Clause 8 - Issue etc. of ID cards
Identity Cards Bill
8:15 pm
Andy Burnham (Parliamentary Under-Secretary, Home Office; Leigh, Labour)
My hon. Friend is right. We have already made it clear that the passport would be designated, and he will agree that it is the highest standard of identity document. People are increasingly asked to use it as proof of identity, not to travel but to open bank accounts and the like. A driving licence is also of that ilk, and we know that those documents have been procured to support multiple identities. People have been running more than one document in certain instances recently.
A document such as a Criminal Records Bureau check requires a high value of identification. In research, people have told the Home Office that one value of an identity card scheme is that it provides a high standard of identity verification for people in positions of trust in society. They regard the fact that people working with children or vulnerable adults will have undergone identity verification to a higher standard as a core benefit of an identity card scheme.
I have in mind exactly those documents, but I take my hon. Friend's point that when the time comes, we shall need to clarify where the costs lie, where the concessions are and who will be liable to pay what, so that people can understand the proposed scheme. I hope that he will be satisfied about that point when the Home Secretary fulfils his commitment.
Amendment No. 186 seeks to amend the clause 37 power by excluding from the fee regime cards issued under compulsion. The amendment was tabled by the hon. Member for Orkney and Shetland. The principle that the user, and therefore the person who benefits from an ID card, should be liable to pay is the same whether they have registered under the compulsory powers or voluntarily chosen to obtain an ID card. Hon. Members may claim, rightly in my view, that it would be unfair to charge people who are compelled to register for an ID card, but it would be unfair not to charge them, because people who acquire their card voluntarily will have to pay. For consistency, it is right that the fee regime should apply however people acquire their card.
During the contributions from Opposition Members, a comparison was drawn regarding other European countries and their identity card fee regimes. Some of the figures quoted, such as €20 or £20, represent a reasonable fee for a card. I cannot remember whether it was Sweden to which the hon. Member for Bournemouth, East referred. I do not know whether it has the biometric identity card. I do not believe that it does, but a significant sum is involved. Several EU countries charge for ID cards, including countries such as Germany, where it is compulsory to hold one. France has issued cards to its citizens for decades, but I understand that it plans to charge a fee for the new French biometric identity card when it is introduced.
Amendment No. 169 would ensure that no charges could be levied for modifications to the register. Amendments Nos. 208 to 211 would also preclude the levy of charges for the reissue or replacement of ID cards. We have touched on this point before, but it is worth making it clear again that it is currently the Government's intention that, where details are changed on the register but there is no need to reissue an ID card, there should be no charge to the individual. Where the circumstances have changed completely, perhaps with a change of name on marriage, however, and there is a requirement to issue a new card, we should rightly retain the ability to levy a fee.
I should like to pick up on some other points made by Opposition Members in what was a good-quality debate that went to the heart of many of the issues that we are discussing. The hon. and learned Member for Harborough said that he had tabled parliamentary questions to the Department for Work and Pensions, the Department of Trade and Industry, the Treasury and—I think—the Department of Health. He said that they had done no preparatory work on how an identity card would be used to access services or on the benefits that could it bring to the delivery of those services. The Treasury, the DWP the Department for Transport and the Department of Health are all on the Home Office's principal users' group for the ID card scheme. The Treasury is on the programme board.
Paragraphs 72 and 73 of the regulatory impact assessment set out the current state of planning in other Departments. Further information about the benefits of the ID card scheme are set out in the supplementary briefing paper published on 28 June, which I have mentioned. It is not true to say that there is no engagement from other Departments. I do not know the precise terms of the question that the hon. and learned Gentleman tabled, but I can assure him that there is full engagement from other Departments on this issue.