Clause 2

Part of Identity Documents Bill – in a Public Bill Committee at 1:45 pm on 1 July 2010.

Alert me about debates like this

Photo of Damian Green Damian Green The Minister for Immigration 1:45, 1 July 2010

First, I congratulate all the hon. Members who have made their maiden speeches in Committee today. I also congratulate you, Mr Streeter, on your characteristic generosity of spirit in allowing the debate to range heroically beyond the limits of the amendments. In the spirit of general helpfulness, I warn hon. Members that on future occasions other Chairmen may not be as generous.

The hon. Member for Bolton West made a point, which other hon. Members also brought up, about those who are genuinely economically struggling, for whom £30 is a significant sum of money, which is a serious point. I point out that the scheme was introduced by the Government in the Identity Cards Act 2006, which the new Labour Members presumably supported from outside the House—the scheme was eventually introduced in 2009, so their Government had three and a half years to think about it. Far from implementing means-testing, as the hon. Member for Easington has suggested, they decided that there would be a flat fee and that everyone would have to pay. On top of that, they decided that they would give away thousands of these cards for free, in an attempt to foist the scheme more quickly on to the unwilling British public. They did not, however, choose people who were particularly short of money. They chose people who worked at airports, so I will not take any moral lectures about how the poorest people are being deprived. We have discussed somebody scrimping and saving to put their last £30 on an identity card. My point is that no one in this country would think that that was the most essential use of their last £30, if they were genuinely struggling—it is an absurd argument.