Clause 11 - Power to require information for validating Register
Identity Cards Bill
9:15 am
Edward Garnier (Shadow Minister, (Assisted By Shadow Law Officers); Harborough, Conservative)
We have here another example of how the Bill provides the Government, or the Secretary of the State, with powers that have yet to be categorised or tied down. The provisions are extremely vague. Both Ministers have accepted that, and they accept that this is simply an enabling Bill, and that in due course we will find out what they are talking about. But the further I go in the Bill—here at clause 11, we see yet another example of it—the more concerns I have about the creeping way in which the Government are giving not only themselves, but third parties, powers. Subsection (1)(b) refers to
“something provided to the Secretary of State or a designated documents authority for the purpose of being recorded in an individual’s entry in the Register”.
Of course, we do not know who will do the providing—a Government agency, the individual whose data they are or some extra-governmental third party. We need to know quite how wide the ambit of the power is.