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Patrick Mercer: I do not know whether the Minister was about to finish; I think that he probably was. Could he make reference to the Civil Contingencies Act 2004 and say how it might be affected?
Mr. McNulty: The provisions simply will not impact on the 2004 Act in any way, as I understand it. I was in the Office of the Deputy Prime Minister when that Act began its progress—at least, that was where the Act started; I have no idea where it ended up. [Interruption.] Via which Department, I meant. I shall ignore sedentary comments in future, in line with your earlier exhortation, Mr. Hood.
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The 2004 Act has a specific set of purposes and powers for particular circumstances. Some way down the line, when the system is in place, there may well be some link-over between this Bill and the 2004 Act in the case of an emergency involving authorities, whether local, regional or national, for the statutory purposes of the Bill. But in normal circumstances—for which the Civil Contingencies Act is clearly not designed—the overlap between the two is minimal..
Several hon. Members rose—
Mr. McNulty: I shall give way to the hon. Member for Newark and then the hon. Member for Orkney and Shetland.
Patrick Mercer: I was being inattentive; I hope that the Minister will forgive me.
I am very interested in this point. What I say is not intended to be antagonistic in any way; I merely want to assist. I had the privilege of sitting on the Committee that considered the Civil Contingencies Bill, and there were many vague points in it. I think that the Minister sees what I am driving at. It would be enormously helpful if he could provide some guidance on what would happen if a state of emergency was declared under the 2004 Act; perhaps he could do so later, in writing. I appreciate that there is no precedent for such a situation, but any guidance would be of enormous assistance to me.
Mr. McNulty: If there is anything further to say in writing, then of course I shall write, but the starting position is simply this: in some years, well down the line, in a civil emergency of any description—local, regional or national—and within the context of the statutory purposes of the Bill and the equivalent elements in the Civil Contingencies Act 2004, there may well be some interplay between the two. Now, in the context of two separate and distinct pieces of legislation, I do not think that there is quite the interplay that the hon. Gentleman suggests. But if the situation is otherwise, I will certainly come back on the subject in writing.
Mr. Carmichael: I, too, served on the Committee considering the Civil Contingencies Bill, but privilege is not quite the word that I would use to describe the experience. My recollection is that, in the four schedules to that Act, there is fairly significant provision for information sharing among certain Government agencies. I do not expect the Minister to answer my point now, but perhaps he could consider it and write to Members of the Committee. To what extent is there potential, because of those information-sharing provisions, for a widening of scope in terms of access to the information held on the database?
Mr. McNulty: I shall say again what I said to the hon. Member for Newark: if it is within the context of the statutory purposes of this Bill, which I hope will eventually be an Act, there may well be uses to which this Bill could be put from a civil contingencies perspective. But that will not allow people to browse or fish or so on. All the other arguments that we have already rehearsed would apply, too. Everyone can see how there could be some utilisation of the register and the data therein in the context of a national, regional
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or local emergency. If there is more to say on the matter, and on the points that the hon. Member for Orkney and Shetland made about data sharing, I will happily write to the Committee.
I was deeply worried by a comment made earlier by the hon. Member for Orkney and Shetland. He seemed to take great enjoyment from the debate we had about rebuttable versus conclusive presumption, which I am sure did not last too long but felt like it did. If he enjoyed it as much as he implied, I would urge him to get out more.
I take the points made by a range of hon. Gentlemen. I assure my hon. Friend the Member for Stroud that this matter is not about adding to schedule 1 and its breadth and width. We can return to some of the points that he made when we consider clause 5(3), which is about the documentation needed when registering in the first instance.
While I understand what the amendments seek to do, they are far too narrow and far too restrictive on what is enabling legislation. For the interplay and differences that I have suggested between documents under enactment, documents by royal prerogative and documents that another produces in relation to the police and firearms, rather than ultimate responsibility being with the Home Office, we would prefer the degree of flexibility implied by clause 4 as it stands. I ask the hon. and learned Member for Harborough to withdraw the amendment.
Mr. Garnier: I have a great deal of sympathy with the comments made by the hon. Member for Stroud. We need to know more about what is intended by schedule 1 and by the sorts of documents that are to be designated, either under the royal prerogative or under some enactment by virtue of clause 4. My concern is that we are legislating in ignorance. Having heard the Minister, what concerns me even more is that he is bringing forward a Bill without any real idea about the sorts of documents that he will ask us in due course, under the statutory instrument and the order-making powers, to designate.
I will not divide the Committee, but in exchange for not doing so, I urge the Minister to provide us with a public list of the sort of documents involved between now and consideration on Report, although I do not expect him to say social security document A, B, C and D, fishing licence, driving licence and so on. That would give us a general idea of what he thinks he is doing. Knowing the Minister as I do, I suspect that he is not entirely happy with the way in which the clause is crafted. I think he would like to help us a lot more than he is able to do at the moment. The summer recess will intervene. I suspect that by October he will find it within his powers and grace to return to us on Report with a slightly fuller picture of what the Government hope to do under clause 4. I know that he wants to help the House to do its best with this legislation. I will leave things there, in the strong and happy knowledge that come October he will have a little list. I beg to ask leave to withdraw the amendment.
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Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
Clause 4 ordered to stand part of the Bill.
Clause 5
Applications relating to entries in Register
Mr. Carmichael: I beg to move amendment No. 144, in clause 5, page 4, line 39, leave out 'must' and insert
'may, if the applicant so chooses'.
We move on to the more practical applications of the database. We get into the meat of things and how identity cards will impact on the daily lives of our constituents. If the amendment were accepted, subsection (2) would read ''Where an application to be issued with a designated document is made by an individual, the application may, if the applicant so chooses do one of the following''. At present, the way in which the Government have matters drafted means that when a person applies for a designed document—the passport, as the Minister has helpfully told us—he receives the identity card and his details become part of the identity card register as a result of that application.
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The obvious effect of my amendment would be to end the element of compulsion. The hon. Gentleman and others have rightly made great play of the fact that the scheme is not yet compulsory. I suggest that the inclusion of ''must'' goes a long way towards the introduction of compulsion by stealth. We now live in an age when many more people have passports than would have been the case previously. Indeed, passports are used for a wide range of purposes other than foreign travel. By necessity, people will become holders of identity cards. They will become part of the identity register.
The Government extol the virtues of choice in the provision of health and education. It is a new orthodoxy that is sometimes difficult to challenge these days. If the identity card scheme is as good as the Minister claims, and if it has all the manifold benefits that he has spoken about, people will wish to have identity cards and compulsion will not be necessary. It is as simple as that.
Mr. Garnier: I support the hon. Gentleman's amendment because it has far greater implications than we might realise. Subsection (2) does not deal with an application to be registered, but an application to apply for a designated document. We have just discovered that we do not know what the designated documents are; they could well be any document that the Secretary of State lights upon during the next two or three years. That is why it is all the more important that, by October, we have been given a list by the Minister. We are discussing an application to be issued with a designated document.
I hope that I am not exaggerating matters, but my fear is that, under the system that we are allowing blindly to grip us, next time the hon. Gentleman applies at Lerwick post office for a television licence, a fishing licence, a game licence or any other licence, if that is a designated document he will have to
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undertake all that is required under subsection (2). Can the Committee imagine the increase in bureaucracy that will flow from the provision to go through the simple process of obtaining, let us say, a television licence? I am not sure that the Government intend such a process, but if it is what they intend, perhaps they would be good enough to tell us. The hon. Gentleman has opened up a little oyster and I hope that the Minister can explain what precisely we ought to be seeing or, more to the point, what the Government intend by the provision.
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