Mr Lembit Öpik (Montgomeryshire, Liberal Democrat)

As the Minister says, if it walks like a duck and quacks like a duck, it is a duck, and if it were an identity card duck in that sense, my Liberal goose would truly be cooked.

To be more serious, I have concerns about introducing identity cards even for elections, not because of how they would appear—our proposal has a specific purpose—but because of how they may be abused. I say again for the record that neither my party nor I are sympathetic to the idea of a mandatory identity card for citizens. There is a danger of mission creep and, in fairness to the Minister, I was encouraged to hear that he and the Government agree. I hope that that sentiment will be reflected in years to come in other Departments, including the Home Office, and that they will shy away from pressures to introduce identity cards, even if there is a short-term populist benefit in doing so.

I was encouraged by the Minister's reassurances, which were consistent with his comments about the introduction of smart-card technology in the medium term. The Committee will recall that the Minister, perhaps somewhat grudgingly, conceded the principle of introducing technology at the appropriate point in the future, although he said that now was not the right time. As long as we are robust in ensuring that everybody has some piece of photographic evidence that they can use to replace the discredited identification documents that are currently permitted, we might be able to make progress without the immediate introduction of an electoral identity card. However, we must recognise that, although an identity card is something of an evil, it is a lesser evil.

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