Further state control as Tories 'climb down' on ID card Bill

Written by Baroness Sarah Ludford MEP and published in The Daily Telegraph on Fri 31st Mar 2006

Sir - Regarding the final outcome on the ID cards Bill, I'm afraid the "major climbdown" described by David Davis (News, March 27) was in fact by the Conservatives, not by the Government. It was a shame, after the excellent cross-party resistance of the past few weeks led ably by both Lady Anelay of St Johns for the Conservatives and Lord Phillips of Sudbury for the Lib Dems.

The discomfort felt by some Conservative peers led to a couple voting with the Liberal Democrats to oppose this deal and at least one abstention, that of Lord Tebbit. The so-called compromise that the Tory leadership agreed to in the Lords will still mean that everyone applying for a new or renewed passport (and seven million people do so every year) will have to go on the identity register, which involves having fingerprints and possibly iris scans taken. The only concession is that we will be able to refuse to take the actual card.

In accepting this deal lasting only till January 2010, which is before the obligatory last date of the next election, the Tories caved in on the fundamental point that this Government has no electoral mandate to introduce compulsory ID cards, which must mean also the underlying register, by stealth.

Only the Liberal Democrats maintained opposition to both the identity database and the ID card, on grounds both of principle - the fact that it makes the state our master, not our servant - and of cost.

Baroness Ludford MEP (Lib Dem), London N1