Clause 1 - The National Identity Register
Identity Cards Bill
10:45 am
Mr Humfrey Malins (Shadow Minister, Home Affairs; Woking, Conservative)
I tell the Minister, whom I respect utterly, that if the legislation was poorly drafted and resulted in problems, I can only say that it was passed in 1996, when I was not in the House and thus not able properly to influence it—so there we are.
I should like to draw the Minister out on the question of illegal working. Preventing illegal working is one of the stated aims of the scheme under clause 1(4)(d). However, how would prospective employers check on job applicants? Would that involve online verification? As has happened with criminal record checks, more cautious employers might well check on all applicants rather than just on successful ones. If so, details of the checks would be recorded in all applicants' data trails in the national identity register, irrespective of whether they had secured employment. I hope that the Minister will focus on that point.
I shall speak briefly to amendment No. 111, which would replace part of clause 1(4)(e) with the words:
''establishing entitlement to a particular public service''.
Paragraph (e) is extremely vague. I do not know what it means. It states that something is in the public interest if it is
''for the purpose of securing the efficient and effective provision of public services.''
If that does not catch everything, I do not know what does. It is so wide-ranging as to bring on board anything to do with public services. We must realise that we are talking about the ability, under the second part of clause 1(3), for information about a person to be provided to others who want to find out about that person in the public interest. Paragraph (e) would give such a wide scope; I think that it is time to narrow it, so that it establishes entitlement to a particular public service. Hon. Members will note that I have set out those public services as being health care, housing, education and social benefits. We need a definition of public services because the list might be much more lengthy. If it is to be more lengthy than mine, let us hear about it.
I was tempted to table an amendment removing paragraph (e) in its entirety, but the Minister would undoubtedly have said that removing the paragraph would stop entitlement checks for public services, and he might have been right. I hope that my amendment is better, because it narrows the scope of the provision to checks on entitlement to a service only. The Minister may or may not oppose the amendment; if he opposes it, I suggest he describe the wider data-sharing service delivery agenda in full, because that, of course, was not part of the public consultation.
The purpose of my amendment, so far as paragraph (e) is concerned, is to limit use of the database to use for the entitlement purposes associated with the public consultation. Ministers claim that the consultation showed that ID cards had the support of the public, but that consultation was limited to issues of entitlement and identity, without a focus on the role of a central database; that is the essential point. For example, individuals were not asked in any consultation whether they would get an ID card so that they could register themselves for the administrative convenience of central and local government service delivery.
The police have a simple access path to the database, and it can be seen that all ID card holders will effectively be obliged to register with the police security services and to provide up-to-date details about themselves to those services whenever the police need them. It is not surprising that the police will find that helpful, but so will the public authorities.