that there are and were no children held at Harmondsworth. If I have misunderstood, I apologise, but I thought that he had said that there were.

Identity Documents Bill

Meg Hillier Excerpts

Wednesday 9th June 2010 Commons Chamber

[Meg Hillier (Hackney South and Shoreditch) (Lab/Co-op)]

It is a privilege to serve under your chairmanship, Madam Deputy Speaker. Many congratulations on your elevation to that position.

Unlike me, Madam Deputy Speaker, you have not had the privilege of sitting through the entire debate. We have had the opportunity to hear from a number of colleagues who made their maiden speeches. First, the hon. Member for Gosport (Caroline Dinenage) told us that it was not Gosport but God’s Port. She told us that Portsmouth is close to Gosport, but as someone who grew up in Portsmouth and went back and forth on the Gosport ferry on Saturday afternoons, when my mother made sure she got us out of the house for recreation, I have fond memories of Gosport from a slightly different perspective.

The hon. Lady spoke in glowing terms of her constituency and spoke up strongly for the future of HMS Sultan, urging her Government to think carefully about the impact of their decision on her constituents. Like many speakers, she mentioned identity cards and I shall turn to that issue when I have congratulated other speakers on their comments.

The hon. Lady was followed by my right hon. Friend the Member for Sheffield, Brightside and Hillsborough (Mr Blunkett), who was not making his maiden speech. He was Home Secretary when the Identity Cards Bill was first published and he eloquently explained some of the original thinking behind identity cards. He highlighted the fact that the issues the identity card system was set up to deal with will not go away. He particularly bemoaned the passing of the second generation of biometric passports, which I shall touch on later in my comments.

We then heard from the hon. Member for Birmingham, Yardley (John Hemming). I would say that his criticisms applied equally to driving licences. On the basis of his comments, perhaps the Government’s next policy will be to abolish them.

My hon. Friend the Member for Birmingham, Erdington (Jack Dromey) made his maiden speech, but with his background and experience we can look forward to many good and knowledgeable speeches from him. He gave a spirited history of his constituency and of municipal investment in Birmingham. He spoke of the benefits of Labour investment, particularly in the decent homes programme. He also highlighted the many problems that remain to be tackled in his constituency, especially unemployment and the lack of affordable family housing. There is no doubt that in him we have a strong champion for Erdington in the Chamber.

The hon. Member for Gloucester (Richard Graham) spoke movingly about manufacturing in his constituency and his desire to see it improve. Unbeknown to me, Gloucester is famous for making health and aerospace products, but particularly for making ice cream. We look forward to hearing more from him. He has a strong commitment to his constituency—even the shirt on his back was made by his constituents.

My hon. Friend the Member for Clwyd South (Susan Elan Jones) is a fellow Co-operative Member of Parliament. She warmly acknowledged the work of Martyn Jones, particularly his success in ensuring that money from dormant bank accounts went to good causes. Her thoughtful and moving description of life in Clwyd now and in the past will remain with me. We look forward to many eloquent speeches from her.

The hon. Member for Finchley and Golders Green (Mike Freer) rightly paid tribute to Rudi Vis. On the Labour Benches, we join the hon. Gentleman in acknowledging Rudi’s contribution to the Chamber. We pass our condolences to his family.

The hon. Gentleman spoke of another predecessor in the seat—Baroness Thatcher—about whom we may not share the same level of agreement. He then spoke about identity cards. It was heartening that, despite the fact that Members were making maiden speeches, several of them commented on identity cards.

We then heard an amusing speech from the hon. Member for Perth and North Perthshire (Pete Wishart). If I were being mean, I could talk about cheap oratory, but he talked about identity cards as being anti-civil liberties. Were he in his seat, I would ask him if he has a passport and I will touch on that. He talked about Emu and Rod Hull. I was not sure whether we were hearing from Emu or Rod Hull, but we had a good time listening nevertheless.

We heard from the hon. Member for Keighley (Kris Hopkins), who was generous in his tribute to Ann Cryer, his immediate predecessor in the seat, and he rightly highlighted her work on tackling the abuse of young women by men and on forced marriages. He also talked about the many illustrious sons of Oakworth, his home village.

We then heard from my hon. Friend the Member for Gateshead (Ian Mearns), who we thought at a number of points was about to burst into song, as he quoted from “Blaydon Races” and gave a tour of the international venues in his constituency. I have no doubt that as we go to many conferences over the years, we will remember that speech.

The hon. Member for Elmet and Rothwell (Alec Shelbrooke) is the first Conservative to represent the town of Rothwell, a constituency that apparently has had 10 boundary changes. Whether there is more to come from the Government and whether the seat will stay in anything like the same form are matters for a future debate.

We then heard from my hon. Friend the Member for Walsall North (Mr Winnick), who rightly highlighted the muddle and inconsistency of Government policy on the issue. I will touch on some of the other points that he raised.

The hon. Member for Selby and Ainsty (Nigel Adams) spoke in glowing terms about his constituency and paid warm tribute to his predecessor, John Grogan. He wondered whether his grandfather, a miner, would have been proud of his grandson becoming a Conservative MP. I am sure he would, Madam Deputy Speaker, and we look forward to hearing more from the hon. Gentleman.

We then heard a very powerful speech from my hon. Friend the Member for Ashfield (Gloria De Piero). She spoke warmly about her predecessor Geoff Hoon, a former Defence Secretary and Chief Whip. She spoke about literacy and the sporting tradition in her constituency and she was proud—quite rightly—to be the first woman to represent Ashfield. She spoke movingly of a real sense of community in her constituency and about the legacy of the mining traditions.

We then heard from the hon. Member for Cambridge (Dr Huppert), although this was not a maiden speech. It is heartening that a number of new Members are already contributing fully to debate in this House. He spoke quite a bit about the 1950s. It is worth saying that, in terms of identity cards, the 1950s were quite a long time ago. We are talking today about a very different programme that was proposed by the last Government and is being opposed by this Government. We had a number of history lessons on that but the identity card system was rather different from now, as is—I would say to the hon. Gentleman—this place is from academia. Academic debate is all very well but government, in which he now plays a part, has to deal with practical realities. We wait to see how the Government will cope with those realities on this issue and others.

My right hon. Friend the Member for Leicester East (Keith Vaz) helpfully reminded us of previous parliamentary scrutiny of identity cards, a number of points from which were taken on board by the last Government as they developed the policy over time.

We then heard from the hon. Member for South Swindon (Mr Buckland), which took me back to one of my first public meetings on the issue. He opposes ID cards on the basis that the road to hell is paved with good intentions. I suggest that the Government would do very little if it took that to its ultimate extreme. I went to South Swindon in my early days as Minister responsible for identity cards and met NO2ID. After we entered the room and found that, seemingly, there was nobody there to oppose ID cards, we looked out and realised that the three or four people outside were the demo. As a result of that meeting, the local newspaper—the redoubtable Swindon Advertiser—stopped carrying quite so many letters from that organisation. Members have praised NO2ID today; it was relatively small in number, but it was effective, as my right hon. Friend the Member for Sheffield, Brightside and Hillsborough acknowledged.

My hon. Friend the Member for Mitcham and Morden (Siobhain McDonagh) spoke movingly about the sort of freedoms that her constituents expect, including the freedom to live peacefully in their community. She felt that ID fraud was an important issue to be tackled, and that it was something that her constituents wanted to see tackled. That was one of the reasons why she has been such a strong supporter of and advocate for ID cards over the years. She is right that there is a demand still, and there will be greater demand in the future for the improved personal security that ID cards represent.

Let me make it clear to the House that we have not abandoned the policy of using fingerprints or having a proper database to back that up. The policy of our Government was clear and remains so. However, we have to recognise the reality that we did not win the general election—nor did the Conservatives, but with their friends the Liberal Democrats, they form the Government. We recognise that and the will of the people. In opposition, although we will attack, we also need to recognise when the Government have put forward a view and want to get that through. Sometimes we will not oppose just for the sake of it. I will return to some of the issues later.

We heard from the hon. Member for Monmouth (David T. C. Davies) largely what we would expect to hear from him. He is giving lessons to many new Members. The hon. Member for Esher and Walton (Mr Raab) spoke about the state being accountable to the citizen. We all agree with that, though perhaps not about the ways in which we would achieve it. The hon. Member for Dover (Charlie Elphicke) spoke about trafficking, where I would counter that fingerprints make a difference. In that regard, we may be throwing out the baby with the bathwater. The hon. Member for Aldridge-Brownhills (Mr Shepherd) gave an eloquent history lesson about civil liberties, as he sees them, and ID cards over the years. We then heard from the hon. Members for Northampton North (Michael Ellis), for Great Yarmouth (Brandon Lewis) and for West Suffolk (Matthew Hancock).

It has been interesting to listen to a debate dominated by newer Members who spoke eloquently and with enthusiasm. However, it is easy to make a speech from the Back Benches with energy and enthusiasm, but as those on the Government Front Bench, the Home Secretary and her colleagues will learn—or, in many cases, do not need to learn—the challenges of being in government are quite different. They have to examine the facts in detail and consider the problems of national security that they must deal with.

[Guy Opperman (Hexham) (Con)]

When the ID card was first launched last year, does the hon. Lady recall that at the launch in the north-west, the Minister forgot her own ID card? If she could forget, what chance would the rest of us lesser mortals have had in the brave new world of ID cards?

[Meg Hillier]

That rather proves my point. The law as it stood and still stands is that no one is required to carry their national identity card. [Hon. Members: “What is the point?”] The chorus of approval for that comment from a sedentary position suggests, perhaps, that the Government may be proposing a compulsory scheme. It is important to remember that as the law still stands, there was never a requirement to carry the card. It is easy to make cheap debating points, but that was an important part of the scheme. Like previous Home Secretaries and the most recent Home Secretary, I did not want to see a card demanded of people. That was never in the Act and would never be a requirement.

Section 14 explicitly ruled out the possibility that anyone would have to show a card to access any public service. It was important that we won the trust of the public and let them buy into the scheme if they wished, so that they could see for themselves the benefit. The British passport is not a compulsory document, yet eight out of 10 British citizens choose to have one, and it has an important resonance and role.

There were three main reasons or broad themes for introducing identity cards. It is understandable that many Members will think that there were mixed messages. As my right hon. Friend the Member for Sheffield, Brightside and Hillsborough said, that is a fair point. It seemed at different times that there were different reasons. In fact, if one goes back and reads the speeches made on two attempts to give the Bill a Second Reading—a general election interrupted—by the former Member for Norwich, South, Charles Clarke, who was then Home Secretary, terrorism was not mooted as the main reason for identity cards, but because of the events of 11 September, that question was often posed in the media. The debate was often hyped in that way.

Protecting the public was one of the reasons for introducing identity cards. It allowed people the option of locking their identity firmly to their fingerprint and thereby helped to reduce the risk of ID fraud for those who chose to take up the option, as I did and as my colleagues on the Opposition Front Bench did.

[Mr Blunkett]

As I said earlier, my hon. Friend deserves great credit for her work on this matter. Congratulations, by the way, Madam Deputy Speaker.

From the end of 2001, we were constantly asked about terrorism and whether an identity card of some description would help, and we constantly indicated that that was not the prime concern. However, MI5 made it explicit and put on the record that more than one third of those people who were known to be associated with international terrorism used false and multiple identities. MI5 would have been helped in its struggle to protect us by having a system that was verifiable and authenticable in a way that the existing system is not.

[Meg Hillier]

I thank my right hon. Friend who, from his own, special perspective, proves my point exactly.

There was a second point, convenience, which was a key contributor. Eight out of 10 people already have a passport, but we were keen to improve its security, and the little plastic card was an additional convenience factor and something that those who were keen to have one very much took up. They wanted an easy, convenient thing that one could slip in one’s wallet and, yes, forget. Perhaps some hon. Members have more organised lives than mine, but one would not normally carry around one’s passport. People indicated that they were keen on the convenience of the plastic card. It was one thing that made the card popular with those who chose to take it on.

The third main issue is that the card was a travel document within Europe. Indeed, for £30, it was not only a travel document, but a passport-plus, because it allowed travel, plus that more secure form of ID to which I have referred. For the four out of five British citizens who have passports, that is fine, but there was also an issue about those who do not.

I do not have time to deal with all the nonsense, to be frank, that came out in today’s debate, but there was some discussion about a huge Government Big Brother database being built like no other. I am tempted to ask how many hon. Members present have a British passport, and what on earth they think happens to the data that they hand over when they receive one, because that information is held on a database. It has been held on a database ever since passports were introduced, and I recommend hon. Members visit the database records in Peterborough, where they will see paper records from 1916, microfiche records and more up-to-date records. Of course, if one has a safe and secure passport, and one wants it to become a proper document that makes British citizens first-class citizens in the world, one needs a back-up database; and we proposed putting fingerprints on passports, so it was important to ensure that the database was more secure.

That is why we proposed three databases that could not be downloaded or looked up. In time, with a reader machine, as many new hon. Members may not be aware, one could have taken the card and—by checking against the register and the database, with no information going to the person to whom one was proving one’s identity—just proved one’s identity. There would have been no need for bits of paper going to a back room to be photocopied and possibly stolen, and no need for bills in different names, which is a challenge for many people. There would have been just one card, involving just the individual and their fingerprint. That would have put the citizen in control of their data. That was our vision, and it is still the vision of this Opposition.

So, the database already exists. My question to the Minister, who is now responsible for passports, because they have been thrown into the mix with immigration even though they used to have their own Minister, is what will happen to the passport database and to the passport? If we do not introduce fingerprints on to passports, we risk British citizens becoming second-class citizens in the world. They will have to pay for visas as countries demand more security, and we also risk having a much less secure document. The Government use the curious phrase,

“halting second generation biometric passports”,

which are those with fingerprints, so will the Minister clarify that?

There is Tory muddle on this issue, and I have some further questions. Is the hon. Gentleman in favour of fingerprints in general? [Interruption.] Clearly, many hon. Members want to give me their fingerprints. Very nice. We have foreign national identity cards, and people who come to this country provide their fingerprint for inclusion on that database, which was going to be part of the same database. People applying for visas abroad have their fingerprints taken before they arrive in the UK—an important security measure that I hope that the Minister, with his immigration hat on, agrees with. If the Government are in favour of fingerprints in those cases, then why not for British citizens too? Why are British citizens being denied this right?

The Government are also in a muddle on costs and savings. Cards would have been funded by fees. If someone paid £30, they got a card; if they did not pay £30, they did not. That seems a fair-minded transaction that did not involve lots of money from the general taxpayer. Yes, there were set-up costs, which would have been recouped, but the £4.75 billion total cost was paid for not out of taxation but out of fees over a 10-year period. No cards, no fees—and no money to spend on other things.

Perhaps the Prime Minister should be told this, because in September 2007, in an online question and answer session with The Daily Telegraph, he said:

“A future Conservative Government will…Scrap the ID card scheme, saving £255.4 million in the first three years.”

Where is that number now? It seems to have shrunk to £84 million. Worryingly for the Chancellor of the Exchequer, the Prime Minister went on to say that they would use those savings to provide extra prison places, so that is another Government policy gone.

Let me quickly explain who will lose out through this. Current cardholders will lose out, and it is mean-spirited of this Government not to compensate them. Sending out two letters to cardholders will cost at least as much as it would to give them a credit for a passport. Moreover, the convenience factor has gone.

This Bill is a symbolic gesture, as the Home Secretary said. The Government have not had time to look at the detail and the consequences. It is ill thought out and mean-spirited, and it has a worrying disregard for the security of the passport. I really do hope that the Minister has some proper answers as he risks the safety of the British public.

[The Minister for Immigration (Damian Green)]

It is a delight, Madam Deputy Speaker, to see you in the Chair, which I am sure you will adorn for years to come.

For some of us, this debate is an exciting occasion. Those of us who have campaigned against the ID card scheme since the day it was introduced by the previous Government regard it as not just a duty but a pleasure to be able to lay it to rest. On a personal note, in the 13 years that my party spent in opposition, I rebelled only once against a three-line Whip, and that was to vote against ID cards, so it is a particular joy to be at the Government Dispatch Box to get rid of them. I advise Labour Members, particular new ones, that for Opposition Members occasionally to rebel against their Front Benchers can be very rewarding. Let me also say to my own hon. Friends that for Government Back Benchers to do the same thing is completely reprehensible.

Scrapping the ID card scheme shows the clear intent of the coalition Government to roll back the intrusion of the state and to return personal freedom and control to the individual citizen. This Bill is a major step on that road. Bringing the Bill before the House at such an early stage of the new Government signifies the importance that we place on creating a free society and on cutting unnecessary expenditure. The Bill is also about trust. It is about the people having trust in the Government to know when it is necessary and appropriate for the state to hold and use personal data, and it is about the Government placing their trust in the common-sense and responsible attitude of the people. The previous Government’s ID cards scheme and the national identity register, which lay at its heart and which was its most reprehensible part, failed on both counts.

The indiscriminate collection, use and storage of vast amounts of biographical and biometric data belonging to innocent people is not a role for the state. People do not want the state keeping information on the basis that in some far-off and speculative circumstance it may be of benefit. The lack of public trust in the scheme was reflected in the very low numbers coming forward to buy the cards. I suspect that that also reflects—the shadow Home Secretary may reflect on this—the knowledge that a new Government would drop the scheme.

[Meg Hillier]

rose—

[Damian Green]

I am afraid that the hon. Lady did not leave me enough time to give way to her, as she overran her time.

Let me start with what the shadow Home Secretary said. He gave a completely bravura performance. It was entertaining and funny, and it was particularly good from someone whose heart, I felt, was not really in it. I do not believe that he is a fully paid-up member of the authoritarian tendency on the Labour Benches. The fact that his speech was so good disguised the central incoherence in it. He said that he wanted ID cards to be voluntary, and his speech also contained a long, passionate passage about how they would be effective in the fight against terrorism. He can either hold the view that we need compulsory ID cards to fight terrorism, or he can hold the view that we need voluntary ID cards, but he cannot hold both at once. He knows as well as I do that a voluntary card system would have no effect on terrorists, criminals or benefit fraudsters, who would not sign up to a voluntary scheme. That was the central incoherence in his speech.

May I correct one example that the right hon. Gentleman gave? He said that France had a national identity database. It does indeed have a national identity card scheme, but the cards are issued, and the accompanying register held, at local level. There is no single French identity database, so he was wrong about that.

Like others, I pay tribute to the many good speeches that we have heard. I say to my hon. Friend the Member for Aldridge-Brownhills (Mr Shepherd) that it was a privilege to hear his magnificent speech in favour of freedom and Parliament’s essential role in defending it. I now move on to the many hon. Members on both sides of the House who made their maiden speeches. My hon. Friend the Member for Gosport (Caroline Dinenage) gave a stirring defence of naval tradition of which I believe Lord Palmerston, one of her distinguished predecessors, would have been proud. It was a delight to hear the maiden speeches of the hon. Member for Birmingham, Erdington (Jack Dromey), who will clearly be a strong champion for Birmingham, and of my hon. Friend the Member for Gloucester (Richard Graham), who gave us a fascinating and educational tour ranging from Piers Gaveston to Harry Potter by way of Beatrix Potter.

I sympathise with the hon. Member for Clwyd South (Susan Elan Jones), who said that the size of her constituency was 240 square miles. Until a recent boundary review mine covered 220 square miles, so I know that she has a lot of travelling to do over the next few years. I join my hon. Friend the Member for Finchley and Golders Green (Mike Freer) and the hon. Member for Hackney South and Shoreditch (Meg Hillier) in using this occasion to pay tribute to Rudi Vis, who died last week and was a friend to many of us on both sides of the House.

I was delighted to learn from my hon. Friend the Member for Keighley (Kris Hopkins) that the village of Oakworth is the Notting Hill of the north in providing a tightly knit group of massive political talent. I was also educated by hearing from the hon. Member for Gateshead (Ian Mearns) that the most famous running of the Blaydon races was on today’s date, 9 June; I will store that fact away. Similarly, I learned from my hon. Friend the Member for Elmet and Rothwell (Alec Shelbrooke) that Elmet was the last Celtic kingdom in this country—another fascinating fact for everyone. My hon. Friend the Member for Selby and Ainsty (Nigel Adams) told us that he is the grandson of a miner. He might not know that the Government Chief Whip was a miner himself, so if I were him I would concentrate on emphasising that fact. It could be career-enhancing.

To stay with mining, it was a delight to see the hon. Member for Ashfield (Gloria De Piero) make her maiden speech. I was delighted to hear that the big society is clearly alive and well in Ashfield. Many of us will have woken up with her on many occasions when she was on GMTV, and it is a great privilege to have her here in the House in person.

There were also speeches from those who were recently elected but were not making their maiden speeches. It was a particular delight to hear from my hon. Friends the Members for South Swindon (Mr Buckland) and for Esher and Walton (Mr Raab), both of whom are clearly great new fighters in the House for liberty and freedom. My hon. Friend the Member for Dover (Charlie Elphicke) gave a fascinating speech, and I can assure him that the current Home Office Ministers will not try to strong-arm their staff into buying identity cards.

I wish to address some of the specific points that the hon. Member for Hackney South and Shoreditch and other hon. Members made. I was slightly shocked to hear the right hon. Member for Sheffield, Brightside and Hillsborough (Mr Blunkett) say that the British passport was easy to forge. As a former Home Secretary, he knows that it is actually a secure, high-integrity document and very difficult to counterfeit or forge. I do not believe that when he was Home Secretary he told the House or anyone else that it was easy to forge.

In response to an intervention, the shadow Home Secretary made a point about the biometric residence permit and minority communities. It is clearly nonsense to suggest that the permit, which has to be held by people who are living in this country because they want to work here, could in some way be used to revive the sus laws. He knows as well as I do that no one is required to carry it with them at any time. Frankly, it is an insult to the police to suggest that they would behave like that.

Many interesting points were made by the former Chairman of the Home Affairs Committee, the right hon. Member for Leicester East (Keith Vaz). In particular, he speculated on how we might destroy the national identity register when the time comes. I suspect that the Home Secretary, other ministerial colleagues and I might bend our minds to find the best and most dramatic way of striking that blow for freedom.

The right hon. Gentleman asked a number of detailed questions, including one about the number of cards that had been issued. As of 27 May 2010, the number of ID cards issued was 14,670. He also asked what is happening now and whether people can still apply for a card, and therefore waste £30. We have adopted a common-sense approach to that, so staff at the Identity and Passport Service inform any potential applicants that it is the Government’s stated intention to scrap ID cards, and then ask them whether, in that light, they want to reconsider going ahead with the application. The Government have taken a common-sense attitude, but I have heard some anecdotal evidence that some journalists are desperate to be the last person to buy an identity card so that they can write an article about it. I am not sure whether any normal citizens, as it were, are continuing to apply.

The right hon. Gentleman asked about biometric residence permits. Since 25 November 2008 the UK Border Agency has issued 188,000 residency permits. The attempt by the previous Government to rebadge those as ID cards for foreign nationals, in an attempt to make more acceptable a scheme that was clearly unacceptable to the British people, was pretty disingenuous, and it clearly failed.

The right hon. Gentleman asked what happens when people have applied but not yet received a card. When a person has made an application but payment has not been made, they are informed of the coalition Government’s policy and the introduction of the Bill, because we want to save their time and money, and we request that they hold off their application pending the outcome of parliamentary consideration of the Bill.

The decision to scrap the scheme is mainly about stopping the state snooping into the lives of innocent people. We would have introduced the measure even if we were not saving significant sums of money by doing so, but a lot has been said in the debate about the expense. Even though this measure is a matter of principle, it is a happy coincidence that in putting our principle of freedom into practice, we are saving the British people hundreds of millions of pounds. The previous Government planned to spend £835 million on ID cards over the next 10 years, even after they had stripped out the costs that they were loading on to the IPS.

The previous Government claimed, as shadow Ministers have today, that the whole scheme would cost nothing, because the money would be recovered from charges. I have got news for those former Ministers: it is the British people who would have paid those charges. Whether the Government take money from people as a charge or a tax, that is still taking away people’s money. By that measure, this Government are leaving in the pockets of the British people £835 million that the previous Government would have extracted for their terrible scheme.