ID cards to be ‘largely compulsory’

The government conceded today that ID cards would be effectively compulsory, as the tussle between the Commons and the Lords over the bill continued.

Peers will vote for a fifth time this afternoon on whether to approve the government’s plan, in an on-going game of parliamentary “ping-pong” between the two chambers.

The Lords have so far insisted that plans to link ID cards to the issue of passports means they will not in effect be voluntary.

Labour’s manifesto last year said ID cards would be introduced “initially on a voluntary basis”, but the Home Office minister Andy Burnham said today it was always “absolutely clear” the scheme would become mandatory.
Peers have voted for amendments - which the government does not accept - which would allow those applying for new or renewed passports to decide for themselves whether to opt for an ID card until 2011.

Mr Burnham, defending the government’s original bill on the Today programme this morning, said that offering applicants a choice would increase the cost of the scheme while reducing security.

Mr Burnham was asked why Labour had not told voters that the cards would be compulsory. He replied: “Actually, we did.

“During the parliamentary process that the bill went through before the general election, we were absolutely clear on this point.

“There was no doubt about the link with the passport. We said all along that the right way to proceed would be at the time when we introduced the biometric passport, when fingerprints were introduced into the passport, that would be the right time to introduce the clean National Identity Register.”

The Conservatives claimed Mr Burham’s admission “twisting the English language beyond all recognition.” Home affairs spokesman Edward Garnier said: “Day by day the government’s case for ID cards and the National Identity Register is unravelling. The intellectual incoherence and dishonesty of their arguments are revealed more clearly every week.”

The Tories and Liberal Democrats are united in opposition to the scheme in the Commons, whilst Labour, although the biggest single party in the Lords, does not have outright majority there.

Asked why the government could not delay the link with passports, as peers wish, Mr Burnham said: “They have asked us to think again, as is their right.

“But the answer they have got is that it is the settled view of the Commons that this is a sensible thing to do and, in my view, that reflects the view of the country.

“The irony is that if we were to listen to what the Lords are saying, we would actually create two biometric databases: one for the passport system and one for the new National Identity Register.

“That would give rise to all the concerns about cost and the concerns about less security and I don’t think that’s a good thing to do.”

An identity database already exists as part of the passport system, and people had to prove their identity on a daily basis, said Mr Burnham. A National Identity Register with biometric details such as fingerprints would make citizens “more able to control access to their identities,” he said.

And it would ensure that the British passport does not become “a second-class document”. “I take the view that it is part of being a good citizen, proving who you are, day in day out,” said Mr Burnham.

Matthew Tempest and agencies