Ministers defeated over ID cards

Ministers defeated over ID cards [again!]

The government has again been defeated on its plans to make identity cards compulsory after Lords voted to make the scheme voluntary until 2011. Ministers say anyone getting a passport from 2008 should have to get an ID card and have their biometric details added to the national identity database.

This was the fourth time those plans have been rejected by peers. They backed a Lib Dem proposal to make ID cards voluntary until 2011, but compulsory from 2012.

It means people renewing passports can choose, until 2011, whether or not to be registered on the ID card database and issued with a card. The government wants to make it compulsory for people applying for certain documents, such as passports, to join the ID card scheme.

"It is principally because I think it is thoroughly disreputable and dishonest of us to pretend that voluntary means compulsory that I have stuck to my guns"
Lord Phillips of SudburyLiberal Democrat peer

Peers say that delaying compulsion until 2012 would mean the issue could become part of a future general election campaign - while allowing the government to continue implementing the scheme in the meantime.

But ministers have said that while peers are trying to appear reasonable they are actually just trying to delay the legislation. Home Office Minister Andy Burnham pledged to "stand firm" against the peers and to try to overturn the Lib Dem amendment in the Commons.

"It is clear that the opposition parties, through their representatives in the Lords, are now playing politics with a flagship government bill to provide the nation with a comprehensive, safe and secure means of safeguarding identity," he said.

In the Lords, Home Office Minister Baroness Scotland of Asthal accused peers of being obstinate in refusing to back down to the will of the elected House of Commons. But Liberal Democrat Lord Phillips of Sudbury said the aim of his compromise proposal was to avoid the government using the Parliament Act to force compulsory ID cards into law.

He said making the scheme compulsory and forcing anyone who applied for a passport to join the national identity database was against the Labour manifesto. "I have a complete sense of the superiority of the Commons. We are lucky to be here at all and we try and do a good job, but we are subservient to the elected House," he said.

"But when I see the elected House coming to this place and saying to the country that that manifesto commitment, doesn't mean voluntary, it means compulsory, then I do actually believe that we have a duty then to say, 'No you don't'.

"We live in times that the public sense of the probity and honour of the Houses of Parliament is not at its highest. There are issues swirling around that are causing great angst within this Palace and beyond.

"And it is principally because I think it is thoroughly disreputable and dishonest of us to pretend that voluntary means compulsory that I have stuck to my guns."

Lady Scotland said she did not believe Lord Phillips' amendment was a compromise. On Thursday MPs voted by 292 to 241 to overturn a previous Lords defeat as the measure continues to "ping-pong" between the two Houses of Parliament.

Home Secretary Charles Clarke told opponents to stop "frustrating the will of the people". The bill is set to return to the House of Commons on Tuesday.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/politics/4825790.stm

[It is extraordinary that occasionally it is left to the unelected house of Lords to defend a measure of democracy, but as in this case, occasionally it does happen. We need PR to ensure that a minority Government like the Blair one can't push through legislation based on bare faced lies.

I have in my possession a letter from my local MP (a Government Minister no less) which said the Government was not planning a compulsory scheme (and also admits that ID cards will have no significant effect on terrorism) and yet here we have the same Government attempting to push through compulsion and which has on numerous occasions claimed that in some way this bill was intrinsically linked to combatting terrorism. It's complete bollocks and well done to the Lords for holding out.

Luckily if this legislation IS forced through, as it probably will be, there are plans to combat it with civil disobediance, I have a strong feeling that this will become Labour's poll tax. It's just a great pity that given Labour's history they have completely wasted their entire time in office and failed to reverse any major change by Thatcher. What a waste of time removing Major for Blair who (with the singular exception of the devolution bill which he was forced into) has quite frankly been a lot worse. - JOE]