I have a statement to make to the House.

Following yesterday's personal statement by the right hon. Member for North Tyneside (Mr. Byers), I received from the hon. Member for Epsom and Ewell (Chris Grayling) a complaint of breach of privilege relating to the evidence given by the right hon. Gentleman to a sub-committee of the Select Committee on Transport, Local Government and the Regions on 14 November 2001.

My only role in this matter is to decide whether or not to allow the hon. Member for Epsom and Ewell to have precedence over the Orders of the Day to move a motion relating to his complaint. It is not for me to make any judgment on the merits of the matter. I have concluded that the question is one which should be submitted to the decision of the House; and accordingly the hon. Member for Epsom and Ewell will be able to move a motion relating to his complaint at the commencement of business tomorrow.

BILL PRESENTED

Work and Families

Mr. Secretary Johnson, supported by the Prime Minister, Mr. Secretary Prescott, Mr. Chancellor of the Exchequer, Mr. Secretary Blunkett, Mr. Secretary Darling, Secretary Patricia Hewitt, Secretary Tessa Jowell, Mr. Secretary Hain and Secretary Ruth Kelly, presented a Bill to make provision about statutory rights to leave and pay in connection with the birth or adoption of children; to amend section 80F of the Employment Rights Act 1996; to make provision about workers' entitlement to annual leave; to provide for the increase in the sums specified in section 186(1) and 227(1) of that Act; and for connected purposes: And the same was read the First time; and ordered to be read a Second time tomorrow, and to be printed. Explanatory notes to be printed [Bill 60].

Age of Sale of Tobacco

I beg to move,

That leave be given to bring in a Bill to raise the minimum age of sale of tobacco and tobacco products from 16 years to 18 years.

I am delighted to have an opportunity to present this Bill. I believe that it is an extremely important measure, which the Government should implement if we are serious about reducing smoking in this country, particularly among younger people. The stimulus for the Bill came in 2004, when the Government published their White Paper "Choosing health: making healthier choices easier". The White Paper contained a chapter dedicated to the reduction of smoking through a number of different initiatives, none of which included raising the age at which people could buy tobacco. I found that something of a mystery at the time, especially in the light of the BBC's 2004 Healthier Britain survey, which revealed that 80 per cent. of the public—particularly those aged between 18 and 24—supported such a move.

Since then, I tabled two early-day motions during the last two parliamentary Sessions proposing such a measure. My early-day motion 226, which I tabled in May, has already attracted well over 50 signatures in this Session from Members in all parts of the House. It states that this House calls on the Government to give serious consideration to raising the minimum age of sales of tobacco from 16 to 18 years to bring it in line with sales of alcohol. I urge all Members who have not already signed it to do so.

My main reason for introducing this Bill—other than its obvious beneficial impact in terms of preventing youngsters from smoking—is that in the past couple of years the Government have made great strides in the age-barring of many other products. For example, under the terms of the Gambling Act 2005, the use of many gaming machines will be restricted to over-18-year-old players. Through the Violent Crime Reduction Bill, the Government intend to raise to 18 the age of sale of airguns and dangerous knives. Such measures doubtless enjoy popular support, so it is common sense to implement a similar measure in respect of tobacco. Doing so would show unequivocally that this Government do not condone young people smoking to the same extent that they do not condone young people drinking.

My Bill would not be a world first. A number of European countries—including Sweden, Ireland, Finland, Iceland, Malta, Norway and Poland—have already introduced such a measure. North of the border, Scotland is considering implementing such a measure through the Smoking, Health and Social Care (Scotland) Act 2005, thanks to the tabling of an amendment by my Scottish Labour parliamentary colleague, Mr. Duncan McNeil, the MSP for Greenock and Inverclyde. So in effect, we would be following in the footsteps of some of our enlightened European colleagues.

Of course, my Bill would not totally stop young people smoking, but it would impact on the number who become smokers in their teenage years, which is when some 80 per cent. of smokers begin smoking. The best example of the impact of such a measure can be seen on the island of Guernsey, where the age of sale was raised to 18 as long ago as 1997. Before then, the number of young smokers in Guernsey was roughly the same, as a percentage, as in the rest of the UK. But by 2003, thanks primarily to that measure and to the setting up of an appropriately named organisation, GASP—the Guernsey Adolescent Smoke-free Project—the number of young people reporting that they smoked had reduced by half. Now, nearly twice as many youngsters smoke in the UK as smoke in Guernsey, and when questioned, only 3 per cent. of Guernsey's 11-year-olds said that they thought they would smoke when they were older. Guernsey is now credited as being the world leader in reducing smoking among young people.

So there is clear evidence that raising the age of sale can reduce the number of youngsters who smoke, and I am delighted to say that my Bill enjoys the support of a number of different organisations and agencies, such as the Roy Castle Lung Cancer Foundation and the Trading Standards Institute, to name but two. Having spoken to Mike Unger, the chief executive of the foundation, I know that he is very supportive of my Bill. The foundation is currently funding a 12-year study into children's attitudes to smoking and it has just published the primary results. I am sure that the Government will want to look at its findings in great detail.

The TSI, which is responsible for enforcing the laws relating to age-restricted sales—including sales of tobacco—across England and the rest of the UK, also strongly supports my Bill. In 2004–05, trading standards services prosecuted some 117 retailers for selling cigarettes to children aged under 16. The retailers received penalties ranging from a conditional discharge to fines of up to £1,000; many more received cautions.

After its annual conference in June this year, the Trading Standards Institute, in a press release entitled "Call to raise age limit on cigarettes to 18", said:

"The age limit on cigarette sales should be raised to 18, bringing tobacco into line with other age-barred products that have a detrimental effect on public health . . . Doing so might help deter children from becoming regular smokers, while also aiding retailers who claim it is difficult for them to determine the age of children who ask to buy cigarettes."

The call for action is also backed by the local authorities' co-ordinators of regulatory services. Stephen Butterworth, the TSI's lead officer on health, said:

"TSI supports the thrust of last year's Government White Paper "Choosing Health", which aims to improve public health by encouraging healthier choices. With that in mind, we do not believe the Government is right to leave it to 16-year-olds to make the potentially life-threatening choice of smoking or not."

Mr. Brandon Cook, TSI joint lead on age-restricted sales, added:

"We believe that raising the age limit to 18, combined with stronger penalties against shopkeepers who repeatedly make underage sales, would make it more difficult for young people to regularly get their hands on cigarettes."

The TSI has previously requested raising the age to 18 without success and it is TSI policy to continue to press for action on the issue.

It is also my intention to continue to press the Government on this issue. The current age restriction on tobacco dates back to the beginning of the last century—well before scientific evidence was available to demonstrate the real health impact of smoking. Knowing what we do today about the dangers, it is our duty to do all that we can to prevent young people from smoking. This Bill is a common-sense measure which I hope the Government will have the common sense to implement.

Question put and agreed to.

Bill ordered to be brought in by Jeff Ennis, Mr. David Chaytor, Mr. David Drew, Mrs. Betty Williams, Harry Cohen, Mr. Terry Rooney, Mr. Stephen Crabbe, Mr. David Crausby, Chris McCafferty, Mr. Jeffrey M. Donaldson and Mr. Mike Hancock.

Age of Sale of Tobacco

Jeff Ennis accordingly presented a Bill to raise the minimum age of sale of tobacco and tobacco products from 16 years to 18 years: And the same was read the First time; and ordered to be read a Second time on Friday 11 November, and to be printed [Bill 59].

I beg to move,

That the Order of 28th June 2005 (Identity Cards Bill (Programme)) be further varied as follows:

For paragraph 4 substitute—

"4. Proceedings on consideration shall (so far as not previously concluded) be brought to a conclusion at this day's sitting at the time specified in the second column of the following Table.

TABLE

First, may I say that the motion is intended to assist the House in using our available time this afternoon on Report to the very best possible effect? We have made good progress on the Bill thus far. There have been seven days and 11 sittings in Committee, starting on 5 July and finishing on 21 July. We had a timetable motion in Committee in order to ensure good progress, and as a result of the knives, only clauses 12 and 13 and parts of clause 5 failed to be discussed—some seven groups of amendments in all. We certainly debated far more than seven groups of amendments in Committee.

Although I should point out that there was plenty of time to raise issues, I am told that we spent, in total, some 26 hours and six minutes in all. We were even offered the possibility of a final sitting on the afternoon of 21 July, but in the event it was not needed or required by Opposition parties. We thus had more than sufficient time.

Because of the need to make the best use of available time, we propose to divide today's timetable with knives at 5.45 and 7.15 to ensure that all parts of the Bill are properly scrutinised.

I readily recognise that there are important and serious matters for us to discuss, but we need to parcel up the business in this way to allow for Third Reading at 9 pm as normal. If hon. Members want to debate the Bill, they should accept the motion and let us get on with that debate. The House will surely agree that it would be better for us to spend time this afternoon debating the Bill and the substantial matters before us rather than taking time to debate at length whether or not to timetable the debate. With that in mind, our motion will help order our debate sensibly.

Is the Minister programming the discussion on the Bill because he personally as a Minister believes that the advantages of the Bill are overstated?

I shall take that as a question specific to the programme motion, which of course it was. The matters before us are very important. There are three distinct categories, all of which need discussion. If the hon. Gentleman resists the urge to vote against the motion, my views will come out in due course.

I am used now to the Minister, either from that Dispatch Box or in Committee, demanding less time for this important Bill to be discussed and, lo and behold, here he comes again with the same request. Of course, it is not a request but a demand; a demand that this House will no doubt need to consider carefully. I hope that, in due course, we will test the opinion of the House. Whatever blandishments are put forward by the Minister, I urge the House to reject the motion yet again to curtail debate.

This is not some statutory instrument or anodyne piece of business. This is one of the most important Bills that we will discuss during this Session. The Bill utterly alters the status of the state and its relationship with the individual. Yet as we predicted in Committee, the Government are curtailing debate. We have about seven or eight different areas of discussion to deal with this afternoon, and the Government seem wholly incapable of producing the necessary arguments to justify this curtailment of discussion.

I shall not detain the House this afternoon by dignifying the Minister's remarks with a lengthy response, which would be to fall into the trap that he has so candidly placed before us. However, the Bill contains approximately 60 powers to be given to the Home Secretary, who is no longer in his place, to make secondary legislation. It is a radically dangerous way to legislate and it is even worse that the Government are curtailing our ability to discuss it. I urge all hon. Members with any understanding of the word "democracy", or of the expression "Let us scrutinise this legislation", to vote against the programme motion, which is unnecessary and wholly ridiculous.

As the Minister said, the sessions in Committee were good, but they were exactly that: Committee sessions. Today, we have an opportunity for the whole House to have a say and it is important that we allow adequate time for a full discussion of all the issues that arise from this extensive Bill. Frankly, my fear is that although we have been careful in seeking to retain a tight focus in respect of the amendments tabled by myself and my hon. Friends—as, indeed, have the Conservatives—the operation of the knives will be such that we will not be allowed to have a full discussion of all the matters of importance that ought to be scrutinised by this place. Accordingly, should a Division be called, my right hon. and hon. Friends and I will not support the Government.

I rise to support the observations of my hon. and learned Friend the Member for Harborough (Mr. Garnier). The Minister in his opening remarks said that the motion was for the assistance of the House so as to make best use of the time available to us. The time available to us is the amount of time provided by the Government. If they truly wanted to assist the House, they would have given us a great deal more time, especially as the Bill will not come into early effect. The reality is that there is ample time for proper consideration.

My hon. and learned Friend sketched out the principal arguments against timetable motions of this kind, and I shall add one or two further comments. First, we must never forget that the Report stage is the only opportunity for Members of this House who were not members of the Standing Committee to scrutinise the detail of a Bill. On this occasion, they will be allowed no more than five hours for that detailed scrutiny. In my view, that is wrong in principle.

My second point which is rather different, although the hon. Member for Orkney and Shetland (Mr. Carmichael) alluded to it when he spoke about retaining a tight focus when framing his amendments, is that hon. Members faced with tight guillotines often do not table the amendments that they would table if more time were available. As a consequence, Bills are not being scrutinised properly. The grossest example of a Bill that was not properly scrutinised is the one that became the Criminal Justice Act 2003, which has been criticised time and again, in the Court of Appeal and elsewhere, for its inadequate construction and the poor scrutiny that it received here. The same thing is happening again.

I hope that the House will never allow a timetable motion to go through without a protest and a vote. The Government say that that will circumscribe debate. Although true, that is unworthy of this House—but typical of this Government.

I, too, rise to support what my hon. and learned Friend the Member for Harborough (Mr. Garnier) said from the Front Bench, and the comments that my right hon. and learned Friend the Member for Sleaford and North Hykeham (Mr. Hogg) has just made. My distinguished colleague was right to say that the time available is the amount of time that the Government set.

The Government expect their supporters to march into the appropriate Lobby to support the proposition that it is fair to devote an hour and three quarters to the Bill's central contention, which is that a national identity register should be set up. This is a profoundly important piece of legislation, yet the Government say that the time allotted will be sufficient for scrutiny by Back-Bench Members from every party who could not attend the Standing Committee, or who were not put on it in the first place.

The Bill was in Committee for only seven days, and the Minister made much of the fact that it received 26 hours and six minutes of consideration. In any Parliament before 1997, that would have been laughable. This Bill affects every citizen of this country. With the fines that it can impose and its proposals for a national identity register, it reaches into every particular of identity, yet it is not being discussed in the traditional manner on the Floor of the House of Commons.

Does my hon. Friend agree that the motion represents a travesty of parliamentary scrutiny, given the mass electorate that will be affected by the Bill? Is not that underlined by the fact that each amendment in the first two groups, although they relate to the very essence of the Bill, will receive only eight minutes of consideration—and that is on the rather unlikely assumption that there are no votes? Is not that an absolute disgrace?

I could not agree more. The essence of the argument is that at the heart of the Bill is a change in the relationship between an individual's identity and the Government. Outside wartime emergency regulations, that represents a complete change in our relationship with the state. The Government think that a total of 26 hours and six minutes in Committee discharges their responsibility to this House and to the people whom we represent.

This Bill is important, but we face yet another guillotine. It has been said that the Government rule by guillotine, not by winning arguments in debate. That is why the House should reject the motion.

I am grateful to my right hon. and learned Friend the Member for Sleaford and North Hykeham (Mr. Hogg) and my hon. Friend the Member for Aldridge-Brownhills (Mr. Shepherd) for pointing out a number of vital matters. I heard one of the Ministers refer to the Leader of the Opposition in the context of the Bill. He will know that I have had the gravest doubts about the way in which the Bill was presented on Second Reading. When the matter was decided in 1995, it was pursued on a voluntary basis.

I heard the Minister this morning on the "Today" programme refer to an enabling Bill. The enabling process changes the nature of the operation completely and will not allow proper debate. As the Minister well knows, the reality is that in the context of what the Information Commissioner said, this is about state surveillance. That is why I presented George Orwell's book "1984" to the Home Secretary who, to his disgrace, is not here this afternoon.

With great respect to you, Mr. Speaker, Standing Orders have been taken over by the Executive, and that has led to the situation today. They should be returned to you. This is the constitutional question that we face. Matters related to guillotines and programme motions should be decided not by the majority in the House but by indisputably distinguished and independent parties—in particular yourself, Mr. Speaker. It is a disgrace to hear Ministers from the Home Office suggest otherwise.

The legislation before the House is important because it affects every citizen across the United Kingdom, so it is important that we discharge our duty as parliamentarians fully to discuss the Bill. That is why I and my colleagues reject any question of a guillotine, and if there is a vote we will certainly oppose the Government.

Question put:—

On a point of order, Mr. Speaker. Would you look into the fact that on two occasions since we returned to the House what is known as the chauffeurs' entrance has been closed during a Division? I understand that responsibility has passed from the police to the security services in the House, and I wonder whether you could ensure that in future when the Division bell rings entrances are open so that Members of Parliament can come to vote as soon as possible.

I thank the hon. Lady for raising that matter. I instruct the Serjeant at Arms to look into it.

I beg to move, That the Bill be recommitted to a Select Committee.

Members hold many serious reservations about the Bill, and even more reservations are held by people outside the House. That is not reason in itself to recommit to a Select Committee; indeed, there is opportunity under the normal Committee and Report process for us to consider the principled reasons, but the Bill, almost more than any other, depends on the practicalities. If it does not work, if it costs vastly more than the Government say it will cost and if conclusions can be drawn about the scope of the information stored on identity cards, the enabling Bill—on repeated occasions, the Minister has stressed that it is enabling legislation—has completely different connotations and the House ought seriously to consider them.

I accept that the Standing Committee process is, in many ways, a good means of examining the detail of a Bill—line by line—but it is difficult for a Standing Committee to perform the same role in respect of this enabling Bill. The process is thus imperfect and does not allow hon. Members to consider matters in depth.

The Committee that considered the Bill certainly did not have the opportunity to examine issues in detail, many of which the Government raised following the conclusion of the 11th sitting on 21 July. Indeed, the Home Affairs Committee undertook an in-depth examination, but that—[Interruption.]

Order. There are far too many private conversations in the Chamber, which is unfair to the House.

I am grateful, Mr. Speaker.

The Home Affairs Committee reported on 20 July 2004—more than a year before the end of the Standing Committee process. The House has thus not had the benefit of the inquisitorial method of working that Select Committees use.

Three matters of principal concern have arisen since the end of the Standing Committee, the first of which is costs. Hon. Members on both sides of the House have repeatedly raised the question of costs throughout the passage of the Bill because it is critical to our understanding of what the national identity card system will mean. Some of us believe that the large investment that the Government propose would be better spent on other forms of detecting and preventing crime, but that is an aside. We need to know the Government's intentions, which were made clear only in the past few days through what the press described as a string of concessions to critics in an effort to avert a rebellion. I do not know whether a rebellion will be averted, but I do know that the House is entitled critically to examine the Government's costings. We must be assured that the costings are robust and capable of being realised. We especially need to examine the Minister's proposed arrangements to recoup funds from other Departments, which will be critical to the working of the scheme.

Secondly, we must consider something that is rather inelegantly called function creep. The Minister has been somewhat undermined by his colleagues in the Cabinet Office, because the Government's chief information officer's draft information technology strategy has been leaked over the past few days. On identity cards, it is important to note that the document reveals:

"Identity management is a subject whose time has now arrived."

It says that the Government are leading the debate on identity cards and will be using it as part of a

"suite of identity management solutions"

to enable public and private sectors to provide cost-effective electronic services. The document also says that data sharing will increase under new proposals.

Those are legitimate matters of concern for many hon. Members, so we want to find out what the Cabinet Office proposes and whether the Home Office agrees.

Thirdly, the efficacy of the proposals—their ability to do what they say they will do—is a matter of huge concern among many hon. Members. In the past few days—after the Standing Committee concluded—we found out the results of tests on the card system. The system works perfectly well—unless a person is disabled, has dark skin, has brown eyes, is bald, or is wrinkled. If someone makes the mistake of being bald and wrinkled, the system tells them that their head is upside down. If a person is a labourer, typist, or pianist, the system does not work. The system does not work if a person undertakes a voluntary change of appearance, which rules out every teenager in the country. If people make the mistake of ageing, identity card technology is not for them. In fact, it has been revealed that one in 1,000 cases result in a misidentification. As 13.5 million people a month go through British airports, there will be 13,500 misidentifications every month, which will do wonders for the queues at security checks.

The Minister's response is that multiple identifiers will cure that problem, but I draw the House's attention to the front page of today's edition of The Scotsman. It says that ID cards equal more fraud and quotes at length Mr. Jerry Fishenden, the national technology officer for Microsoft—a company one would expect to know something about the subject—who says that the identity card scheme as envisaged will result in "massive identity fraud" on a scale as yet unseen. On balance, I prefer the evidence of the Microsoft bosses to that of the Minister, but it is for a Select Committee to look in detail at the proposals. It could call Mr. Fishenden to give evidence.

Will the hon. Gentleman give way?

I do not think I would be in order if I accepted an intervention, as I am giving a statement of the reasons for recommittal.

It is essential that, before the Bill leaves the House today, a Special Select Committee should have the opportunity to take evidence, examine witnesses and give the House the benefit of reasoned advice on this subject. I shall close with a quote from the Minister of State, who will tell me in a moment that he agrees with the recommittal motion and that this is a matter that should go before a Select Committee. He said that

"the arguments . . . have shifted away from civil liberties to practicalities and costs, and those are the issues we must address".

The Government must address those issues, but so must the House if it is to do its job properly. It cannot do so within the confines of Report and Third Reading as envisaged in the programme motion. The Bill must return to Committee if the House is not to divest itself of its responsibilities and leave it yet again to another place to do the job that we should be doing as the primary Chamber.

I fully intend to give the motion the short shrift that it deserves. The matters of substance about which the hon. Member for Somerton and Frome (Mr. Heath) spoke will be dealt with, not just by the House in our remaining time today but by the other place. As the hon. and learned Member for Harborough (Mr. Garnier) will agree, we look at things 61 times whenever matters of substance and detail come back to the House. As I have repeatedly said, this is enabling legislation.

As for the history of the proposal, the simple fact is that the Bill and the policy underlying it have probably received more consultation and scrutiny than most legislation. That started in 2002 with an initial six-month public consultation on the entitlement cards and identity fraud consultation paper. An inquiry by the Home Affairs Committee began in 2003 following publication of the Government's policy statement on the introduction of identity cards in "Identity Cards—The Next Steps" in November 2003. The draft Identity Cards Bill was published in April 2004.

Will the Minister give way?

I am not permitted to do so, for the reasons already given by the hon. Member for Somerton and Frome.

The draft Bill was published in April 2004, and the Select Committee went on to undertake formal pre-legislative scrutiny of it, publishing its report in October 2004. We then introduced the first Identity Cards Bill in November 2004, and its Committee stage consisted of eight sittings totalling 24 hours. I know that that will not please the hon. Member for Stone (Mr. Cash), but it is a normal time scale. That Bill was passed by the House in February 2005 but ran out of time in the House of Lords because of the May election. Prior to the election, there were two full Select Committee inquiries and full determination by a Standing Committee of the House. To suggest that the Bill has not been subjected to due scrutiny is nonsense.

The Bill has come back before us after due process in a Committee for 11 sittings over seven days, a total of 26 hours and six minutes. That six minutes may include the time that there were two Liberals present in Committee. For the substantive part of the debate, there were not two Liberals present, for whatever reason, yet they have the cheek to propose to the House that the Bill be recommitted to a Select Committee. For 90 per cent. of the time they could not be bothered to have their full complement at the Standing Committee. That is outrageous.

The Bill is very similar to the one passed in February. Because it is an enabling Bill, as I said, much more detailed work will be undertaken by the House in the usual way before the cards are introduced in 2008. It is right to put the legislation in place now so that we can start to put in hand the detailed arrangements for procurement and for building the scheme, and to establish a new agency based on UK Passport Service to be responsible for issuing ID cards. All those matters of detail will have been discussed by the House on 61 occasions, which is right and proper, given that it is enabling legislation. I am sure the House will agree that we would spend our time far better this afternoon debating the substance of the Bill, rather than a silly little motion from the Liberal Democrats.

Question put, pursuant to Standing Order No. 74 (Re-committal of Bill):—

I beg to move amendment No. 8, in page 1, line 10, after 'others', insert 'who reasonably require proof'.

With this, it will be convenient to discuss the following amendments:

No. 9, in page 1, line 16, leave out from beginning to end of line 6 on page 2 and insert—

'(a) of assistance to the Secretary of State in preventing or detecting terrorist acts in the United Kingdom or elsewhere or otherwise in the interests of national security;

(b) of assistance to the Secretary of State in preventing or detecting serious crime;

(c) for the purposes of controlling illegal immigration and enforcing immigration controls; or

(d) for the purpose of securing proper provision of relevant public services.

(4A) For the purposes of subsection(4)—

"relevant public services" means the provision of—

(a) healthcare,

(b) housing,

(c) education, and

(d) social benefits;

"serious crime" means crime giving rise to an offence triable only on indictment.'.

No. 6, in page 1, line 16, leave out paragraph (a).

No. 10, in page 2, line 1, leave out 'prevention or'.

No. 24, in page 2, line 1, after second 'of', insert 'serious'.

No. 15, in, clause 8, page 7, line 10, leave out 'and'.

Government amendment No. 2

No. 16, in clause 8, page 7, line 12, at end insert

'and

(c) is issued for the following purposes only—

(i) to assist in preventing or detecting terrorist acts in the United Kingdom or elsewhere or otherwise in the interests of national security;

(ii) to assist the Secretary of State in preventing or detecting serious crime;

(iii) the purposes of controlling illegal immigration and enforcing immigration controls;

(iv) the purposes of securing proper provision of the following public services, namely

(a) healthcare,

(b) housing,

(c) education, and

(d) social security benefits.'.

No. 20, in clause 45, page 39, line 14, at end insert

'But an order bringing sections 8 to 10 into force may not be made unless a draft of the order has been laid before, and approved by, a resolution of both Houses of Parliament.'.

We have been here so many times previously, and I am sure that the Under-Secretary, the hon. Member for Leigh (Andy Burnham), is sharpening his knife to prepare many of the arguments that I have heard twice in Committee and on which his knife has been blunted at least once.

I hope that the group of amendments, which simply questions the purpose of the register and logically extends that questioning to the card, is reasonably straightforward. I hope that the amendments are self-explanatory but I shall speak briefly about them.

Clause 1(3)(a) reads:

"The statutory purposes are to facilitate, by the maintenance of a record of registrable facts about individuals in the United Kingdom . . . the provision of a convenient method for such individuals to prove registrable facts about themselves to others",

to which amendment No. 8 would add, "who reasonably require proof".

Amendment No. 9 makes a considerable addition to the provisions, and is logically followed by amendment No. 16, which would amend part of the register and the card referred to later in the Bill. Amendment No. 9 would delete paragraphs (a) to (e) of clause 1(4), and would add a new paragraph (a) that something is necessary in the public interest if it is:

"of assistance to the Secretary of State in preventing or detecting terrorist acts in the United Kingdom or elsewhere or otherwise in the interests of national security".

Everyone can read the amendment for themselves, but I would like to point out that it also proposes the addition of the words:

"For the purposes of subsection (4)—

'relevant public services' means the provision of—

(a) healthcare,

(b) housing,

(c) education, and

(d) social benefits;

'serious crime' means crime giving rise to an offence triable only on indictment.'."

Except for the last line, that provision is almost the same as amendment No. 16, which relates to identity cards rather than to the register of facts. I hope that amendment No. 6 is also fairly clear. It simply proposes to delete the reference to national security in clause 1(4)(a).

The purpose of the amendments is to question in detail precisely why we are setting about this extremely difficult, demanding and intrusive piece of legislation. We have already heard the contradictory explanations for the purpose of the register and the card. For instance, on 3 July 2002, the right hon. Member for Sheffield, Brightside (Mr. Blunkett), who was then Home Secretary, said:

"I accept that it is important that we do not pretend that an entitlement card would be an overwhelming factor in combating international terrorism".

Later, however, in answer to a question from another Member of Parliament, he said that he would not rule out the possibility of

"their substantial contribution to countering terrorism".—[Official Report, 3 July 2002; Vol. 388, c. 231, 236.]

I hope that the Minister will explain how those statements now stack up, after the relatively short space of three years. In the light of the events of 7 and 21 July, can the former Home Secretary's opinions be reconciled with the Minister's adapted view of the register and the card?

In December 2004, the right hon. Member for Sheffield, Brightside told Parliament that the security services had advised him that 35 per cent. of terrorists used false identification. The general secretary of Interpol, Ron Noble, told the House of Lords Home Affairs Committee that all terrorist incidents involved the use of a false passport. However, when he was challenged about that claim, he was unable to present evidence to support it. In 2004, Privacy International published the findings of the only research ever conducted into the relationship between identity cards and terrorism. It found that there was no evidence to support the claim that the cards could combat terrorist threats. Its report stated:

"The presence of an identity card is not recognised by analysts as a meaningful or significant component in anti-terrorism strategies."

The events of 7 and 21 July obviously brought this issue into much closer focus. I thought it instructive that the current Home Secretary pointed out at the time that even if identity cards had been used, they would have made absolutely no difference to the events of those two days, which the Minister and I both remember clearly, as we were in Committee on at least one of those days.

If this card is designed to combat terrorism, how can it do so against the sort of terrorist that we saw operating in this country in July? This country has tried identity cards previously in the shape of specialist driving licences, as issued in Northern Ireland. They were never broadcast as such, but they were a distinct attempt to try to contain terrorism using a form of identity card. They failed—I can vouch for that, as I was there at the time. The great benefit to us 10, 20 or 30 years ago was that those terrorists with whom we were dealing were identifiable, as many of the families involved had been engaged in terrorism for years, so it was a fair bet that a son or daughter born to a particular family might have subversive views. That is not so with the new brand of terrorist.

In relation to Northern Ireland, I agree that there have been attempts at introducing one form of identification or another down the years. Does he agree that were there any evidence whatever to suggest that formal identification methodologies had been effective in Northern Ireland, the Government would have provided it, yet there has not been a single occasion on which they have been able to do so in the entire history of the identity cards debate?

I am grateful for that intervention, and I will answer the hon. Gentleman by saying that it was my experience that this quasi-identity card—which was issued first in the mid-1970s, I think—had a converse effect to that which the Government sought. As he will remember, anybody who had such a card or driving licence on their person had a pass, which, if shown to police or soldiers, gave them free passage. So, it had precisely the opposite effect to that which was intended. If the cards had worked in Ulster, why was their further use not developed? Why was biometric information not added to those cards when that experiment was tried? Empirically, the experiment failed to control terrorism, and I believe that it will do so again. From the mouths of Ministers, including the Home Secretary, it is acknowledged that identity cards would not have affected how "clean skins" operate inside this country.

I have been listening to the hon. Gentleman's argument, and I accept that identity cards would not prevent a particular incident from taking place. However, their use and a register would make it much easier to identify people using multiple identities subsequently, and would therefore aid their capture and reduce the global pool of would-be terrorists.

That is a fair point. If that is the case, however, first, let us confirm that the biometrics and technology will work to allow that to happen. Secondly, why did the Home Secretary say in July that identity cards would not have affected the two sets of attacks? I do not know. Conceivably, if the card can be made to work, if the biometrics are feasible, and if it comes in at a reasonable cost, there may be something in it. I see nothing at the moment that suggests that it would work, however.

I cannot recall the Home Secretary's exact words in July, but I do recall a discussion about the use of identity cards in Spain to identify the Madrid bombers, and about mobile phones. Because it was necessary to register an identity card when buying a mobile phone, it was possible to track down the bombers.

That is not the point that the Government are making. The bombers in Spain were identified as a result of a number of basic mistakes that they made with the use of mobile phones. The fact that evidence had been well maintained and recorded, and had been used by both the mobile phone companies and the police—as well as the curiously amateurish behaviour of the terrorists—allowed the terrorists to be identified.

The hon. Gentleman did, however, make a fair point. The bombers who killed themselves on 7 July did two things very deliberately. First, they made sure that their faces were recorded by cameras before they went to their deaths. Secondly—this is really the point—they made sure that they had on them forms of identity so that their bodies could be identified, and they would reap whatever rewards they thought they might as a result of claiming responsibility for their acts.

Is the hon. Gentleman suggesting that the Spanish identity card played no role in the detection of those responsible for the Madrid bombings?

It certainly played no role in preventing the bombings, although it helped when linked with telephone records.

Had identity cards been on the bodies of the 7 July bombers, that would have been frightfully helpful; but that is not the point. The cards are not about trying to identify dead bodies. They are about what we call preventing terrorism.

The bombers in Spain were still alive, and the police and security services were able to locate them rapidly. That may have prevented them from carrying out further damage and destruction.

That is simply not the case. As the Minister is well aware, those terrorists attacked again within two weeks.

I think that this is a bit of a red herring. The amendments are concerned with how we can make the register more robust. Loopholes in the Bill need to be tightened. There are far too many freedoms in it. We are trying to deal with serious crime. We are trying to ensure that facts about security are listed. We shall discuss that later, but massive loopholes are littered throughout the Bill, and we seek to tighten them.

May I add that all this discussion about whether or not someone has—

No, the hon. Gentleman may not. An intervention should be very much more concise.

My hon. Friend is right: there are loopholes all over the place. The amendments seek to define the purpose of the register and of the identity cards, which is why at least two are linked.

I agree with the hon. Member for Bournemouth, East (Mr. Ellwood). Is not the point that the Spanish identity card has a very different scope from the card proposed in the Bill, which includes an enormous database? The Government could obtain the advantages that they believe the Spanish card provides with a much simpler system.

The hon. Lady is right. The Spanish model is entirely different from the one proposed by the Government.

In the context of terrorism, the card stands condemned by its own statements and indeed those of Ministers. Let me amplify a point I made earlier. In January this year, a mess tent in Baghdad was blown to pieces. There were 43 casualties, both Iraqi and American. It seems likely that the suicide bomber who blew them up was an Iraqi policeman, and that he was carrying an identity card that allowed him to get through the security checks and to penetrate to the very centre of his target before detonating his bomb. In some ways, such a card would not impede terrorism; indeed, it might actually help it.

Do we not need to know from the Government precisely how helpful identity cards and the register would be in the detection and prevention of terrorism, so that we can judge whether the system's disadvantages would be outweighed by such help? Is it not true that at the moment, the Government are offering the blanket statement—sometimes it is a blanket statement—that this provision will be frightfully helpful in dealing with terrorism, but that on other occasions, they say that it will not be quite so helpful? What we really need to know is how helpful it would be, so that we can properly judge whether it is worth the candle.

I am grateful to my right hon. Friend for that intervention and he is absolutely right: we need to ask ourselves whether this card is really going to deliver the promises that have been made. I have made the point, I trust, that the Government's view changes by the day. On First Reading, which I had the perhaps tainted pleasure of attending some months ago, terrorism played a big part in the Bill's logic. When we went through the Bill for the second time, the Government's line suddenly changed after 7 July. In a way, it is lucky for them that the House rose on 21 July, before these issues could be examined in any great detail.

I have great respect for the hon. Gentleman's military background and for the great knowledge that he brings to this House, but I am a little bit concerned about the example of the mess tent bombing that he mentioned. He said that the ID card allowed the bomber to access the tent and then to explode the bomb, but even if the bomber had not possessed such a card, he would surely have had some kind of pass; in fact, without one he could not have been a member of the police force. We should also consider the example of this House, which gives passes to people so that they can enter it. So trying to argue that the ID card allowed the bomb to be planted in the mess tent is stretching the House a little.

I would not wish to stretch the House in any way, shape or form, and nor would I wish to stretch my credibility with the hon. Gentleman. I was trying to expand on, perhaps even dilate on, the point that a form of identity can—can—assist terrorists. Obviously, the circumstances in Iraq are very different from those that we face today. The fact remains, however, that had the identity card scheme been in place, such cards would quite legitimately and properly have been with all the bombers who died on 7 July. They might have been very useful in identifying their shattered remains, of course, but they certainly would not have prevented terrorism.

The hon. Gentleman is being very generous in giving way. Is it not true that the more the security forces rely on identity cards, the less alert they will be to other factors? In the Iraq case that was mentioned, the person in question probably waved the identity card and managed to get straight in. But if similar circumstances arise in the United Kingdom, it is very likely that terrorists who do not want to be detected will have false identity cards, and that they will therefore be waved through the various systems of checks.

Possibly, but such terrorists need not necessarily have false identities. Having a proper, pukka, legal, straightforward identity will not prevent terrorism. I was a serving soldier in Northern Ireland when the illustrated driving licence was introduced—it was introduced first with a photograph and then with a thumbprint—and we were told that it would be the solution to terrorism. Much of the terrorism in Ulster was conducted by people using cars, trucks and the like, and we were told that the licence would solve the problem. It did not. On the contrary, the tired, wet, exhausted and distracted soldiers saw that piece of identity as a pass—something to assist rather than impede.

There may be a number of circumstances in which possession of an identification card helps to prevent terrorism, but in the majority of cases, that will be so only if the possession and carrying of the card is made a mandatory requirement of law. That, of course, is expressly excluded by the Bill. Does my hon. Friend agree?

As usual, I am grateful to my right hon. and learned Friend for his intervention. He is quite right that the carriage of the card—though the register may have some useful purposes—is not required by the Bill. Having sat through several Committee sittings, I know that we were told that enabling legislation could be introduced quickly to compel people to carry the card, but I absolutely take my right hon. and learned Friend's point.

My hon. Friend is being notably generous in giving way. This provision pertains to who is to maintain the register and what is to appear on the card when it is issued. I am very concerned both about what is going to be on the card and about who will have access to it. For example, could clause 1(4)(d) oblige every employer to check every potential employee and, if so, how will employers do that and how will they gain access to the register?

Those questions certainly need to be answered, but I would suggest a prior question: will the card work? Is the technology capable of recording the various details to which my hon. Friend has just referred? I shall not test your patience further, Mr. Deputy Speaker, by digressing to answer that question more fully. It will, in any case, recur later on and it remains a hugely good and important point.

I believe that the Government have tried to make the card all things to all men—a one-size-fits-all approach. We know that the card will not have to be carried and that no one can demand to see it, and we shall come on in due course to the cost of the card, which I believe will be prohibitive. The fact remains that the benefits of both the register and the identity card are highly dubious and I do not accept the claim that they will prevent terrorism.

As others have said, the hon. Gentleman is being extraordinarily generous in giving way. He is establishing some important points, but before he finishes, will he comment on the fact that the card will not only articulate identity, but allow the actions of the bearer to be traced? It is both a contact card and a contact-less card. As one enters a public place, the card establishes that one has been there. When an individual possesses the card, the actions and activities of its bearer are traceable. That is an important matter, which has not been at the forefront of debates on the Floor of the House, though it may have been mentioned in Committee.

I can certainly confirm that the human rights elements of what might be called the Big Brother aspects of the card have been explored thoroughly in Committee. To my mind, those aspects are hugely disagreeable, but if the Government wish to control a population, put a population under surveillance or poke their nose into every detail of someone's life, I can see that those aspects could be viewed as highly desirable. I would reply to the hon. Gentleman by posing the question whether the card could ever work.

Pursuing that point, is not the opposite likely to be the case? Is not the process of registration of tens of millions of people built around the same paper process that we already use to identify people and is it not capable of being abused? Could we not be creating an opportunity for thousands or even tens of thousands of false identities to be created at the very process of registration in the first place—carrying over all the weaknesses of the present ID systems? Once the card is issued, the biometric data can tell us that this is the person who holds that card, but it certainly does not tell us that it is a genuine identity.

The old aphorism relating to any form of computer or intelligence work is, "Rubbish in, rubbish out." Unless we get it right from the first principles, the card and the register stand little chance of success. [Interruption.] I seem to have had the desired effect on my own Benches. [Laughter.] We are getting the chance to check the dentures of one of my colleagues, thereby establishing his identity beyond doubt. [Laughter.]

If I may leave terrorism for a moment and go on to the second claim made by the Government, concerning serious and organised crime. I have asked the Government on a number of occasions to provide one—just one—example of a crime detected in this country in the recent past that would have been stopped by an identification card. No single example has been provided to me. Has any example been provided in Committee or to the hon. Gentleman?

The hon. and learned Gentleman as usual puts his finger on it. I hope that my earlier quote from Interpol illustrates exactly that point. Nothing that is claimed for the card has been proved to my satisfaction.

The card claims much but in practice will deliver little. It changes with the wind. The Government sometimes see the card as being the cure-all to everything, a panacea across the piece. It will sort out crime and prevent terrorism. It will be an entitlement card without parallel. But this group of amendments exposes the card and the register for what they are; unworkable.

Clauses 1 and 2 contain the meat of the Bill, as was reflected in Committee by the exceptionally substantial debate that we had on them. I observe in passing that now they are on the Floor of the House, we are to be allowed one hour and seven minutes to do them justice.

As the hon. Member for Newark (Patrick Mercer) said, time and again the Government have damaged their own case by constantly seeking to oversell identity cards, presumably because of the extraordinary costs that will be involved in their introduction and operation. Just as one argument is knocked down, so it seems another has to be produced. We are told that it is about identity fraud and then that it is not; that it is about terrorism, and then that it is not; that it is about benefit fraud and then that it is not.

My concern is the same as that of the hon. Gentleman in relation to the underpinning of his amendments, although I have one or two detailed points where I disagree with him. I will come to them later, but my fundamental concern is that the Bill is exceptionally widely drawn. Nowhere is that more apparent than clause 1(4), which seeks to define those things that are considered to be necessary in the public interest.

The House will see that paragraphs (a) to (d) are fairly sensibly and reasonably drawn. Paragraph (a) says:

"in the interests of national security".

Paragraph (b) talks about

"the prevention or detection of crime"

—or as our amendment No. 24 would have it, "serious crime". Paragraph (c) says for

"the enforcement of immigration controls"

and (d)

"enforcement of prohibitions on unauthorised working or employment."

So far, so good. But when one comes to (e), one finds the catch-all,

"securing the efficient and effective provision of public services."

It is not so much a question of what that contains, but what it does not contain. The provision gives the Government carte blanche to hold and use information in just about any way they choose. As later clauses reveal, in almost every instance the Government will be able to appoint themselves the sole arbiter of what constitutes the public interest in these matters.

Does my hon. Friend recall that I questioned the Prime Minister about this matter? Although the Labour-led Welsh Assembly voted against requiring the use of identity cards to access public services, the Prime Minister was not willing to give any indication that there might be an exemption for Wales. That makes me believe that the Government are hell bent on introducing the provision, and that they are not simply giving themselves the option to do so.

My hon. Friend raises an important point, and it is clear that there will be different modes of operation in different parts of the UK. He has highlighted the situation in Wales, but the Scottish Executive have already made their position clear. In the public services for which they are responsible—that is, health, education and policing, in the main—the Executive have stated that they have no wish to use identity cards. It seems, happily, that the influence of the control freaks in No. 10 Downing street lessens the further one gets from London.

The hon. Gentleman is making a very persuasive speech. Is not his argument supported by the Select Committee report, which states, in terms, that the purpose provisions in clause 1 are too widely drawn? The report says that those provisions should be narrowly confined, and offers some recommendations in that respect.

The right hon. and learned Gentleman is right, and his intervention allows me to explain why the concerns about the widely drawn nature of the purposes in clause 1 are important. The debate is not simply about the possession of an identity, but about how the Government have constructed their proposals. They intend to set up a register of the information provided, and then the Bill details how that information is to be used—when, where, and for what purpose.

In effect, the Bill establishes a personal footprint for each individual that the Government can access—apparently at any time and for any reason, just about —to find where people have been and what they have been doing. As I and others have said in the House before, the Bill redefines the relationship between the citizen and the state, or the individual and the Government. It seems to proceed on the assumption that, in some way, the people are accountable to the Government. My contention is that that should be the other way around—that the Government should be accountable to the people. If the Government need access to the personal footprint that I have described, they should provide a coherent and compelling reason.

My hon. Friend makes exactly the right point about how widely drawn are the powers of the state, as set out in clause 1. However, we know from the Cabinet Office leak that the Government also foresee that the information will be used by the private sector. Does my hon. Friend agree that a person's identity number and card may be required by a growing number of private-sector organisations, as validation of that individual's identity? As a result, those organisations will build up data around that number, and the Government may well be able to buy into that data. Is not this a system for allowing the collection of an almost infinite amount of information about individuals—by the Government, and by those who might try to access various forms of data networks about people? The latter may pay for that information, but they might also procure it illegitimately, by breaking into those data networks.

Order. Interventions should be brief, as this debate is very much time limited.

There is very little that I need add to my hon. Friend's intervention, other than to say that he makes a good point about function creep. That becomes possible because the purposes are so widely drawn.

Government amendment No. 2 is unexceptionable. However, given the catalogue of examination that the Minister of State outlined earlier in response to the motion in the name of my hon. Friend the Member for Somerton and Frome (Mr. Heath), it is remarkable that the Government should still feel it necessary to table their own amendments.

The Minister of State was pressed in Committee on clause 7, which is the mechanism by which identity cards may be made compulsory. I read press reports during the summer months which suggested that the Minister had accepted during a Home Office seminar that the so-called super-affirmative procedure was defective and unworkable. Is that the case? If so, why have the Government not tabled amendments to rectify the defects today?

I am one of those in the House who believes in identity cards. My problem with the Bill is that the Government have shown an infallible ability so to form it that it drives away from their support the very people whose support one would have thought that they could have gained.

The amendments go to the heart of the matter. The hon. Member for Orkney and Shetland (Mr. Carmichael) has rightly pointed out that with this Bill the Government have given themselves every possibility to do almost anything in any circumstances. Many of us who are not unhappy with the concept of an identity card are unhappy with the concept of a Government who give themselves powers like that. Governments have an insatiable desire for power and therefore will use it in ways that most of us will find unacceptable.

My hon. and learned Friend the Member for Harborough (Mr. Garnier) made the point that seems to me central to this issue. If we are to agree with the Government that we should have identity cards, we need to know three clear things. First, what restrictions on the use of identity information will the Government put permanently in place and what mechanisms will they use to do so? We need to know the scope of the legislation. These clauses show that the scope is in no way restricted. It is envisaged to be as wide as the Government think it should be at any particular time.

The second issue that the amendments raise is what the Government think that the identity card might do. I happen to think that there are certain areas in which it would be helpful and useful to have a unique register of everybody's name and address. It is possible to argue that that could be portrayed on a card. I happen to think the other way round from my hon. and learned Friend; I think that the register is more important than the card. Be that as it may, there are mechanisms by which this could be done. What the Government cannot do is to claim for identity cards things that are self-evidently not true. The Government in so doing are driving away people who might otherwise have been corralled. It seems to me that the Government are making a series of claims, hoping that one way or another they will pick up the support of all sorts of people whose support they would not otherwise have gained. In fact, the opposite is happening. As each of these claims is made and found wanting, people begin to ask whether the whole idea is a sensible one.

The third issue that the amendments raise is what my hon. and learned Friend the Member for Harborough referred to as "Will it work?" Unless we know its scope and what it is supposed to do, we can make no judgment as to whether this particular scheme—let alone the technology, which one cannot deal with on this group of amendments—will work. None of these things seem to me to be evident from the Bill. It is an inconvenience of the House that in these days of truncated debates and the significantly underused potential of Parliament, the only way in which we can get at these things is by tabling amendments such as this and asking for sensible responses. So I put three simple questions to the Minister. Will he put in the Library a list of the specific purposes of the Bill? What does he think he will be able to do after he has got it that he cannot do now? Will he, perhaps with a little narrative, describe incidents that could have been better dealt with if only he had had this particular equipment? That seems to me to be what any sensible person would do if they were running a business and thinking of spending a lot of money. They would ask how they could be in a better position and whether the solution would have been cost-effective if applied to their past actions.

Perhaps the Minister could explain the role of the identity card in the prevention of terrorism. I can see that it would be useful in circumstances in which someone claims to be Mr. Jones to check whether they are indeed that person. That is a satisfactory concept, but I cannot see how widely that could be used in the direct battle against terrorism. The Minister should tell us more about that.

I have always thought that it would be very helpful for people in this country to know that those people who claim benefits are entitled to them and not fiddling the system. I think that not for atavistic reasons, but because I happen to believe that benefits are an important part of a civilised society and people should not be besmirched because the system does not work very well. We have heard such contradictory views from the Government about how ID cards could be used against fraud, how much that might save and how many people might be involved, that it is difficult for any sane person to make a judgment. Many of us want to make a judgment, because we are not here for theological reasons only. Can the Minister give a definitive statement of how ID cards and the register will be useful in that area?

Why does the right hon. Gentleman have a problem with clause 1(4), which clearly outlines the purposes of the Bill? With which of those uses of the Bill does he have a problem?

Well, clause 1(4) may outline the purposes of the Bill, but it is on such a broad canvas that it is like a Tintoretto painting, with many little figures. The Government have focused on a tiny part of the canal and said that they are concerned only about that bit, but they have painted all the rest in because it is pretty and because they might be concerned about that campanile at a later stage. That is a fanciful example, but perhaps it will cheer up those listening to the debate.

My question for my right hon. Friend is in part a response to the hon. Member for City of Durham (Dr. Blackman-Woods). When my right hon. Friend sounds out the Minister, as he is doing so clearly, he may wish to ask what aspect of government does not fall within the definition of

"securing the efficient and effective provision of public services".

That is included in the stated purposes of the Bill.

My right hon. and learned Friend has underlined the point that my metaphor of a great painting is far too small. The Bill will enable the Government to use the ID card and the register to discover the number of times an individual has used a public library, if they decide that discovering that fact is in the national interest. The hon. Lady must understand that the clause would enable the Government to discover anything they like—probably not the number of times a person uses public lavatories, but that could be one of the examples.

When my right hon. Friend asks the Minister to place that document in the Library, will he also ask him to place in the Library a draft of the 60 statutory instruments that the Bill will give the Secretary of State the power to produce?