Alistair Carmichael (Shadow Minister, Home Affairs; Orkney & Shetland, Liberal Democrat)

I beg to move amendment No. 144, in clause 5, page 4, line 39, leave out 'must' and insert

'may, if the applicant so chooses'.

We move on to the more practical applications of the database. We get into the meat of things and how identity cards will impact on the daily lives of our constituents. If the amendment were accepted, subsection (2) would read ''Where an application to be issued with a designated document is made by an individual, the application may, if the applicant so chooses do one of the following''. At present, the way in which the Government have matters drafted means that when a person applies for a designed document—the passport, as the Minister has helpfully told us—he receives the identity card and his details become part of the identity card register as a result of that application.

The obvious effect of my amendment would be to end the element of compulsion. The hon. Gentleman and others have rightly made great play of the fact that the scheme is not yet compulsory. I suggest that the inclusion of ''must'' goes a long way towards the introduction of compulsion by stealth. We now live in an age when many more people have passports than would have been the case previously. Indeed, passports are used for a wide range of purposes other than foreign travel. By necessity, people will become holders of identity cards. They will become part of the identity register.

The Government extol the virtues of choice in the provision of health and education. It is a new orthodoxy that is sometimes difficult to challenge these days. If the identity card scheme is as good as the Minister claims, and if it has all the manifold benefits that he has spoken about, people will wish to have identity cards and compulsion will not be necessary. It is as simple as that.

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