Edward Garnier (Shadow Minister, (Assisted By Shadow Law Officers); Harborough, Conservative)

I beg to move amendment No. 96, in clause 28, page 24, line 39, leave out ‘or purports to be’.

Before introducing the amendments to clause 28, I would like just a brief discussion about the class of identity documents. Therefore, at the risk of cutting across you, Mr. Gale, I shall informally refer to amendments Nos. 97 and 98 while discussing amendment No. 96, simply because it is easier to debate them in that way, albeit that they are listed separately.

Roger Gale (North Thanet, Conservative)

Order. Before we proceed, it has been correctly pointed out to me that the groupings are provisional. If it helps the hon. and learned Gentleman, and if he would rather discuss amendments Nos. 97 and 98 with No. 96, he may do so on the understanding that we do not then take them separately. It is entirely up to him.

Edward Garnier (Shadow Minister, (Assisted By Shadow Law Officers); Harborough, Conservative)

I am grateful to you, Mr. Gale. I had planned to discuss them all and then say, “Not moved” when you stood to ask me to introduce amendments Nos. 97 and 98, but I am happy to go with any procedure that suits the Committee.

Roger Gale (North Thanet, Conservative)

In that case, for the sake of clarity, I will say to the Committee that we are debating the lead amendment, No. 96, with which it will be convenient to discuss the following amendments:

No. 97, in clause 28, page 25, line 6, leave out from ‘licence’ to end of line 8.

No. 98, in clause 28, page 25, line 8, at end insert

‘or

(i)an official birth certificate.’.

Edward Garnier (Shadow Minister, (Assisted By Shadow Law Officers); Harborough, Conservative)

Thank you, Mr. Gale. I do not think there is any particular magic about the order in which we discuss these amendments. Broadly, they are all designed to deal with the same point, which is to classify the identity documents that are caught by offences under clause 27. Those documents include an identity card and “a designated document”; we have discussed that, and I have expressed my concerns about the vague nature of what a designated document is or may be. There is also “an immigration document” and “a United Kingdom passport”, which we discussed briefly in relation to the previous amendment. There is also a passport issued by another country or “an international organisation”—such as a United Nations passport, presumably, or a World Trade Organisation passport. There is also

“a document that can be used ... instead of a passport”,

such as a travel document issued to an asylum applicant. Interestingly, another document is a UK driving licence, which I presume can be used for identity purposes and to enable one to travel within the common travel area of the UK and the Republic of Ireland, although it is not strictly necessary in order to do that. There is also a driving licence from a country outside the UK.

We are puzzled as to why a birth certificate is not included in that list of identity documents. If the Government are so keen that we should give to the identity register all the information contained in schedule 1, much of which might or might not be found in existing documents, why is a birth certificate not included? There seems to be a degree of inconsistency there.

My argument on this matter needs neither repetition nor elaboration. I have made the points that I intended to make, and I look forward to hearing what the Minister has to say.

Ben Wallace (Lancaster & Wyre, Conservative)

I wish to push the point made by my hon. and learned Friend the Member for Harborough. Under subsection (4), the Secretary of State will be able to designate what documents will be included, but there was an opportunity to be more specific about those documents and it has been missed.

I agree with my hon. and learned Friend that a birth certificate might be included—or even a marriage certificate. However, I would ask the Government to do even more by considering including documents such as bank statements and utility bills, although I accept that it might be difficult to refer explicitly to them in the Bill. It might be said that people move house a lot, so they might often carry other people’s utility bills. However, I am confident that clause 27(5)(c) would cover that issue.

When people apply for false identities, the official they are applying to might not know what an identity card—or a proper bank statement, or a Northern Ireland driving licence—looks like. How many officials in Lancaster, for example, have seen a Northern Ireland driving licence? That situation often arises even in respect of money: many people do not know what an Isle of Man pound looks like because they have never come across one. How many people in this Room have seen an international driving licence?   It is important that we recognise that being more specific provides a good opportunity to close down some of the options that people have to steal others’ identities. Because officials are often not aware of what a valid identity card—or bank statement or birth certificate—looks like, they chase their tails.

In order for people to open a bank account, they are told, “We need to see your birth certificate.” Once they have got a birth certificate and done that—it is not hard to get hold of someone else’s birth certificate—they can go to a utility company whose staff might say, “If you show us your bank statements, we will give you a utility bill.” A person could quickly build up a whole group of contributing identity papers that would allow them to go to the next stage. Will the Minister consider putting in the Bill the actual words “birth certificate”, “marriage certificate” and perhaps even “bank statement”, so that we can close that loophole for the future?

We feel that there is a gap in the system in relation to birth certificates, for instance. I am fully aware that the Government are effectively committed to stopping the issuing of birth certificates, which will become electronic. I notice that, in the next 10 years, there is to be a move to digitise the database, and the old type of birth certificate will, no doubt, disappear.

People often start low when forging identities: they start by forging anything from a video shop card to an NHS card, which has no photograph on it and is easy to forge, because it is just a 10-digit number and is pretty hard to check. That forgery builds up, layer by layer.

I hope that the Minister will consider being more specific at this point, rather than later. I wonder whether there is a slight contradiction in subsection (4), which states:

“The Secretary of State may by order modify the list of documents in subsection (1).”

Given that there is a long time before the Bill comes into force, the Secretary of State has the opportunity to start the list now and modify it later, rather than starting with a small list and adding to it in 10 years. That way, the message to our financial institutions, the customer, the citizen and everyone else will be clear. It will show people the importance of these documents, and will show that people can get into the system right now; and that, of course, is one of the ways in which many people have forged documentation.

The good thing about the creation of this new offence is that, previously, many agencies and police forces had trouble holding an individual whom they wanted to charge with a terrorist or other offence if all that they had at their disposal was a forgery of a passport. This offence will, I hope, provide them with more reason to hold someone for longer, or to charge them so that they can establish the person’s identity in future. I had a case in which we identified someone, and the question of their identity was the only thing for which we could keep them past the seven-day period. Unfortunately, as they were charged on a minor offence, such as a credit-card forgery, they were bailed. Some 14 or 15 days later, we heard from the German authorities that the person was actually someone   different. The offences set out in clause 27, if properly backed up with identity document definitions, will go a considerable way to helping identity theft to become a thing of the past.

Tony McNulty (Minister of State (Immigration, Citizenship and Nationality), Home Office; Harrow East, Labour)

I thank you, Mr. Gale, and the hon. and learned Member for Harborough for putting the three amendments together; it makes far more sense to treat them in that fashion.

With these amendments and the clause, we need to start from the premise that the offences in the clause were designed for documents that are useful for proving identity, and as such are extremely valuable as a day-to-day means of proving identity, such as the driving licence or passport. By any token, a bank statement is not proof of identity, although it may be proof of address, temporary or otherwise. The same is true for many of the other suggestions. Our partners may disagree, but a marriage certificate is not an identity document in any way, shape or form.

I shall flit around the amendments a little. With regard to amendment No. 98, it says very clearly on top of a birth certificate that it is not an identity card, nor does it purport to be. Birth certificates are often offered as support for one of the principal documents proving identity, but we cloud the issue if we start to include such elements in the list relating to the offences under clause 27—and we are talking about those specific offences, not about the generic point of what may add to our ability to identify someone. That is why the list is deliberately discrete. However, as the hon. and learned Gentleman suggests, there is a caveat: additions to the list can be made by the affirmative procedure, I think in both Houses. However, clause 28 lists the principal elements, in terms of identity documents.

If we accepted amendment No. 96 and left out the phrase “or purports to be”, which is a standard phrase in forgery and counterfeiting legislation, individuals could produce forged documents so similar to an existing document as to be thought genuine without that being an offence. In contrast, individuals who used false details to obtain a genuine document would be liable to have committed an offence. In the context of the offences in clause 27, I do not see the necessity for such a distinction. It simply does not make sense.

The proposals to exclude driving licences other than UK driving licences also make little sense. Foreign nationals may drive in this country legally while holding driving licences issued in their country of origin. As people know, EU nationals are not compelled to change their licence to a British one, although nationals from other countries must do so after one year. It must make sense that, if we accept the premise that a UK driving licence is a bona fide identity document for the purposes of the offences in clause 27, other driving licences with which people are legally allowed to drive in this country are equally valid identity documents. I do not understand why they should be excluded.

In summary, the list needs to be considered specifically in the context of the offences under clause 27. In that context, the definition of an identity document is rightly narrow. By the by, some wider documents that go beyond identity are still covered by the Forgery and Counterfeiting Act 1981.

To return to the point made by the hon. Member for Lancaster and Wyre, having someone else’s bank statement with intent to defraud will be an offence under the Fraud Bill, which is being considered in another place. His points do not apply specifically in the context of the definition of identity documents, but they are well made. They are being dealt with elsewhere.

Ben Wallace (Lancaster & Wyre, Conservative)

I know that the details of what supporting documents will be used to make up an application for an ID card will be confirmed by secondary legislation. I ask the Minister to ensure that, when that legislation is decided by the Home Office, it makes sure that those supporting documents are protected by clause 28. When he reviews the list of supporting documents, he should remember to take it into account that the documents that could be required for an ID application should be matching, so that there is no gap between the two. That will mean that if someone is stopped on the way to apply for an ID card and they have all the supporting forgeries, they will be guilty under the offence stipulated in clause 28.

Tony McNulty (Minister of State (Immigration, Citizenship and Nationality), Home Office; Harrow East, Labour)

That is an entirely fair point that I will consider. Anticipating your wrath, Mr. Gale, I will not reopen the debate on designated documents, which we dispatched in respect of clause 4. None the less, in the first instance, it may make sense to ensure that many of the elements duly defined as identity documents in clause 28 bear a close relationship to those that may be designated and utilised for the implementation of the scheme. You know, Mr. Gale, that when we discussed designated documents there was much discussion about driving licences and others documents, in addition to the passport.

Whether the list will be an absolute mirror, I do not know. There may be elements that we designate that are not in the list of identity documents, although I cannot think of any. The Secretary of State would have to invoke subsections (4) and (5) to add such items to the list to ensure balance. The only item that came up during our earlier deliberations was the Criminal Records Bureau letter or card check. The hon. Member for Lancaster and Wyre made a fair point about correlation between the identity document in respect of clause 29 and a designated document elsewhere in the scheme. I will take that on board.

In that context, this group of amendments is interesting but not terribly helpful, so I ask the hon. and learned Member for Harborough to seek leave to withdraw his amendment.

Edward Garnier (Shadow Minister, (Assisted By Shadow Law Officers); Harborough, Conservative)

I find the amendments both interesting and helpful, and I am sorry that the Minister does not agree. I note the word “modify” coming into view again in clause 28(4). I know what clause 43 says about modification and its cognate derivation, which is an interesting introduction to statutory language. Unless   I am much mistaken, this may be the first Bill to contain the word “modify” or “modification” instead of the old word “amendment”. However, that is perhaps for another day.

If I understood my hon. Friend the Member for Lancaster and Wyre correctly, the sort of incident that he was talking about when he intervened on the Minister might be covered by the criminal law of intent. However, that would depend on how close to the making of a bogus application the individual is caught with the misleading documents. Again, it is not for me to explain the law of England and Wales; it is for the Government to explain their policy and how they hope to deal with this sort of anticipated problem. None the less, I beg to ask leave to withdraw the amendment.