Identity Documents Bill

Mike Freer Excerpts

Wednesday 9th June 2010 Commons Chamber

[Mike Freer (Finchley and Golders Green) (Con)]

May I add my congratulations on your recent election, Mr Deputy Speaker, and thank you for giving me this opportunity to make my maiden speech? It is a great honour to serve Finchley and Golders Green, and I have found the trust placed in me quite humbling as I walk around this building. I should also like to thank the hon. Member for Clwyd South (Susan Elan Jones) for telling the House of the interesting and emotional journey that has led her here, and the hon. Member for Birmingham, Erdington (Jack Dromey) for his passionate support for Birmingham and for the manufacturing industry that he seeks to recreate. I should also like to thank my hon. Friend the Member for Gloucester (Richard Graham) for his evocative description of that fair city.

First of all, I would like to pay tribute to my predecessor. Dr Rudi Vis was not of my party, but I do regard him as a friend of over 20 years. He served this House for 13 years before retiring a few weeks ago, but he sadly died less than a week ago. He will be a sad loss to public service. He was a diligent public servant, in this House and also in the London borough of Barnet, where we both served together. Sadly, he leaves a wife and teenage children, but I know that they can be proud of his record of public service. He served his community of Finchley as a local councillor, and represented the wider community of Finchley and Golders Green in this House.

I should like to comment on another of my predecessors. Those hon. Members in the Chamber a couple of days ago will have heard my hon. Friend the Member for North East Somerset (Jacob Rees-Mogg) claiming that his constituency gave the country the first king of England. I cannot claim that for Finchley and Golders Green, but perhaps I can claim that we gave the country the latter-day Boadicea—in one Margaret Hilda Thatcher. In my view, my noble Friend is the best peacetime Prime Minister that we have had. In this current economic climate, we could learn much from her resolve in addressing the economic crisis that she inherited. Then, unemployment and inflation were rising, and our public sector spending was out of control.

Perhaps the task ahead for our Government today is slightly greater, as Baroness Thatcher never managed to cut public spending. She was able only to slow its growth, yet we have laid out plans to cut public expenditure—something of a daunting task. Like her, however, I believe that we must return to sound money and good housekeeping, and to protecting our cherished freedoms. Throughout her premiership, she remained an active and effective constituency MP, and I shall be fortunate if I achieve a fraction of what she achieved through my campaigns to improve breast cancer screening for local women, to promote infrastructure investments on the north circular road, and for the free schools programme, which are so wanted and deserved by my local population.

Finchley and Golders Green is no longer the suburban seat that Margaret Thatcher knew. It is now metropolitan London. We have huge pockets of wealth and pockets of deprivation. We have the Hampstead Garden suburb, the largest conservation area in Europe where houses can cost from £80 million downwards. Within miles, however, we come to pockets of deprivation on our estates that need regenerating. We also have Brent Cross Cricklewood, which is the largest regeneration scheme in the UK. I hope that my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government will soon give the green light to it.

We also have the finest schools in the country. Barnet council is a net importer of pupils from our neighbouring boroughs, which clamour to send their children to our local schools. If I may, I should like to mention one fine school: Christ’s College, which produced my noble Friend Lord Sachs, the Chief Rabbi, and of course our own Mr Speaker Bercow.

Finchley and Golders Green is not known for manufacturing or farming, and neither does it have a fabulous cathedral about which I could wax lyrical. However, it does have the highest level of graduates in London and we rely on, and contribute to, the knowledge-based economy.

Perhaps it was always thus. Those colleagues who still use fountain pens might be pleased to know that, in 1832, Dr Henry Stephens invented blue-black ink, and that he was based in Finchley. I am pleased to say that he went on to become the Conservative Member of Parliament for the neighbouring seat of Hornsey, which is now held by our coalition partners in Hornsey and Wood Green.

We are also home to the European headquarters of McDonald’s, which I am sure hon. Members will have heard of, and to the Pentland Group, of which they may not have heard. However, I am sure that they will have heard of some of their brands, such as Berghaus, Ted Baker, Lacoste, Red or Dead and Speedo. The latter brand is quite prominent in the popular press this week. The Pentland Group is also the greenest and most innovative company in the UK. The way that it turns goods produced by local manufacturing companies into global brands is quite remarkable.

Finchley and Golders Green is now a vibrant metropolitan area, with one of the most diverse communities in the UK. I have the largest Jewish population of any constituency in the UK, at some 25% of my electorate. However, living harmoniously alongside that very large Jewish community is a large and growing Muslim and Hindu community. Historically, those communities have not always seen eye to eye, yet our area enjoys beacon status for community cohesion.

It is that community cohesion that has led those communities to cherish their historic rights and freedoms. Many of our faith communities oppose ID cards, albeit for different reasons. The Jewish community opposes them because of their history and experience in Nazi Germany, and the Muslim community does so because of their experience post-7/7 and post-11 September 2001.

My right hon. Friend the Member for Hitchin and Harpenden (Mr Lilley) once commented that ID cards had been touted around from Minister to Minister until one was found who was gullible enough to accept the idea. The ID cards were a solution looking for a problem: they were meant to combat under-age drinking first of all, then identity theft, fraud and illegal immigration, and now terrorism. However, they would do little to reduce the numbers of those who work or employ illegally. Employers are already required to check documentation. Illegal employment is due to weak enforcement and poor compliance by both the agencies involved and employers.

As a former banker—and I have to confess that my family are somewhat confused as to whether going from banker to full-time politician is a move up or down—I can tell the House that I have seen at first hand how organised crime can produce counterfeit documents that not even the Government could produce through their official agencies. I have seen instances of identity theft and fraud that have been based on such counterfeit documentation, and that leads me to believe that no ID card would counter those crimes, as organised crime will beat the system.

Moreover, the use of ID cards in Madrid did not prevent terrorism there, and it would not have stopped the bombers on 7/7. In my view, we are right to abolish ID cards, as they shift the balance away from citizen to the state and give the Government access to data that we do not know will be kept secure—and neither do we know how that data might be used.

Sixty years ago, Finchley played a role in abolishing the last ID card system, which was introduced during the second world war. On 7 December 1950, one Clarence Willcock was driving down Ballards lane in Finchley—the very road where my constituency office is based—when he was stopped by the police and asked to produce his identity papers. He refused. He was then prosecuted and convicted. He appealed, and the Lord Chief Justice hearing his appeal said that ID cards were intrusive and undermined the relationship between law enforcement and the people. He was right then, and he is right today. The result was that ID cards were scrapped.

Sixty years ago, a resident of Finchley instigated the scrapping of ID cards. Today, I am pleased that this resident of Finchley will be doing his bit to scrap the latest version of ID cards.