Identity Documents Bill

Lord Faulkner of Worcester Excerpts

Monday 1st November 2010 Grand Committee

[Lord Phillips of Sudbury]

Of course, to higher and greater things. It is notorious in our system that Ministers remain in post for less than two years, and that one Minister does not feel bound by the statements of another. If anyone doubts that, I can give them half a dozen chapters and verses now. Therefore, the soft soap, even from the mouth of as distinguished a Minister as the noble Baroness, is not enough where one is dealing with issues of citizens’ basic rights. For this side of the House, and no less for Members opposite, the destruction of the national identity register is a crucial matter. If ever there was a situation where somebody beyond the Minister is needed to give reassurance that what has to be done has been properly done, this is it.

Subsection (2) of the proposed new clause requires the independent person appointed to review the arrangements to make an annual report of his or her findings not just to the Secretary of State but also contemporaneously to Parliament. That ensures that the absence of specifics in the proposed new clause is adequate, because any independent reviewer, because they know that they have to report to Parliament as well as to the Secretary of State, will be on their mettle.

I finish by saying that this deals in the Bill with a number of anxieties expressed by the Joint Committee on Human Rights when it reported in October. For example, it stated that,

“the Government should report to Parliament on the progress towards the destruction of this information and the decommissioning of the NIR”.

It says that “the Government” should report. However, as I have attempted to justify, it should go a step further. The committee made other recommendations, particularly with regard to Clause 10, which entitles the Secretary of State to require verification information from not only a long list of government bodies, but from others; and, in subsection (10), gives discretion to the Secretary of State to disapply subsections (8) and (9). Subsection (8) requires that information in relation to passports should be destroyed no later than 28 days after the passport is issued. Subsection (9) contains another provision related to that. The clause gives discretion to the Secretary of State to disapply those subsections where he or she thinks it is “desirable” for the purposes of preventing or detecting crime and so on. That is fair enough, provided there is an independent reviewer who can look at that and make sure that no slackness has entered the system, and that any use of the discretions in the clause has been sensible and justifiable.

Finally, the Joint Committee expressed concern about the proportionality of some of the rights given to the Secretary of State by the Bill. For those reasons, I commend Amendment 19, and the inclusion of an independent review in the Bill. I beg to move.

[The Deputy Chairman of Committees (Lord Faulkner of Worcester)]

I hope that the noble Lord, Lord Phillips, will forgive me. The Committee is considering Amendment 12, and Amendment 19 is grouped with it. I assume that what the noble Lord is doing is speaking to his amendment, not moving it.

[Lord Phillips of Sudbury]

Indeed he is. I apologise.