Clause 1 - The National Identity Register
Identity Cards Bill
11:00 am
Edward Garnier (Shadow Minister, (Assisted By Shadow Law Officers); Harborough, Conservative)
I beg to move amendment No. 1, in page 1, line 10, after “others”, insert “who reasonably require proof”.
We shall deal with this amendment in the context of clause 1 as a whole, although I do not intend my remarks to be taken as an attempt at a clause stand part debate because the issues we need to discuss are discrete to subsection (3)(a).
This Bill is called the Identity Cards Bill, but in many ways ought more properly to be called the national data register Bill or the national identity register Bill. As I understand it, the Bill provides the Secretary of State with 60 regulation-making powers to set up a national identity register. The identity card, which we shall come to when we discuss later clauses, is the shop front of that national identity register. In clause 1, however, we are concerned with the register and registration. Subsection (1) says:
“It shall be the duty of the Secretary of State to establish and maintain a register of individuals”.
That is essentially everybody in this country over the age of 16, subject to certain exceptions, including, for example, people who are in this country for less than three months. We shall discuss those exceptions in greater detail in due course.
The purposes of the register are described in outline but not detail in subsection (2). However, under subsection (3) the purposes are to
“facilitate, by the maintenance of a record of registrable facts about individuals in the United Kingdom ... the provision of a convenient method for such individuals to prove registrable facts about themselves to others”.
That is as may be, but it seems to the official Opposition that it provides an open door for all sorts of people to make inquiries about us and the facts that have been registered about us. Subsection (3)(b) refers to
“the provision of a secure and reliable method for registrable facts about such individuals to be ascertained or verified wherever that is necessary in the public interest.”
That is essentially an attempt to provide some reassurance for the citizen, but I am not convinced that without our amendment it is worth anything at all.