Clause 1 - The National Identity Register
Identity Cards Bill
11:00 am
Edward Garnier (Shadow Minister, (Assisted By Shadow Law Officers); Harborough, Conservative)
Oh yes, and we shall discuss in due course the change in the relationship between the individual citizen and the state that the Bill will introduce.
One always needs to be careful when a Minister says, “This will be helpful to the citizen,” or, “This will be convenient for them.” They mean that it will be helpful for the political party that happens to be in government at the time, or for the government machine that is being managed by the political party in government. My hon. Friend is entirely correct to highlight the word “convenient” in subsection (3)(a).
It is as well to be aware that we are talking about the national identity register, not the identity card. It will be easy to conflate the two concepts and easy for the Government to say that the identity card, as a piece of plastic, is a convenient method for individuals to prove registrable facts about themselves. Of course, we are talking about what is on the register and recorded about the citizen by the state, which is not a question of convenience but a matter of compulsion. We will be required under penalties ranging from £2,500 to £10,000—it does not matter whether that is a civil or a criminal penalty—to register certain facts. The facts that have to be registered are dealt with later in the clause and we shall consider them in a moment.
The facts have to be registered compulsorily. The Government say that is wonderful, because one purpose of this register is to facilitate a convenient method for you and I, Mr. Gale, other Committee members and other citizens of this country to prove facts about ourselves to others. Why should I prove facts about myself? Why, when I leave my house, should I have to demonstrate who I am, what I am doing or why I intend to do it? It is for the Government—the state—to demonstrate and build a case against me showing that I am doing something contrary to the national interest or the criminal law, or something that offends against statute or common law in some other way.
I ask that only those with reasonable reason to require proof of the compulsorily assembled facts about me be entitled to inspect the register or interrogate me about the facts about me on the register.
We are increasingly becoming all too familiar with petty interference of the sort that citizens have to put up with from those whom I would loosely call jobsworths. Nowadays, one cannot go into a Government building, a public place or a park, or drive a car, without someone asking, “What are you doing and why are you doing it?” Those people have absolutely no right in law to require us to tell them what we are doing, but the Bill will build a culture of public interference into the private lives of individuals.