Results 1-17 of 17 for id cards speaker:John Denham

Orders of the Day: UK Borders Bill (5 Feb 2007)

John Denham: ...policy in the past six months. The hon. Member for Ashford (Damian Green), who made a very clear speech, was rather dismissive of the Government's decision to end primary immigration from outside the EU by low-skilled workers, but that is a major policy change that gives the lie to consistent claims that there is a system of uncontrolled immigration. It reflects the reality of the labour...

Orders of the Day: UK Borders Bill (5 Feb 2007)

John Denham: ...involving members of the two services, and a good favour could be done to everyone by aligning their powers. We do not have to go as far as having a border force at this stage, but simply providing some legal clarity would be enormously useful. Joint operations will move us in the direction in which we wish to go. On identity cards, it is worth reinforcing the point that, although we talk...

Orders of the Day: UK Borders Bill (5 Feb 2007)

John Denham: The strategy in the Bill, which the Minister outlined today, is targeted at another group of people. The compulsion will come in for those outside the EEA first. We will arrive—soon, I hope—at the point where everyone has a biometric ID card. That is clearly the ideal situation, which, in my view, we should work towards as quickly as possible. However, starting with selected...

Orders of the Day: UK Borders Bill (5 Feb 2007)

John Denham: The introduction of compulsory biometric ID cards for people from outside the European economic area and the EU will begin in 2008. The Minister's programme will overlap with the development of voluntary ID cards for UK citizens. I am not quite clear what time scale he is now putting forward for the introduction of voluntary ID cards and how that fits in with the compulsory programme for...

Orders of the Day — Identity Cards Bill: Clause 5 — Applications relating to entries in Register (13 Feb 2006)

John Denham: ...the education White Paper. One is never quite sure what is really in the manifesto until a few months later. It has been pretty clear throughout that the Government intended to link the issuing of ID cards and the establishment of a national identity register to passports. That has never been a secret. It was clear at the time of our Select Committee report, when we were working on the...

Orders of the Day — Identity Cards Bill: Clause 5 — Applications relating to entries in Register (13 Feb 2006)

John Denham: I shall begin by saying something that will comfort the right hon. Member for Haltemprice and Howden (David Davis). Again, I shall quote the Home Affairs Committee report on ID cards, which addressed the question of the use of language: "For most people, to travel abroad and to drive are fundamentals. It cannot be argued that these would be given up voluntarily. To describe the first phase...

Orders of the Day — Identity Cards Bill: Clause 6 — Power of the Secretary of State to require registration (13 Feb 2006)

John Denham: Perhaps I can quote to the hon. Gentleman the Select Committee's conclusion on the very point that we are discussing. We said: "An identity card scheme of the sort and on the scale proposed by the Government would undoubtedly represent a significant change in the relationship between the state and the individual in this country." However, we went on to say: "International experience does not...

Orders of the Day — Identity Cards Bill: Clause 6 — Power of the Secretary of State to require registration (13 Feb 2006)

John Denham: The hon. and learned Gentleman and I start this debate from different points of view: he is against having a national ID register and ID cards, and I am in favour of them. My hon. Friend the Minister conceded earlier that the proposals go somewhat beyond the strict minimum required by the International Civil Aviation Organisation and other regulations; however, that is not entirely the point....

Orders of the Day — Identity Cards Bill: Clause 6 — Power of the Secretary of State to require registration (13 Feb 2006)

John Denham: ...a debate dominated by a high degree of irrationality, as the exchanges in the past five minutes have shown. The inability to distinguish between a system in which a private company can check the validity of an individual's identity card and access to the register, with all that that implies about access to the data, has bedevilled this really important project. I want both the ID card...

Orders of the Day — Identity Cards Bill: Clause 8 — Issue etc. of ID Cards (18 Oct 2005)

John Denham: The vast majority of people who oppose the Bill would do so whether or not there were issues of cost. The House would make an historic mistake if it did not proceed with legislation that enables ID cards to come into force, because there is a compelling case for such cards. It is perfectly reasonable to pass the legislation, but it is also important that we make it clear to Ministers that...

Orders of the Day — Identity Cards Bill: Clause 8 — Issue etc. of ID Cards (18 Oct 2005)

John Denham: That is an interesting point. Although the Select Committee supported the ID card scheme, one of its recommendations was that it felt to us a year and a half ago as though this was a Home Office scheme that the rest of Government was watching—those were not our exact words, but that was the sense of them—rather than a cross-Government scheme to which the whole of the Government...

Orders of the Day — Identity Cards Bill: Clause 8 — Issue etc. of ID Cards (18 Oct 2005)

John Denham: ...to make a few comments about the costs of the scheme and its procurement because those factors directly reflect the issue raised by the hon. Member for Newark (Patrick Mercer). I strongly support ID cards—my Select Committee produced a report on them a year ago—but believe that costs must be contained as much as possible and that we must procure effectively. On the issue...

Orders of the Day — Identity Cards Bill (28 Jun 2005)

John Denham: ... the hon. Member for Winchester (Mr. Oaten), who speaks for the Liberal Democrats, simply fail to understand the extent to which many public and private systems in our society depend on proof of identity and are weakened because we do not have an adequate system of proving identity. All the pressures that have led the Government to introduce the Bill will be more intense in 10 years. There...

Orders of the Day — Identity Cards Bill (28 Jun 2005)

John Denham: ...project that the rest of Government has agreed not to block, rather than a project taken on enthusiastically by Government as a whole. One of the symptoms is a failure to grasp the opportunity, identified by the Home Affairs Committee, to use the ID card as a way of joining up and simplifying access to public services. That leaves us with the risk of inefficient use of the investment in...

Orders of the Day — Identity Cards Bill (28 Jun 2005)

John Denham: It is quite straightforward. The private sector will not be able to get its hands on the national identity register. However, at present when people ask a solicitor to do their conveyancing, they must go through a sheaf of documents to prove their identity under the money-laundering legislation. In future, they will be able to use their identity cards, and it will be possible for their...

Orders of the Day — Identity Cards Bill (28 Jun 2005)

John Denham: ...is opposed to asking such people whether they are entitled to NHS treatment and to charging them for that treatment, will he say so, because he would thus be arguing against the whole principle of identifying people's entitlement to services, not an ID card?

Orders of the Day — Identity Cards Bill (20 Dec 2004)

Mr John Denham: No, I have given way twice. One of the areas that we need to consider further is oversight. There has been a welcome broadening of the powers of the commissioner, but he still lacks adequate recourse for an individual who fears that his or her records have been wrongly accessed or used. That recourse needs to be made clear and explicit in the Bill. I also share the concerns of the hon....