Results 1-18 of 18 for id cards speaker:Patrick Mercer

Oral Answers to Questions — Home Department: Identity Cards (Foreign Nationals) (26 Nov 2007)

Patrick Mercer: I am interested in what the Minister said, but he knows that those who are resident in this country for three months or less will not be required to carry an identity card. A cursory understanding of the core al-Qaeda group makes it quite clear that its visits to countries such as ours will last a lot less than three months. Does that not drive a coach and horses through the whole concept of...

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

Patrick Mercer: This simple amendment provides that an identity card issued to an individual must be free of charge. Ministers will not be surprised by the amendment, because we have already debated the point in Committee and will no doubt talk further about it tonight. The cost of the card is one of the most crucial elements of our debate. If we believe that the card is right and will, in due course, have...

Public Bill Committee: Identity Cards Bill: Clause 29 - Unauthorised disclosure of information (19 Jul 2005)

Patrick Mercer: ...that the Under-Secretary can quickly satisfy me about. It is intended to amend subsection (2), which states: “For the purposes of this section a person is required to keep information confidential if it is information that is or has become available to him by reason of his holding an office or employment the duties of which relate, in whole or in part, to— (a)the establishment...

Public Bill Committee: Identity Cards Bill: Clause 24 - Appointment of National Identity Scheme Commissioner (19 Jul 2005)

Patrick Mercer: I beg to move amendment No. 219, in clause 24, page 21, line 27, after “cards”, insert “and the ID Register”. This amendment is simple, but it begs an important question. I fail to understand why we did not get on to debating the substantive matter of identity cards until seven clauses had first been discussed. That led to comments from my hon. and learned Friend the...

Public Bill Committee: Identity Cards Bill: Clause 12 - Notification of changes affecting accuracy of Register (14 Jul 2005)

Patrick Mercer: I beg to move amendment No. 47, in clause 12, page 10, line 36, at end insert— ‘(1A)For the purposes of ensuring that an individual is able to comply with his duty under subsection (1), the Secretary of State must at least once every two years send in a prescribed manner to each individual to whom an ID card has been issued at his prescribed address a copy of the information...

Public Bill Committee: Identity Cards Bill: Clause 15 - Power to make public services conditional on identity checks (14 Jul 2005)

Patrick Mercer: I beg to move amendment No. 56, in clause 15, page 14, line 9, leave out paragraphs (b) and (c). Clause 15(1) states: “Regulations may make provision allowing or requiring a person who provides a public service to make it a condition of providing the service to an individual that the individual produces— (a)an ID card”. That is fine, but paragraphs (b) and (c) add: (b)other...

Public Bill Committee: Identity Cards Bill: Clause 8 - Issue etc. of ID cards (12 Jul 2005)

Patrick Mercer: Thank you, Mr. Gale. As always, I am grateful for your guidance. I will mention the LSE report no more, other than to thank the Under-Secretary for his reply about it and for the thoroughly constructive way in which he has approached it; I wish that that had always been the case with others. The Under-Secretary suggests that there is a degree of maturity in the passport scheme in that costs...

Public Bill Committee: Identity Cards Bill: Clause 8 - Issue etc. of ID cards (12 Jul 2005)

Patrick Mercer: This clause is one of the most important in the Bill. It moves on from the identity register and the number of procedures for orders that are set out under the previous clauses. We are now talking about the thing itself: the card that in several years time, if the Government have their way, we will all end up owning, although, apparently we will not be forced to carry it nor will anybody be...

Public Bill Committee: Identity Cards Bill: Clause 5 - Applications relating to entries in Register (12 Jul 2005)

Patrick Mercer: Much of what the hon. Gentleman has just said makes a huge amount of sense to Conservative Members. In particular, those of us with rural constituencies where people are more widely spread out may feel the need to question the Government, especially about mobile units and the specified time and place at which people would attend, as well as about the practical provisions in clause 5, such as...

Public Bill Committee: Identity Cards Bill: Clause 2 - Individuals entered in Register (7 Jul 2005)

Patrick Mercer: ...and changes; I think that skin patterns can also change. The crux of one of the criticisms by the London School of Economics of the Government's intentions was that the cost would be considerably greater, particularly in relation to the elderly, because cards would have to be replaced on a much more frequent   basis than the Government claim at the moment. I do not want to get into an...

Public Bill Committee: Identity Cards Bill: Clause 13 - Invalidity and surrender of ID cards (25 Jan 2005)

Mr Patrick Mercer: I want briefly to speak on amendment No. 45. The Bill reads: ''Regulations may require an individual to whom an ID card has been issued to notify the Secretary of State, and such other persons as may be prescribed''. My hon. Friend the Member for Woking has already made this point, but in the case of a lost passport, the onus is on the owner to notify merely one authority. Why has the...

Public Bill Committee: Identity Cards Bill: Clause 8 - Issue etc. of ID cards (25 Jan 2005)

Mr Patrick Mercer: I hope that the Minister will do that for us precisely. I have no doubt that we will be illuminated when he answers the question. We must be sure that the money to be spent on ID cards will be spent effectively and we also need assurance on the question whether it might be better spent in other directions. I would be grateful if the Minister convinced me of that. Any number of agencies need,...

Public Bill Committee: Identity Cards Bill: Clause 3 - Information recorded in Register (18 Jan 2005)

Mr Patrick Mercer: ...strike out paragraphs (b) and (c), thus leaving that clause much more easily understood. The only information that may be recorded in the register is information the inclusion of which in an individual's entry is authorised by schedule 1, and in accordance with subsection (2). I simply do not understand the meaning of paragraph (b), which states: ''information of a technical nature for...

Public Bill Committee: Identity Cards Bill: Clause 1 - The National Identity Register (18 Jan 2005)

Mr Patrick Mercer: I rise to address principally amendment No. 43, which deals with ID cards as opposed to the ID register. I believe that a correctly organised and researched identity register will be a powerful tool in countering terrorism, but my experiences of ID cards lead me to ask one or two questions of the Minister. I referred earlier to the experimental use of special driving licences in Northern...

Public Bill Committee: Identity Cards Bill: Clause 1 - The National Identity Register (18 Jan 2005)

Mr Patrick Mercer: I do not know whether this will be of any assistance to the Minister, but the incident on 11 March last year was the mirror image of an incident that ETA tried to put into practice the previous Christmas. The Spanish security forces were able to catch up with and prevent the ETA incident just over a year ago because a reliable series of facts was known about ETA. I come back to a point that I...

Public Bill Committee: Identity Cards Bill: Clause 1 - The National Identity Register (18 Jan 2005)

Mr Patrick Mercer: ...(b) refers to serious crime. I emphasise that everything that has brought the Bill to a head is predicated on what happened on 11 September. However, we might just pause for a moment and consider what has happened inside this country in   terms of terrorism and international terrorism, and thus the importance of the first paragraph of amendment No. 1. Unless we emphasise in the Bill...

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

Mr Patrick Mercer: It is a pleasure to follow the hon. Member for Bradford, West (Mr. Singh), who boldly made the point that ID cards, perhaps illiberally but realistically, will have to be introduced on a compulsory basis. He was preceded by the hon. Member for Ceredigion (Mr. Thomas), who, in an articulate speech, made the case clearly against ID cards. It is interesting that the debate has veered for and...

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

Mr Patrick Mercer: Similarly, a number of right hon. and hon. Members made the point that cards would not have helped in Madrid. It is worth bearing in mind, though, the fact that the Spanish authorities had used such cards at some length against identified terrorist organisations such as ETA. The events of 11 March this year had been rehearsed by ETA at Christmas last year, and the use of such cards had made...