Clause 1 - The National Identity Register
Identity Cards Bill
4:30 pm
Tony McNulty (Minister of State (Immigration, Citizenship and Nationality), Home Office; Harrow East, Labour)
Thank you, Mr. Hood. It is a pleasure to serve under your tutelage and chairmanship. I hope that you and Mr. Gale will enjoy the Committee's deliberations as much as the members of the Committee will.
I was saying in the course of clearing my throat—no more, really—when our proceedings were terminated yesterday, that the hon. and learned Member for Harborough (Mr. Garnier) had done the Committee a great service by tabling the amendment, as it has prompted a good debate about the key issues in clause 1. My closing line before I was so rudely interrupted was:
''Very often during my brief, fleeting time in this House''.—[Official Report, Standing Committee D, 5 July 2005; c. 42.]
and then Hansard inserted a dash. Let me resume from that spot: as and when I have been in Committee dealing with various bits of legislation in various roles, the constant refrain has been ''undue specificity''. There are those who seek to put specific elements in a Bill in an effort to improve and enhance the legislation, but such elements have entirely the reverse effect, hence undue specificity.
That is the case with the amendment. I do not want to review in elaborate detail all the unduly specific elements, but if we went with the amendment rather than with what is in the Bill, we would achieve a result contradictory to what I believe the hon. and learned Gentleman seeks to achieve.
Let us start in the first instance with
''in the interests of national security''
in clause 1. That is deliberately vague. Much of the debate has centred around saying terrorism if one means terrorism, but ''national security'' clearly means far more than just terrorism. The clause is drawn widely because we do not want, in any way, shape or form, narrowly to define what is in the public interest in respect of national security. Of course terrorism is included, but national security involves so much more, including many of the activities that go up to the execution of a terrorist attack but are not of themselves terrorist acts.