Clause 5 - Applications relating to entries in Register
Identity Cards Bill
12:00 pm
Edward Garnier (Shadow Minister, (Assisted By Shadow Law Officers); Harborough, Conservative)
I support the hon. Gentleman's amendment because it has far greater implications than we might realise. Subsection (2) does not deal with an application to be registered, but an application to apply for a designated document. We have just discovered that we do not know what the designated documents are; they could well be any document that the Secretary of State lights upon during the next two or three years. That is why it is all the more important that, by October, we have been given a list by the Minister. We are discussing an application to be issued with a designated document.
I hope that I am not exaggerating matters, but my fear is that, under the system that we are allowing blindly to grip us, next time the hon. Gentleman applies at Lerwick post office for a television licence, a fishing licence, a game licence or any other licence, if that is a designated document he will have to undertake all that is required under subsection (2). Can the Committee imagine the increase in bureaucracy that will flow from the provision to go through the simple process of obtaining, let us say, a television licence? I am not sure that the Government intend such a process, but if it is what they intend, perhaps they would be good enough to tell us. The hon. Gentleman has opened up a little oyster and I hope that the Minister can explain what precisely we ought to be seeing or, more to the point, what the Government intend by the provision.