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Last week I was singled out at the Despatch Box by Tony McNulty - the
government minister summing up in the Identity Cards debate - for being
'irresponsible', 'wrong' and 'wrong' again. So - clearly I'm doing
something right!
One of the many problems with Labour's case for ID cards is it's based on
a perfect world - one where computers get it right, where iris scanners
are as accurate as something straight out of James Bond, where
administrators have accurate records, where every policeman is perfectly
impartial in who they choose to stop, and on and on. Well - life isn't
perfect!
The government hasn't got much of a record when it comes to getting big
projects right. Tony McNulty himself should know that only too well -
having previously been the minister in charge of CrossRail - that big rail
project which has been delayed even more than the trains.
The Passport Office's big IT project was an expensive nightmare - yet
they're a key part of the ID cards plans. Even the much, much simpler plan
to draw together councils' different electoral registers into one national
electronic database has precious little to show for the last five years of
planning - though at least the project has done so little, it hasn't
managed to waste much money!
But above all there's the civil liberties question. I was born free and
have always believed I was innocent until proved guilty. When I walk out
of my front door going about my own business - no one has any right to
know anything about me as long as I do no harm.
I should not need a license to leave my house - let alone pay between one
and three hundred pounds for the privilege. (Even if Labour keeps down the
cost we get charged for an ID card, that will only be done by taking the
money from somewhere else - we'll still be paying for it through our
taxes).
Labour's proposals strike at the heart of everything I believe in and am
passionate about in terms of civil liberties. This is the biggest shift in
the relationship between State and individual in my lifetime.
And then - of course - the scheme won't deliver any of the benefits the
Government dangles as a carrot over the nation's head - which is why the
carrot keeps changing. At first it was to stop terrorism. It won't do
that. Accuracy of identity documents has not been the problem with terrorists. Credit where it's due, the
government has admitted that Thursday's tragic events would not have been halted by ID cards.
The government has tried justifying ID cards because of immigration - and it's no
surprise to me that the figures on 'illegal' immigrants have suddenly
surfaced. That won't work either - the Met Police's Operation Maxim crackdown on
organised immigration crime found plenty of forged ID documents in use by
the criminals. But guess what ... more than 9 out of every 10 is a forged ID
document from another country. Changing the UK's ID documents won't help
with that. Trying to make the rest of the world start using the UK's ID
cards would be a bit too big brother even for Blair and Clarke!
And so the Government moved on to identity fraud - which ID cards do not
tackle either. The Government keeps on saying this costs the UK £1.3
billion a year. Quite possibly true - but that doesn't mean ID cards will
help. Some of this sum is estimates of excise fraud, but much of the
criminal activity involves people who have (and would still have) foreign
ID cards, not UK ones. Or look at the figures for credit card fraud that
are in that total too. Oh but - look again, they include fraud where the
card users wasn't present, so no chance to check any I.D. documents
anyway.
So as the Government's rationale changes as each new argument is
demolished, as the costs spiral and as people realise the huge range of
information the Government wants to store on the ID card database - I make
it over 30 different items listed in the legislation already (and that's
without the inevitable creep which will come over time) -the scheme
hopefully will go down.
The alternative? Well, the Lib Dem manifesto costings for the general
election pointed out how the sums could be made to add up - if we scrap ID
cards - to get an extra 10,000 police officers plus 20,000 community
support officers. Now that would be fighting crime seriously!
(c) Lynne Featherstone, 2005
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Trying to make the rest of the world start using the UK's ID cards would be a bit too big brother even for Blair and Clarke!
