Clause 15 - Power to make public services conditional on identity checks
Identity Cards Bill
4:30 pm
Mr Des Browne (Minister of State (Citizenship, Immigration and Counter-Terrorism), Home Office; Kilmarnock and Loudoun, Labour)
That will be set out in regulations, which will be consulted on at the appropriate time. It is not for me to say at this stage; we are so far away from compulsion. The hon. Gentleman mentions one service, housing benefit, that provides payment and another, the NHS, that provides a service free of charge. Producing the card could not be made a compulsory condition of the provision of those services until there was full compulsion on the card itself.
At some time, there will need to be consultation with the service users and others on what is appropriate and what benefits such compulsion would bring. Regulations, subject to the affirmative resolution procedure, would have to be introduced. I cannot imagine that such regulations could be enacted without people knowing what was going on. People would be aware of such a significant step, and those providing the services would have the responsibility of ensuring that those to whom the new regulations applied were notified about them. There would have to be a lead-in time. The configuration of the regulations will be a matter for that time. Such decisions will be made once confidence in the scheme and the card has been built up.