Clause 16 - Procedure for regulations under s. 15
Identity Cards Bill
5:15 pm
Mr Des Browne (Minister of State (Citizenship, Immigration and Counter-Terrorism), Home Office; Kilmarnock and Loudoun, Labour)
I welcome you, Mr. Conway, to our deliberations this afternoon.
While this matter may appear to very complicated, I hope that it can be unravelled quite simply. It is not about who funds the service, it is about where the legislative responsibility for the service lies; whether it is reserved to the United Kingdom Parliament or devolved to one of the Assemblies in Wales or Northern Ireland or the Scottish Parliament. It is not about who pays.
My hon. Friend the Member for Cardiff, Central (Mr. Jones) was right to identify housing benefit in the example that he gave, but housing benefit regulations are promulgated here by the Department for Work and Pensions on a UK-wide basis and although local authorities administer these as agents for it, any provisions would apply universally across the United Kingdom. I do not want to go into all the possibilities, but this matter should be entered on the record. Seven or eight sentences should be sufficient to do that.
The Government have always been clear that the primary functions of the scheme—that is, establishing nationality and identity, supporting national security and helping to control immigration—are reserved issues and therefore the legislation provides for the national identity register and the issue of ID cards to apply uniformly throughout the UK. These are clearly reserved matters.
However, it is right that the devolved Administrations decide whether the cards should be required for devolved services. It would not be right for the UK Parliament to restrict the devolved Administrations in their requirement to use cards for services for which they are responsible.
Clause 16 would allow the Assemblies in Wales and Northern Ireland to make orders under clause 15 to require the production of an ID card to access devolved services in Wales and Northern Ireland respectively. Whether or not the ID scheme or the card is to be used for proof of identity at the point of access for devolved services—however they are delivered—is a matter for the Assemblies to legislate for.
Clause 44(2) makes it clear that this power does not extend to the Scottish Parliament. It is for the Scottish Parliament to legislate as to whether the production of an ID card or access to the register should be a condition precedent of accessing devolved services such as health or education—but not restricted to health or education in Scotland. That does not affect clause 19, which deals with the power to provide information to the police in relation to
''the prevention or detection of crime''.
That applies to the police in Scotland and Northern Ireland in the same way as it does to the police in England and Wales. I cannot make the point any clearer than that.