Results 1-18 of 18 for id cards speaker:Damian Green

Opposition Day — [15th Allotted Day]: Identity Cards (6 Jul 2009)

Damian Green: This has been a most instructive debate: those who have always opposed identity cards now seem to do so with more strength and passion than they ever did; and those who supported them reluctantly seem to be moving from that position. Even the hon. Member for Broxtowe (Dr. Palmer), who is a leading enthusiast of them, admitted that he is now not in favour of what the Government are doing. The...

Opposition Day — [15th Allotted Day]: Identity Cards (6 Jul 2009)

Damian Green: ...not been present for the whole debate, so if she will excuse me I shall not, because we have very little time left. The Home Secretary revealed the hollowness at the heart of his argument when he said that the scheme had always been intended to be voluntary, but those of us who sat through the debates do not quite remember it like that: it was clearly a scheme that the Government always...

Opposition Day — [15th Allotted Day]: Identity Cards (6 Jul 2009)

Damian Green: I see no advantages to the identity card scheme, and I could happily discuss it with my colleagues in local government. We all now agree that ID cards will not prevent terrorism; that is now of no dispute between anyone. They certainly will not prevent illegal immigration, because foreign visitors will not have to have an ID card unless they plan to stay in the UK for more than three months....

Opposition Day — [15th Allotted Day]: Identity Cards (6 Jul 2009)

Damian Green: The right hon. Gentleman suggests that there was never any mention of terrorism. The Prime Minister described identity cards as an important weapon in the war against terrorism, and said that it was crucial to the destruction of terrorism that we should be able to spot quickly where multiple identities are being used. For the Home Secretary to stand there and say that the Labour party has...

Oral Answers to Questions — Home Department: National Identity Scheme (6 Jul 2009)

Damian Green: Let us explore the voluntary nature of the card. Later today, we will debate a statutory instrument that sets penalties for failing to inform the authorities about changes in personal information on ID cards. If it is a voluntary card, why are penalties attached to failing to provide that information? What does voluntary mean in this context? Specifically, if someone volunteers for an ID card...

Points of Order (30 Jun 2009) has video

Damian Green: ...to my hon. Friend the Member for Surrey Heath (Michael Gove), following your welcome ruling that announcements should be made first to the House. The Home Secretary released a written statement on ID cards at 3.45 this afternoon. At 1.45 pm journalists were briefed at the Home Office about the contents. Indeed, I was informed about the contents by some of those journalists before any of...

Point of Order (15 Jun 2009) has video

Damian Green: On a point of order, Mr. Speaker. On the Order Paper last Thursday, it was announced that the Third Delegated Legislation Committee would discuss three statutory instruments implementing the identity card scheme. In yesterday's Sunday Times we read that those debates had been postponed until next month because the Home Secretary had launched an urgent review of identity cards, paving the way...

Public Bill Committee: Borders, Citizenship and Immigration Bill [Lords]: Clause 14 (9 Jun 2009)

Damian Green: ...point made by the hon. Member for Carshalton and Wallington. It is ironic that he used the example of parking fines. Perhaps he, like me, has spent part of the past couple of hours looking at the ID card statutory instruments that we will debate next week in which the Department for Transport is specifically mentioned as one of the Departments that, if the provisions are passed, will be...

Oral Answers to Questions — Home Department: Identity Cards (18 May 2009) has video

Damian Green: With every month that passes, it becomes clearer that the ID card scheme will never be introduced, yet, as the Home Secretary has just said, at last month's Home Office questions she was determined to tell us about the new contracts that she had signed to create the system. There are billions of pounds of taxpayers' money at stake, so will she pledge today to publish the details of those...

Oral Answers to Questions — Home Department: Identity Cards (Manchester) (9 Feb 2009) has video

Damian Green: The Minister has just said that airport workers in Manchester will be one of the first groups to have compulsory ID cards. Labour Members may wish to know that those airport workers themselves proposed a motion that was passed overwhelmingly at the TUC conference last year, to oppose ID cards "with all the means at their disposal". Does that not tell the Minister that when real people are...

Business of the House (6 Nov 2008) has video

Damian Green: May I reinforce the call of my right hon. Friend the Member for Maidenhead (Mrs. May) for an early debate in Government time on ID cards? The Home Secretary is announcing today that, despite the constant stream of private, personal data that companies working for the Government have lost, she proposes to hand over the job of taking and storing the fingerprints of every adult in this country...

Oral Answers to Questions — Home Department: Identity Fraud (9 Jun 2008) has video

Damian Green: I always seek to be accurate at the Dispatch Box, and saying that the whole Labour party supports the Government would not meet that criterion. Nevertheless, Ministers have said that it would not be compulsory to carry ID cards. At Crewe and Nantwich, they said that it would be compulsory to carry ID cards. Will the Minister say whether it is now the new Labour vision of Britain that if...

Orders of the Day: Clause 5 — Registration regulations (29 Oct 2007)

Damian Green: I am grateful for the Minister's kind remarks. I was not quite clear from what he said whether the particular biometrics on the document will be exactly the same as he proposes to put on the ID cards and the ID register for British citizens.

Public Bill Committee: UK Borders Bill: Clause 20 (15 Mar 2007)

Damian Green: I was going to come to Migrationwatch later in my remarks. At this stage, I merely make this observation; if the only body that supporters of the Government can pray in aid for their policy is Migrationwatch, then matters have come to a pretty sorry state for Ministers. I agree with Migrationwatch on some issues; I disagree with it on some other issues. The fact that the Government can find...

Public Bill Committee: UK Borders Bill: Clause 5 (8 Mar 2007)

Damian Green: I should like to amplify one point that the hon. Member for Rochdale just made. ID cards will not make us safer from terrorism. Of course, he is right: our parties agree. To be fair, after the July bombings, the previous Home Secretary pointed out that they would not have been prevented by ID cards. That was a fair point at a very difficult time. He was right to make it. I think, therefore,...

Public Bill Committee: UK Borders Bill: Clause 5 (8 Mar 2007)

Damian Green: Since, as the Minister has said, we are pragmatically and in principle against compulsory ID cards, because we think that they will be both expensive and useless, I fail to see the illogicality. We are not against biometric visas, but that is precisely why we have tabled the amendments. That is where the hon. Lady’s argument falls down. The purpose of new clause 1, first of all, is to...

Public Bill Committee: UK Borders Bill (1 Mar 2007)

Damian Green: ...that to roll it out specifically to foreigners first will itself give rise to the danger that you think, not unreasonably, will happen. The roll-out method that the Government have chosen for the ID cards, starting with this Bill and a certain group of people, may be a particularly bad way of introducing the policy.

Industry and the Environment (19 May 2005)

Damian Green: ...: "We all suffer crime, the poorest and most vulnerable most of all, it is the duty of the Government to protect them . . . And instead of wasting hundreds of millions of pounds on compulsory ID cards as the Tory Right demand"— he was wrong there— "let that money provide thousands more police officers on the beat in our local communities." I agree with that. The only point with...