Clause 8 - Issue etc. of ID cards
Identity Cards Bill
5:22 pm
Mr Humfrey Malins (Shadow Minister, Home Affairs; Woking, Conservative)
Before I forget, I should say that I hope that I will remember to say at the conclusion of our debates on the clause that we hope to vote on amendment No. 43, which was debated much earlier in our proceedings and which will come up in due course.
Amendment No. 44 is very simple. It would insert the phrase ''free of charge'' after the word ''issued'', so that the beginning of the clause would read, ''For the purposes of this Act an ID card is a card which—(a) is issued free of charge to an individual by the Secretary of State''. The amendment is intended to enable us to begin what should be an important and significant debate on another major test in relation to the ID card and the register, namely the cost that will be involved to the taxpayer, the individual and, overall, how it will be divided.
I recall an interesting exchange that I had the day before yesterday with the hon. Member for Sheffield, Hallam. He asked me to consider what I would do if I had a set of scales in front of me and I had to weigh on one side the prospect that a card or register would be of help in fighting terrorism, and on the other side the huge infringement on civil liberties that that might involve. I think that he was asking me where my tipping point would be. It was a very good question then, and it remains so now. I say to him again what I said to him then: there is no firm answer to that, and eventually one has to rely on instinct as to when to exercise one's judgment. It is almost like asking whether it is worth spending £5 billion to save one life. There is no human answer to that question, because our nature and our instinct say that it is worth spending everything to save one life. These conversations are very difficult.
I begin my approach to the issue of cost by putting my question in a slightly different way: is the cost of the register—and the identity cards, readers and everything else that follows—worth it? Later, we shall ask what the cost is, and to whom, but initially I want to know whether the cost represents the best value for money. The first principal thrust of what I want to say is that the cost of the ID card scheme, the register, and everything else might amount to £5 billion. Has it been considered whether the same amount could be better spent in other ways to achieve the same objectives, in particular, the principal objective, which must be the reduction of terrorist activity?
To put it another way, who has considered—and can the Committee consider—whether the £5 billion, or whatever the sum is, could secure our objective better if it were spent on extra police, security services, and people at our ports, airports, and customs to exercise the relevant controls? Where would the money be better spent?
I imagine that studies have been carried out on the best-value issue. I hope that the Minister will share those studies with us and try to convince us that the card and register scheme is much to be preferred to other options that would use the same amount of money.