Liberal Democrat Minority Debate on I.D. Cards

Speech by Michael German OBE AM delivered to The National Assembly for Wales on Tue 7th Jun 2005

There is a difference between entitlement cards and identity cards, but let us remember that the Home Office, from which the entitlement cards will come, states quite clearly on its website—and I invite the Minister to look at it—that the cards are about accessing public services. That is precisely why this motion has been tabled. The crucial intention of the debate—and this has been quite clear from the contributions of all Members, except perhaps the Minister—is to highlight the fact that identity cards are an excuse to meddle and interfere in people's lives. They are an excuse for the state to try to control ever more of our everyday lives. They are an excuse by the state to collect and collate a large amount of personal data, which would be an unwarranted intrusion into people's lives.

The database itself, as Members have said, raises a great deal of concern—not just because we see more and more details from different departments being merged on to a central file, but because other organisations could set up their own satellite databases, perhaps cross-referencing credit ratings and home ownership status against the Government's database and, therefore, it goes against the grain of what British people have long regarded as sacred, namely the right to privacy.

The Government has claimed that its identity cards will help to combat terrorism, fraud and crime, as well as illegal work and immigration, but, as we know, the 11 September terrorists carried valid ID cards. We also know that most benefit fraud involves people who misrepresent their circumstances rather than their identity—we have seen that in the overpayment of tax credit, which has recently become an issue here in Wales.

Countries within the European Union have ID cards, but we should remember that Tony Blair accepted in November 2004 that such cards were not a silver bullet to defeat terrorism. The absurdity of all the claims made on behalf of electronic ID cards can be seen in an exciting development that has emerged from Belgium. Belgium has made all the frequently heard claims about ID cards: as a result of introducing ID cards, Belgium would be as safe from terrorism as Spain, and as free from foreign interlopers as Germany. It has also claimed that it would not be possible to forge Belgian ID cards. What is this cunning safeguard that Belgium is introducing? It is that some words on the ID card will be deliberately misspelled—in English, Belgium will become Belgium. I hope that the Whitehall boffins plotting our equivalent ID cards are watching this carefully. After all, if American immigration officials had decided a few years ago to stamp on its green cards the initials UAS instead of USA, then Osama Bin Laden might have called off the terrorism attacks on the grounds that it was just too difficult.

The National Assembly for Wales must join Jack McConnell, the Labour First Minister of Scotland, in giving the thumbs down to requiring ID cards to access devolved public services. The position of the Scottish Executive has been clear—it opposes the use of compulsory identity cards to access devolved services. We also need to be clear, and this debate gives Wales the chance to put down a marker to say that we do not need this expensive scheme here either. Jack McConnell states that, through maintaining consistency and clarity in discussions with the UK Government, an identity card will not be required to access public services in Scotland. We need the same clarity from the National Assembly. The Scots have lobbied for, and gained, assurances from the UK Government. Westminster has accepted the position of the Scottish Executive, and if a card will not be required to access public services in Scotland, then it should not be required here in Wales either. We believe in a health service, and other services, where people are treated according to their needs, not because they carry a piece of plastic. I hope that all parties here today will ensure that that continues to be the case here in Wales.

I conclude with a quotation from Tony Blair. At the Labour party conference in October 1995, Tony Blair said,

'and instead of wasting hundreds of millions of pounds on compulsory ID cards, let that money provide thousands of extra police officers on the beat in our local communities'.

I ask you to join with Tony Blair today and support this motion.