Clause 30 - Providing false information
Identity Cards Bill
4:15 pm
Mr Des Browne (Minister of State (Citizenship, Immigration and Counter-Terrorism), Home Office; Kilmarnock and Loudoun, Labour)
I shall attempt to give the right hon. Gentleman and the hon. Member for Woking a relevant if not an appropriate response to their arguments.
The clause seeks to protect the integrity of the information on the register by interdicting—criminalising—behaviour that deliberately seeks to put information that is wrong on to the register or action that is carried out in a frame of mind in which the person could not care less about the consequences of his actions. That is my understanding of what ''recklessness'' means. In my days of practising criminal law it was a phrase that was well known to those of us who practised in the courts. It is not easily defined in the sense that the right hon. Member for Skipton and Ripon suggests.
Mr. Curry rose—