Identity Cards
The next item of business is a debate on motion S3M-2906, in the name of Fergus Ewing, on identity cards.
I welcome today's debate. It allows us to discuss the United Kingdom Government's plans on ID cards, and it enables me to make quite clear where the Scottish Government stands on the issue. The debate is timely because, earlier this month, the Home Office announced how it will start to implement its plans for ID cards. It also released its latest cost projections for its ID scheme. The Scottish Government is extremely concerned about the costs of the scheme. In the current financial climate, the UK Government should have better use for the vast sums of money being spent on the scheme.
Will the minister take an intervention?
Not just yet, thank you—but I will take an intervention later.
Thanks.
Millions have already been spent and projected costs have been rising. In 2004, the UK Government estimated projected costs to deliver the scheme at £3,100 million. The latest figures show that that amount has now risen by almost £2,000 million to around £5,000 million.
Over 10 years. Does the minister not accept that 72 per cent of those costs will be required to be paid anyway to implement biometric passports—which I understand that the Scottish National Party supports?
No, I do not accept that. Even if that were true—
It is true.
Mr Foulkes will perhaps have his chance to speak from a non-sedentary position later.
On a point of order, Presiding Officer.
I will not take debating points dressed up as points of order.
I want to follow up the point that Jeremy Purvis made at the end of the statement about matters concerning the United Kingdom Government being discussed. We are now debating a matter that is entirely reserved. The minister clearly does not know the facts because he does not have officials who are able to give them to him—
Order. I have heard enough. That is not a point of order. The Presiding Officer has accepted the matter for debate.
The scheme will cost £5,000 million. Even if Mr Baker and the Home Office are correct in saying that some of that money may have to be spent anyway because of the need for a Euro-ID biometric system, that would still—according to the Home Office's figures—leave around 30 per cent of that cost to be paid, which is more than £1,500 million. Even if the cost were that amount, we would argue that it would be a waste of money at this time.
Previously, the Home Office made it clear that, for an individual,
"the charge for a stand-alone ID card, valid for 10 years, will be £30."
Will the minister give way?
No. However, citizens now face two separate fees: the statutory fee of £30 and the enrolment fee. In addition, just as the overall costs to the taxpayer are very much estimates, citizens have been told that only for 2009-10—when very few people will have to get a card anyway—has the application fee been set at £30.
Will the minister take an intervention?
No. You have had your chance, Lord Foulkes. I am not giving way to you.
I have not had any chance.
Order. The member has said that he is not giving way.
Because he does not want to know the facts.
I hope that the level of debate in the House of Lords is of a higher order than we have heard this afternoon.
What someone will have to pay the "open market organisation" for collecting their biometric data—the second fee—is anyone's guess. Using private sector organisations for enrolment may be a way of keeping the figures down in the official cost reports, but it ignores the fact that the public are extremely uncomfortable about giving their personal data to the private sector.
I turn to issues of terrorism. Not only is the scheme extremely costly; ID cards will not make us more secure, whatever Lord Foulkes says from a sedentary position. The well-respected human rights organisation, Privacy International, undertook an international study of the supposed link between ID cards and the prevention of terrorism. It found that ID cards, with or without biometrics, do not deter terrorist activity and that the vast majority of terrorists operate under their true identities. In Spain, where ID cards are compulsory and must be carried by all, those who were responsible for the 2004 Madrid bombings used at least one genuine ID document.
All of us in the chamber are totally opposed to terrorism. However, it is not only legitimate, but essential that this Government points out that, in our view, with support from others in the chamber, this vastly expensive scheme will not significantly—if at all—contribute to the successful combating of terrorism.
With regard to large databases, the national identity register could increase the risk of fraud rather than reduce it. Jerry Fishenden, Microsoft's lead technology adviser for the UK and a member of our privacy expert group, mentioned the ID card scheme in relation to his warning that
"significant additional problems could arise if yet more of our personal information is acquired and stored in new central databases."
He explained that
"the more databases set up and the more information exchanged from one place to another, the greater the risk of things going wrong."
Further, he said:
"Put simply, holding huge collections of personal data brings significant risks."
In Germany, the use of unique ID numbers and the storage of personal data on a central register are prohibited. In France, the national commission for data protection has reservations about plans for a national database ahead of the introduction of biometric passports, and has forced its Government to rethink its proposals.
The Scottish Government's eCare framework, our multi-agency information sharing service, is finding ways to share personal data securely and with the strictest controls, without creating a large centralised database. Further, the local authorities' citizen's accounts initiative, which started under the previous Administration, has recently been independently reviewed and will report shortly.
However, the Scottish Government is not complacent. It is up to all of us to take care to protect data and confidential information, and to avoid data leakage.
The United Kingdom Government's abysmal record on data security is reason enough to cancel the ID scheme. How can we trust the UK Government with our personal data when its track record has gone from bad to worse? Not only did it lose 25 million child benefit records but, since then, the number of data breaches reported to the information commissioner has soared.
I am also concerned about the recent failures in security clearances at the Security Industry Authority, a public body sponsored by the Home Office. The authority has responsibility for regulating the private security industry across Britain. I was dismayed to learn that the authority itself employed agency staff without appropriate security clearance.
Have there been any instances when the Scottish Government has lost personal data—yes or no?
As I said earlier, we are absolutely not complacent. That is why I specifically said that. We must constantly be vigilant.
On the UK Government's record, since Paul Martin raised it, I can say that in December 2007, 3 million learner drivers' details went missing; in January 2008, the loss of a laptop resulted in the details of 600,000 military recruits being made public and hundreds of Department for Work and Pensions documents went missing; in June 2008, a senior intelligence officer from the Cabinet Office left a top-secret file on the seat of a train; in August 2008, information was leaked about 84,000 prisoners in England and Wales; and in October 2008, a computer hard drive containing the details of approximately 100,000 armed forces members was lost. Perhaps the UK Government should focus on the issue of looking after the data that it has, rather than creating a new, complicated system for new data.
We are also concerned about the potential impact on community relations. Ethnic minority communities are worried that the introduction of ID cards will strain relations with the police. The Commission for Racial Equality said that ethnic minorities' fear of discrimination is neither misconceived nor exaggerated, as latest Ministry of Justice statistics on the stop-and-search policy show that black people are seven times and Asian people two times more likely to be stopped than white people.
The first group of UK citizens who will be required to enrol in the identity register and have ID cards are airside workers. To begin with, from October 2009, this will affect airside workers at two airports: Manchester and London City. Trade unions and airlines have criticised those plans, pointing out that their members and employees are already subject to stringent security checks—as one would expect. Those workers now face an ultimatum: get an identity card or get a new job.
The general secretary of the British Airline Pilots Association—an organisation that should know something about airside security—said that airside ID cards
"will do nothing to improve aviation security"
and called on the Government to stop playing Big Brother and concentrate on sorting out existing problems.
The Scottish National Party has opposed ID cards from the outset. The scheme will not achieve its primary stated objective of making people safer and reducing the terrorist threat, and it poses an unacceptable threat to citizens' privacy and civil liberties. It is also a colossal waste of money that would have been better spent supporting the front-line services, such as police and prisons, that actually make a difference to the people of Scotland.
The Scottish Government has made its position clear to the UK Government on several occasions. I look forward to hearing members' views on those important issues.
I move,
That the Parliament notes that the UK Government's proposals for an ID card scheme are presently estimated by it to cost the public purse around £5 billion and considers that the scheme as proposed will not increase security, nor deter crime, and will have serious implications for the civil liberties of ordinary citizens.
This debate arises from the whole philosophy and attitude of the Labour Government that has made this proposal, which threatens to define our society for many years to come. That Government has experienced disaster after disaster in all its big projects: the failure of the Child Support Agency and the various big information technology projects, and the huge losses of database information in many areas of government. Looming behind that has been the approach to terror and the shadow of the Iraq war.
Will the member give way?
I will get started, if the member does not mind.
Since 1945, we have dealt with the cold war, communist spies, Irish Republican Army terrorists and the protection of nuclear submarines, all without recourse to ID cards. As will no doubt be mentioned—it always is—the people who blew up the twin towers had valid identity card documents, as did the Madrid bombers in 2004. In neither case did the use of ID cards prevent the atrocity.
In light of that, it is no wonder that the UK information commissioner, Richard Thomas, recently said:
"We still have uncertainties about what the primary purpose of the ID card is. Is it to improve policing, to fight terrorism, to improve public services, to avoid identity theft?"
That is the big challenge for the Labour Government, which underlies the steady move in public opinion polls away from support for identity cards since the idea was first suggested. What are ID cards for? What increase in public security justifies the enormous cost? What huge advantage offsets the risk of British citizens being forced to suffer through a hapless Government official leaving key information about someone on a memory stick in a commuter train or a pub car park?
As the Minister for Community Safety said, the first biometric cards are being issued from next Tuesday.
I wish that I could correct all the mis-statements. Can Robert Brown specify precisely which key information about me he is worried about?
We are talking about the linkages to the databases, and the growth of storage of significant data under the current UK Government. It has more information about the individual citizen than any Government in the known civilised world.
I will proceed if I may; I am sure that the member will get his say later. The first biometric cards are being issued next Tuesday to students from outside the European Union and marriage visa holders. The scheme goes under the rather unpleasant name of identity cards for foreign nationals, with all the nasty innuendo that the recipients are aliens or other people from far-off countries that we know nothing about, and who are probably terrorists anyway.
The Home Office, in its usual spin-doctorish way, says that the
"national identity scheme gives people for the first time the ability to prove who they are".
That is not normally a problem—most people know who they are. It might as well say, "Next year we will allow you, too, to pre-register your interest in having an identity card, which will be available from 2012 to you as a bounty from a beneficent Government to a grateful people."
Jacqui Smith, the Home Secretary, says that people regularly come up to her and say that they do not want to wait till 2012. I can say only that Home Secretaries must attract a different class of person wanting to talk to them. Who are those people who are demanding identity cards? Why would anybody want an identity card? Are members of some hitherto unknown religious cult going about the place demanding ID cards, performing the equivalent of mortification of the flesh for medieval penitents? I can conclude only that they must be Labour Party researchers who are trying to curry favour with Government ministers.
The Labour Government backed away from introducing the ID card scheme before the general election because it knows that the scheme has laminated-poll-tax-type fiasco written all over it. Liberal Democrats, not surprisingly, have been at the forefront of the fight against ID cards and have been joined by the Conservatives—after an initial flip-flop, I think—and the SNP.
I ask the Cabinet Secretary for Justice or the Minister for Community Safety to spell out the SNP Government's position on its responsibilities. The Liberal Democrats' position in government was to refuse to allow the proposed ID card to be used to access devolved services. Is that the SNP Government's position? Will whichever minister sums up the debate take the opportunity to distance himself from his colleagues in the SNP's Morningside and Merchiston branch, who propose a national health service ID card with similar information to that which is required for the ID card? Does that proposal have anything to do with the SNP Government's policy for the future?
Liberal Democrats believe that we are in classic civil liberties territory. Identity cards are objectionable because they are a gross intrusion on personal liberty; because, as the minister said, they will help not one whit in the fight against terrorists or criminals; and because they cost a bomb, if members will excuse the pun. It is rarely a problem for the police to identify the people whom they arrest. The problem is catching people in the first place.
ID cards are also objectionable because of their cost. The minister told us about the rising costs. The London School of Economics estimates that the cost will be as high as £18 billion over 10 years and that the issue cost will be £300 a person. Our past experience, be it with information technology projects, the dome, or the Scottish Parliament building, suggests that the cost of such projects runs far beyond the estimates.
The Labour Government is massaging the figures. Its briefing claims—this was touched on in an intervention earlier—that 72 per cent of the costs would be spent on passports anyway. However, current passports, which are more difficult to forge than plastic ID cards, so I am told, already meet the requirements of the International Civil Aviation Organization. In addition, scandalously, the Government has transferred the costs of the centralised collection and retention of biometrics, which is a central feature of the ID card scheme, to the passport budget. Indeed, I have heard it suggested that the cutbacks and job losses at the Glasgow passport office are a direct result of the need to cut costs to pay for that.
The final and most vital reason why the identity card scheme is a bad thing is simply that Governments—whether Labour in London, the SNP in Edinburgh, or even a Liberal Democrat Government—cannot be trusted to handle sensitive data. The scheme is the most ambitious public sector IT project that has ever been undertaken. What is the history of Government data scandals? In the past 12 months alone, there have been no less than 10 major disasters with data that are held by the UK Government and several lesser ones involving Scottish Government agencies. I will not detail them all, because the minister mentioned many of them, but they include data held by the Ministry of Defence, child benefit records, data from the Scottish Ambulance Service, data on NHS workers, and data on prisoners in England and Wales.
It does not take an Einstein to recognise that a would-be terrorist is not exactly presented with a foolproof system if he wants to access private information on British citizens. The paradox is that the entire justification—such as it is—for the ID card scheme is shot down in flames by those horrendous security breaches. Just as it is probably safer these days to leave your life savings in a sock under the bed than in the bank, no one in their right minds would entrust their personal data to the Government.
Of course, all sorts of data are held in IT systems by the Government, local authorities, commercial companies and individuals, including health records, information on criminal convictions, the sex offenders register, and various things of a more personal nature. Some of those systems exist for our convenience or to give access to discounts. There is usually no problem with that. However, when such information is held by Governments, by big monopolies, or as part of a single central database, that is something else again.
The UK already has the largest DNA database in the world. Incidentally, it contains 44 per cent of the male black population compared with only 6 per cent of the white population. More than half a million names on the database are said to be false, misspelt or incorrect. That is bad enough, but how much worse is it for such information to be joined together, kept in such a way that it can be accessed centrally, and made available to an increasingly authoritarian and inept Government? That is the ultimate problem with identity cards.
The Scottish Parliament can send a powerful message, which the Liberal Democrat amendment would strengthen, that the ID card scheme is an expensive white elephant, which was invented by a paranoid Government, has no mandate from public opinion and has serious implications for the civil liberties of ordinary citizens. Liberal Democrats will have none of it, and neither, I believe, will the Parliament.
I move amendment S3M-2906.2, to insert at end:
"; recognises that the UK Government has repeatedly shown itself to be incapable of keeping personal data securely and therefore cannot be trusted with what would be the most powerful, most expensive and most intrusive database in the world; further recognises the large-scale public and political opposition to the imposition of the ID card scheme; believes that the money for ID cards could more usefully be spent elsewhere, and therefore calls on the UK Government to heed public opinion and cancel this wasteful government folly."
Identity cards have been debated before and there is a degree of groundhog-day inevitability to today's debate. Lord George Foulkes, the Labour Party's self-appointed Rottweiler, was quite correct to highlight that ID cards are not a matter for the Scottish Parliament to deal with. However, there are still some points that it is worth while making.
When the minister said that the cost of the scheme is £5 billion, he demonstrated an unusual prescience or was guilty of slight hyperbole. It is not; at the last count, it was £4.78 billion. As the cost has gone up by £120 million since we last debated the subject, if we are to hold such debates annually, Fergus Ewing will not have much longer to wait until he is spot on. It is well worth making that point.
The briefing from the Home Office's identity and passport service says that on top of that, the scheme will cost another £326 million for foreign nationals.
I am grateful to Robert Brown for adding to the strength of my argument.
Let me be serious. There is every justification for any Government to take action to safeguard the security of this country. I would not criticise the Government in that respect, but the cost of its scheme is enormous. How much will it cost in the end, albeit that it will be paid for over a 10-year period? One estimate from the London School of Economics, a body of people beloved of the Labour Party, suggests that the final cost will be £20 billion. If that is what Labour's friends are saying, what chance is there that those who are prepared to consider the issue reasonably will arrive at an accurate conclusion?
An identity card scheme would be acceptable if it worked, but the basic fact is that it simply will not. As the minister and Robert Brown have said, there have been terrible terrorist outrages in countries in which ID cards are compulsory, but they have made not a whit of difference. All the people who were involved in the 9/11 outrage in the United States in 2001 had valid identification. In Spain, where I understand that ID cards have been compulsory for many years, everyone who was convicted of involvement in the Madrid bombings had a valid identity card.
If people from overseas decided to come to this country to do a hit on public transport, which is the obvious key target, under the Government's scheme they would not be required to have an identity card for three months. It would not be beyond people who have shown such dedication to committing foul deeds to plan such an attack within three months so, even if the scheme goes ahead, it will leave the door wide open. In seeking to restrict people in the manner proposed, the Westminster Government is exhibiting a degree of hypocrisy, given that its open-door asylum policies have caused so many problems.
I return to the point that the scheme just will not work. The minister was quite correct to quote Microsoft's national technology officer. It is worth repeating his considered view that the scheme would trigger a crisis of "massive identity fraud". Those are his words, not mine.
On privacy, Government should know as little about people as is consistent with the proper governance of the country. Lord George Foulkes asked what information the Government might have about Robert Brown that he might be concerned about. With the greatest respect to Lord George, I suggest that he should be more concerned about what the Government might know about him.
Indeed I am. That is why I am relieved that nothing that would be included on an identity card or on the register would cause me any concern whatsoever. The minister and Robert Brown have not propounded the truth. They implied that a great deal more would be included on the cards or the register than there will be.
Robert Brown has one minute. I am sorry. Bill Aitken has one minute.
I may not have an identity card, but it appears that, for the second time in a week, I have an identity crisis.
The control freaks opposite want simply to have information about as many people as possible, but it is a fact that we cannot trust the Government—indeed, the Scottish Government has a little bit of previous on the matter. None of us can be relaxed in thinking that information in the hands of Government at any level is being treated with the necessary care. I will not go through the litany of failures that the minister went through, but all members will be concerned about that.
Why should any member have to carry an identity card every day when they walk the streets of Edinburgh or Glasgow? If anybody who knows who we are wants to do something, every one of us carries plenty of documentation in our wallet. Every one of us has a bank card, George Foulkes will have a pension card, and many members have other means of identification. The ID card scheme is an unnecessary measure, which the Government should scrap.
I move amendment S3M-2906.2.1, to insert after "elsewhere":
", such as on improving border security or policing".
Why are we having a debate on identity cards and a motion that is entirely on a reserved matter? I do not dispute that ID cards are of great public interest, but their introduction throughout the UK is not a matter for Scottish ministers, and this is a debate in Scottish Government time. Why are we debating a matter that is outwith the Scottish Government's control when our prisons are bursting at the seams, the Government is cutting corners in training to try to make its police recruitment targets, and crimes of dishonesty have increased in our capital city? Having heard the speeches so far, I fear that there are further increases in such crimes in the chamber, where myths are being perpetuated about costs, police powers and supposed civil liberties infringements in relation to ID cards.
How many Labour members got to their feet when the previous Administration secured debates on international aid for Malawi or the fresh talent initiative, or when it responded positively to debates on the treatment of asylum seekers? Those are reserved issues. Surely we have got over what the member is saying by now.
It was entirely proper for action to be taken on Malawi, for example. However, we know what the tenor of today's debate will be, because the Liberal Democrats secured a debate on ID cards only last December. I did not agree with many things that were said in that debate, but it was interesting and the issues were well aired. I may not agree with the conclusion that the Parliament reached, but it is a fact that there was a debate and nothing has changed significantly since then. Bill Aitken was right. This is a parliamentary groundhog day. It is time that we debated issues that are within the competence of Scottish ministers, such as that is.
In contrast, the Government at Westminster is proposing a series of measures to enhance national security and public safety. ID cards are part of those measures. Many members of the general public will not understand the depth of opposition to ID cards in the other parties that are represented in the chamber, as opinion polls consistently show that a majority of people are in favour of them. That is contrary to what the Liberal Democrat amendment says. The fears that have been expressed in the chamber are not shared by people throughout the continent either. Twenty-four of the 27 European Union member states already have ID cards, so there is nothing extreme or unusual about introducing ID cards or about the kind of data that will be on them here.
Will the member take an intervention?
I am sorry, but I do not have enough time.
Of course, there is also the introduction of biometric passports, which I understand the other main parties support. Biometric passports will be required in order to meet international obligations. Their introduction is relevant to what the motion says about the cost of ID cards over 10 years because, in any event, approximately 72 per cent of the costs for UK citizens will need to be spent simply on implementing secure biometric passports. As with passports, the operational costs of issuing ID cards will be recovered from fees. Therefore, the Conservative party's amendment is, frankly, redundant.
On the issue of securing our nation's borders, the Conservative party would do better to return to its previous position of support for ID cards, because the scheme will not only help with an efficient immigration system but make it more difficult for terrorists to conceal their identity or create multiple identities, which will make it harder for them to operate here. The UK Government has never claimed that the national identity scheme can prevent terrorism but, in the 18 months up to June this year, 67 terrorists were convicted in the UK courts and it is almost certain that 90 per cent of them had multiple identities. ID cards will play an important role in tackling that.
I have a single point. Will Richard Baker tell the Parliament what he believes the purpose of ID cards is?
Robert Brown mentioned almost all the purposes. We will get a range of benefits from ID cards. I will point out another one. As was mentioned in our previous debate on civil liberties, the Association of Chief Police Officers has stated:
"a national ID card scheme could deliver considerable benefits. Many areas of policing would benefit, not least the ability of the police to better protect and serve the public."
That is one benefit of the scheme.
The Government's proposals balance the objective with individual rights. It is important to acknowledge that the Identity Cards Bill would have imposed no legal obligation on individuals to carry an ID card and that it included a prohibition on the requirement to produce one. The Liberal Democrats raise the issue of storage of data, which of course has been an issue for the Scottish Government as well as for the UK Government. The minister did not remember the loss of students' data here. The fact is that data are stored at present not only by the Government but by a host of other organisations, including banks. Identity cards will help to address fraudulent use of personal data and the unnecessary proliferation of forms of ID. People will find that to be of great benefit.
I say to Mr Brown that Jacqui Smith is right. I can assure him that Mr Martin and I look forward to applying for our ID cards next year—they cannot come quickly enough. Like it or not, ID cards are a popular proposal, because they will be of real benefit to individuals. They can help to make our society safer and will not threaten civil liberties. What threatens progress on tackling crime in our country is a failure of leadership in providing the resources and tools that we need in Scotland to build on the previous Executive's progress on making our communities safer.
The Scottish ministers are stalling on tackling antisocial behaviour, failing to address the prisons crisis and creating a real-terms cut of £35 million in the budget for tackling crime—no wonder they want to debate ID cards. The fact that we are debating a motion on ID cards and not matters on which the ministers have authority smacks of them smarting from an election defeat in Glenrothes and failing to provide the leadership that we need on tackling crime in this country. On that, whether they like it or not, we will hold them to account.
It is a delight to follow a rant—I am glad that the member got very excited.
I oppose compulsory ID cards in principle. Their purpose, apparently, is to allow Lord George Foulkes to prove who he is. Unfortunately, we know who he is. The scheme will lead to an infringement of free movement in Scotland of civilians who are not engaged in criminal activity but who are just going peaceably about their business. People could be asked to produce an ID card on demand and failure to do so would be a criminal offence. I share the minister's concerns that certain ethnic groups would be more vulnerable to challenge than others, as would people with learning difficulties, who might not understand. Aside from the principle, the scheme would be socially disruptive.
I wrote a little inventory of the information that the state already holds on me. It is a sad list: national insurance number, which was given at birth, tax code number, passport data, council tax code, road tax data, television licence, car licence, electoral database, census information and even my pensioner's pass. That is not a complete list. The state knows plenty about me already. I am delighted to tell members that, in all those matters, I have complied with the law. However, a database of compulsory ID cards is a step too far.
When we talk about safeguards and security, one interesting point that no member has made yet is that the Government at Westminster proposes to spend £12 billion on a database to monitor and store the internet browsing habits and e-mail and telephone records of everyone in Britain. Government Communications Headquarters, the Government's eavesdropping centre, has already been given up to £1 billion to finance the first stage of the project. Hundreds of clandestine probes will be installed to provide monitoring in real time of customers on two of the country's biggest internet and mobile phone providers, which it is thought will be Vodaphone and BT, which already has 5 million internet customers. Last year, 57 billion text messages were sent in the United Kingdom. All such messages are to be collected and monitored and yet people do not know that. My goodness, has Big Brother not arrived and raised all that money—£12 billion—to do all that? It is quite a list.
Will the member give way?
No.
I provide data voluntarily by way of my bank card, various credit cards, AA card—I hasten to say that that is my Automobile Association card—and organ donor card. Although all those data are on record somewhere, the input was made voluntarily. If all of that is put together with the data that are collected from my Sainsbury's, Tesco, Asda and other supermarket cards, somebody somewhere in the world knows what I eat and drink, what my cats eat and drink, the amount that I spend, when I do it and so on.
In fact, some of those data are not secure. I am not sure whether members are aware that the Driver and Vehicle Licensing Agency regularly sells data on them to private security and car parking companies without their knowledge. People who have been served with huge charges by security companies wonder how those companies come to have that personal information from the DVLA. Data collection has already gone a step too far—to distort and corrupt a well-known phrase: never has so much been known by so many about me.
Let us turn to security breaches, a number of which the minister listed in his speech. What caused the loss of the data that were stored on those memory sticks and disks? The answer is not that someone hacked into the system—no clever technology clogs was involved—but human error. As Stewart James, a partner in law firm DLA Piper's technology, media and commercial group, said,
"All of the data loss scandals have been caused by human error and not by the technology itself".
Andrew Maloney, the internationally respected information security expert, underlined the seriousness of the situation when he said:
"In the past we worried about the perimeter of our organization and securing that against criminals trying to hack in. In reality, the bigger threat for most organizations is good guys doing dumb things."
It is people who are at fault and we cannot legislate against human error.
I will conclude with some interesting words from a previous debate on ID cards in another place:
"Those who support the introduction of such a card would reduce every man, woman and child in this country to a number to be programmed at will. The idea that every individual would have his or her life story on a little metal strip on a little plastic cars is objectionable. The universal personal indicator—that is what some people call such numbers—on a card could include an individual's medical history, work progress, financial status, what he did, where he did it, and where he was stopped. All that information could be revealed by passing a card through a computer terminal. That is a great step, and I should be reluctant to take it."—[Official Report, House of Commons, 10 February 1989; c 1310.]
I endorse those words, which were spoken by Alistair Darling in a debate in the House of Commons some years ago. He should have kept to that.
The speech that we have just heard is a perfect illustration of why we should not be debating this matter. The speech was so full of inaccuracies and irrelevancies it was unbelievable. ID cards will hold nothing on what someone's cat eats and drinks, nor will they hold details of AA or RAC membership. It is astonishing that a trained lawyer such as Christine Grahame can make so many mistakes in just six minutes. She said that our life story will be included on the cards. Nothing could be further from the truth.
Will the member take an intervention?
No. You did not give way to me. You perpetrated so many myths today that they need to be dispelled.
Unrelated personal information, such as someone's religious or political beliefs, ethnicity, occupation, or their criminal, tax or medical records, will not be included on their ID card. Pension, driving licence, tax and heath records will be held, but they will be held separately, as they are at the moment.
Will the member give way?
No.
The only things that will be included on the card—and I ask any member to say whether they are worried about their inclusion—are your picture—
Yes.
Your name—
Yes.
Oh, don't. I will not ask, because it is not worth it. The card will include people's picture, name, gender, place and date of birth, an issue date, an expiry date, a unique national identity register number, people's nationality and immigration status, and two fingerprints—that is all. If anyone is worried about that information being on a card, they must have something to hide.
I turn to some of the other myths that Christine Grahame mentioned. She said that the card will have to be carried, that it will be demanded, and that ethnic minorities will suffer. There will be no requirement to carry the card at all times—the Identity Cards Act 2006 specifically prohibits making the carrying of an ID card compulsory. Yet again, a trained lawyer has got it completely wrong, because she believes something and will not allow the facts to influence her thinking.
So people will not have to produce the card.
Of course not. You—
Can we have a speech, rather than a conversation, please?
Instead of the member shouting from a sedentary position, why does she not go home quietly and access—
Mr Foulkes, I am not going home.
I am sorry, I did not mean you. Why does she not go home—
You mean Christine Grahame.
Why does Christine Grahame not go home and access the Home Office website, where she might find out some facts?
My colleague Richard Baker has already dealt with costs. Seventy per cent of the costs are covered by biometric passports; the rest relate to ID cards. ID cards will not cost the taxpayer £5 billion, as has been suggested.
The claim that ID cards breach human rights is a myth perpetuated by people such as Robert Brown—another member who has not taken the time to consider the facts. Twenty-four out of 27 European Union countries already have identity cards; all are signatories to the European convention on human rights.
I will not give way to the member—he did not give way to me. He should listen, for a change. I ask the members who say that ID cards breach human rights—others will speak in favour of that proposition—to spell out exactly which part of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights or the European convention on human rights they breach. I bet that none of them will be able to tell us.
Mike Rumbles asked a perfectly legitimate question—what is the purpose of the scheme, if it will not eliminate terrorism? It will help to combat terrorism because, as Richard Baker said, terrorists have multiple identities. Robert Brown said that all terrorists work under their own name, but nothing could be further from the truth.
On a point of order, Presiding Officer. Lord Foulkes should quote members' statements correctly. I said nothing of the sort. I said that there had been terrorist incidents involving people who had ID cards—I made no general statement about the matter. I wish that Lord Foulkes would stick to the facts.
That is not a point of order, Mr Brown.
I say to Mr Rumbles that identity theft and fraud are real problems that the ID scheme will help to tackle. People ask how many illegal immigrants are in the country—ID cards will help to address that issue. I wish that Kenny MacAskill were in the chamber, because ID cards are important as a way of establishing proof of age, especially for younger people who are trying to access services in shops and elsewhere. Another benefit has not been mentioned—ID cards prevent electoral fraud, because they allow voter identification at the point of voting. The scheme has all sorts of positive elements.
It is a travesty that this debate has included so much misinformation from members who are opposed to ID cards. It is a perfect illustration of how, in its desperation to pick fights with Westminster, the SNP Government will take hold of any issue, distort the facts, attack and mislead. It is a great pity that so much misleading information has been put forward this afternoon.
In Britain, we have a long tradition of democracy and personal freedoms—something that George Foulkes does not seem to rate. I never thought that I would hear anybody say in this chamber—and I wrote it down—that only people who have something to hide should be worried about ID cards. How chilling. It has always been fundamental to the liberty and freedoms of citizens that they are able to go about their normal business without undue let or hindrance from the state.
However, at times in our history those freedoms have had to be curtailed. During the second world war, ID cards were issued by the state to help protect the nation from what were considered to be real threats from Nazi fifth columnists. That was supported by the general population. When the war ended, the new Labour Government of 1945 did not return us to the status quo ante—the approach is the same now. That Government did not abolish ID cards or the legal obligation to carry them. It was left to Winston Churchill's Government of 1951 to do the right thing and return us to the position that had always prevailed in the United Kingdom. I point out to Bill Aitken that Churchill abolished ID cards not because they cost a lot of money—which they did—but because they were wrong in principle.
Labour Governments have never been particularly concerned with protecting individual freedoms where the state is concerned, which is highlighted by the current Administration's fixation with labelling people and wanting to identify everyone. The UK Labour Government seems increasingly intent on building up ever larger amounts of personal information on our citizens. Where will it end?
The protection of individual freedoms and privacy has never been more under threat than it is today. It took Christine Grahame to point out the threat of computer systems. That protection is under threat not because of any outside cause, but because of an ever more authoritarian approach by the Labour Government.
UK ministers are forever changing their reasons for advocating ID cards, hence my question to Richard Baker, which he could not answer. Are ID cards to be used for combating terrorism, for combating identity theft, for combating benefit fraud, for combating illegal immigration or, indeed, for accessing Government services?
Yes—all those things.
"All those things," I hear him say. One reason why the UK Government keeps changing its mind on its reasons for advocating ID cards is that none of them holds up to detailed scrutiny. In fact, the issuing of ID cards would make identity theft, benefit fraud and even illegal immigration easier—listen to that word, please; easier—not more difficult.
Why?
Because the cards can be so easily forged, Mr Foulkes. I know that Governments feel that they can help to kick-start new businesses, but what a kick-start the Government will give to criminal gangs if it proceeds down the route of ID cards. At a time when the UK Government ought to be careful not to waste taxpayers' money, and at the very time of the credit crunch and the recession, what utter folly it is even to consider spending so much on measures that attack our fundamental freedoms and simply will not work.
It seems likely that, at decision time, the Parliament will unite in sending a clear message to the UK Government that Scotland does not want ID cards for our citizens. Everyone except the Labour Party is united on that. The Labour Party covers its disunity on the subject by abstention, on the ground that the issue is reserved to our Westminster Parliament. As has been pointed out, Labour members did not object when the previous First Minister initiated debate on Malawi, did they?
Of course the issue is reserved, but it is worth while for the UK Government to be well aware of the clear opposition in Scotland to the issuing of ID cards by the state. This is an opportunity to send the UK Government such a message. The fact that the Labour Government will probably not listen to us should not deter us from making our views known as a Parliament.
I would have more respect for the Labour Party's argument that we should leave the matter to our MPs in Westminster if we had MPs who were elected to represent us by a fair electoral system. The fact is that Scotland is not well represented in the House of Commons, due to what I call the corrupt electoral system, whereby the vast majority of our MPs are elected on a minority of the votes. The Scottish Parliament more accurately reflects public opinion in Scotland because of the nature of the electoral system that we use.
We need to send the UK Government the clear message—even though it might not listen—that Scotland does not need or want ID cards, because they threaten our long-established personal freedoms to go about our business without undue interference from the state and because they would be an obscene waste of taxpayers' money.
I urge MSPs throughout the chamber to unite and support the motion and both amendments.
I welcome the opportunity to speak in this important debate. I thank some members for their worthwhile contributions. I will give the members whom I have not thanked some facts and figures. I say to those who argue that this subject has nothing to do with Scotland that the ID plan will cost Scotland more than £600 million over the next 10 years. That is far too high a cost for something that is not guaranteed to work. We could spend that money on more beneficial things for Scotland, such as more police on the beat and more teachers.
There is a continuing failure to produce correct estimates of the cost of the UK identity card scheme. As Robert Brown said, the staffing costs were underestimated by £460 million over the 10 years.
As far as I am concerned, Scotland and Scottish people are affected. ID cards are a complete infringement of civil liberties.
Will the member give way?
No, sorry.
The idea of biometrics goes too far. What do they do with the pictures that they take of us at airports? Do they destroy them? We do not get them back. Only last week at Heathrow airport I had to have a biometric picture taken of me. They put it on my passport and then said that they had destroyed it. I do not know what they have done with it. That is highly questionable, and it should not happen.
More important, the UK Government does not have the best track record. Child benefit claimants and naval recruits have been mentioned. I do not want to go through the same scenario. What happens with the data? We cannot trust the Government.
I disagree with the Labour Party's stance on ID cards. I really would have thought that Labour members would have the humility to acknowledge the errors and agree that one of the functions of the Scottish Parliament is to represent the views of the Scottish people. As their elected representatives, it is our duty to represent their views. We know that public opinion in Scotland is dead set against the introduction of identity cards. Given that the Labour Party knows that, I had hoped that it would stand up for Scotland and the Scottish people. The Labour Party should stop timidly accepting the dictates of the UK Government. It is sad that Labour has put itself in that position.
Of course, it seems that Labour members do have opinions on ID cards, however childish they may be. Richard Baker—who I see is not in the chamber—showed in his opening remarks how childish he can be. His remarks were taken straight from the Labour Party's ridiculous press release.
If Labour members have opinions, they should bring them to the chamber. I might not agree with them, but it is up to them to bring their opinions here. They should have the courage of their convictions and argue their position. They should lodge an amendment, which we could then debate. Labour lodged an amendment to Patrick Harvie's motion on ID cards in 2005. Some Labour members expressed concerns. I will name one Labour member whom I spoke to about this: Pauline McNeill, who is to be commended for her defence of human rights. She stated:
"The benefits of an ID card scheme are overstated."—[Official Report, 24 February 2005; c 14722.]
She hit the nail on the head.
Christine Grahame mentioned all the information that they have on us already. They do not need any more information. That is one of the fundamental reasons why we need to have an open debate in this Parliament. The ID card scheme affects Scottish people; it affects our constituents; it affects all of us. We should be able to debate things that affect our daily lives, which ID cards will do if they are introduced. They will be mandatory, not voluntary, and people should not think that we will not be stopped at every turn to present our ID cards.
Will the member take an intervention?
No.
I live in a democratic society, and I want to be treated as a democratic citizen. If ID cards are introduced, we will not have a democratic society.
I have already quoted various figures. The public have been misled on the benefits—what benefits? They have been misled on the cost—it is extortionate. They have been misled on security—it is astounding how information can be lost by the Westminster Government. Most important, they have been misled about the purpose of ID cards. The public have been told that ID cards will stop terrorism and illegal immigrants. As Robert Brown and others have said, the cards can be forged.
What will be done with our information if ID cards are introduced? Committees in the House of Lords—which George Foulkes will be familiar with—and the House of Commons and joint all-party committees have criticised the Identity Cards Bill. I would have thought that Mr Foulkes would realise that. One committee warned that the stated aims of the ID scheme do not justify the huge invasion of privacy. It did not even mention the cost, just the huge invasion of privacy. Despite that, a contemptuous UK Government in Westminster—not for the first time, and probably not for the last, unless it is no longer there—has chosen to ignore those findings and drive through ill-thought-out and illiberal legislation. I for one will not support the introduction of ID cards either here or down south. However, we can only say what we want for this country: no compulsory ID cards at all.
I am genuinely disappointed with the tone and content of Labour members' contributions to the debate. I thought that, as the Parliament was maturing, all political parties were becoming more comfortable with the principle that we can debate anything we choose, rather than retreat into some sort of Foulkesian pact with Westminster that we should be prohibited from debating anything that the Labour Party disagrees with or anything on which we disagree with the UK Government.
The previous Administration rightly brought debates of its own on reserved issues, and for years councils all over Scotland have debated international development, nuclear weapons and a host of other issues. There is no reason why we should not have this debate. Richard Baker was quoted in the media yesterday as describing the debate as demonstrating a lack of leadership from the Scottish Government. I think that it demonstrates that the current Government understands that people want government and not mere administration from this institution.
Aside from that principle, the ID card policy clearly affects devolved responsibilities, including policing, the promotion of racial equality, public services, voting—if Lord Foulkes has his way—and the recruitment of overseas students. There are clear reasons why we should debate ID cards in this chamber.
Another pertinent point is that the debate has already been had in this Parliament. The public would rather that far more pressing issues were debated in this chamber, such as the prisons crisis.
As a member who is represented on the Parliamentary Bureau, Richard Baker should take up that point with his business manager. I am not represented on the bureau. I can have the conversation with him informally if he wants. He is right that there have been debates on ID cards in this chamber, and I have been pleased to take part in them and lodge motions. However, even since those debates, the case against ID cards has grown stronger, month by month and year by year.
Even if the ID card system were free, I would still oppose it. I would still argue and campaign against it, and I would be willing to take part in civil disobedience to help prevent it from functioning, because it is a threat to civil liberties. For George Foulkes's reference, civil liberties are not the same as human rights. Human rights are set out in legislation that determines the rights that we can seek to have enforced by a court. Civil liberties are much broader and are concerned with the defence of the individual against the misuse of power by the state. That is why we call them civil liberties.
I accept that absolutely, and Patrick Harvie is a good exponent of both human rights and civil liberties. Will he tell me precisely which civil liberty will be infringed by the ID cards proposal—not the fanciful ideas that people think will be introduced?
The fear of how the system might be used in the future is relevant. However, we have argued all along that it would be used disproportionately against minority ethnic groups and have predicted that the civil liberty of people's right to be treated equally regardless of their ethnicity would be undermined. The fact that overseas students are among the first groups that are being targeted by the surveillance system demonstrates that we were right.
I am opposed to ID cards not only on principle but for practical reasons. The Government's record on data handling is so dismal that many people understand that the case against ID cards is increasingly strong.
I hope that members know that I am supportive and/or critical of the SNP Government as I see fit, whatever the debate happens to be. I say with no hesitation that I was very pleased when the Government announced the creation of a privacy working group to examine the place of privacy in this technological world—even if the organisation that is responsible for bringing us that bastion of privacy Outlook Express was invited on to the working group, which was a slightly questionable decision.
The creation of the group was necessary, but I challenge the restriction of its remit. I understand from written answers that it will not be able to examine the operation of citizens accounts and entitlement cards. Those are not the same as the UK identity surveillance system, but they bear some resemblance to it. Those concerns can be addressed. All I ask is that the minister allow the privacy working group to examine those systems and their boundaries in the interest of transparency. Often, those of us who argue for civil liberties seek not the abandonment of such technological systems but merely a clear set of boundaries within which they can operate. Entitlement cards and citizens accounts can be put back in their box within clear, well-understood boundaries before they grow incrementally into something for which the Parliament would never vote. I hope that the minister will respond on that point.
My amendment was not selected for debate, but I would be happy to continue to debate the defence of civil liberties year after year. Until we are able to put Government back in its box—until it understands that it is the servant, not the master, in our society—it will always be necessary to return to the debate.
I am delighted that the Scottish Parliament is debating ID cards. Even though we do not have direct control over the matter, it will eventually affect all of us who live in Scotland, so it is only correct that we, as the people's Parliament, have a say on this important issue and represent our constituents' views.
There are a number of reasons why ID cards should be rejected. All the evidence points in one direction: the UK Government has simply not made the case for them.
There are many issues that are above party politics, and the protection of our civil liberties is one. Privacy is a fundamental right in our society and it comes under serious threat with the introduction of ID cards. The UK Government has tried to convince us that those magic bits of plastic will help in the fight against terrorism. Unfortunately, that is using the same politics of fear that cost us many lives in the invasion of Iraq.
The ex-head of MI5, Dame Stella Rimington, has stated that ID cards will not make us any safer. She has also said:
"I don't think that anybody in the intelligence services, particularly in my former service, would be pressing for ID cards."
If that is the view of a security expert who knows more than any minister does about the issue, why is the Government pushing ahead with ID cards? It is clear that countries all over the world that have ID cards are not immune from terrorist activity. Former Home Secretary Charles Clarke admitted that ID cards would not have stopped the 7/7 London bombings.
In addition to countering terrorism, we have been told that ID cards will help the fight against benefit fraud. That is a poor justification when the Government's figures show that 95 per cent of benefit fraud arises from a person lying about financial circumstances and not from ID fraud.
It is only right that, when deciding on any issue, we weigh the benefits against the costs. As I have said, the benefits seem limited, whereas the costs would be extremely high. First, we have the financial cost to consider. The ID cards scheme is estimated to cost between £5 billion and £6 billion. In a time of financial turmoil, when families are struggling to make ends meet and unemployment looks as if it will rise, surely that money can be much better used.
In addition to the financial burden that the scheme might place on families, we must consider the risk of information getting into the wrong hands. The Westminster Government does not have a particularly good record of handling personal data. Last year alone, it lost more than 25 million child benefit claimants' records. In the aftermath of that, a poll by The Times found that 73 per cent of the population did not trust the Government with their personal data.
The ID card will store a person's personal records, such as their name, address and biometric data. If that information were lost or fell into the wrong hands, the consequences would not bear thinking about. We should not be willing to take such a risk.
In dangerous times such as ours, when national security is under threat, our leaders should protect our rights and liberties. I hope that the Parliament will join together to send that message loud and clear to Westminster.
It is generally clear from today's debate that there is no majority in support of ID cards in Scotland. Before highlighting a couple of issues, let me make two points.
First, the whole premise of the Labour Party's argument is that ID cards will be used for benign purposes. That reveals a degree of either naivety or arrogance, because it presumes that Labour will continue as a benign Government in Westminster for all time. That may not necessarily be the case. A national identity scheme and its data would be at the hands of any Government—
Will the member take an intervention?
I have just started, Mr Baker.
The reality is that we do not know the nature of future Governments and how they might put that information to use. In such circumstances, we cannot afford to have such a system at the behest of Government.
Secondly, like Sandra White, I have just returned from Gaza, which is a country—or part of a country—that is regarded as terrorist. I walked into Gaza, and walked out of it and returned to these shores, with my ordinary wooden British passport. If an ordinary passport is sufficient for arriving in a place such as Gaza, why—goodness me—should such a system not be sufficient in Scotland?
Interestingly, although I have been involved in this Parliament in one way or another since 1999, I do not remember any other debate here on which a Westminster Government department saw fit to send us a briefing. Of course, I might be wrong. Perhaps, like so much other stuff that the Government moves around the country, the information is lying on a roundabout somewhere, keeping company with a variety of other personal data. However, we should all be pretty relaxed about that, as I am sure that Lord Lucan and Shergar are looking after it.
As Mike Rumbles said, there is no hard evidence that any of the reasons that are given in support of ID cards—such as terrorism, fraud, immigration control or access to services—stands up to close scrutiny. The Government has moved the goalposts since the idea was first proposed. The timeframe has slipped, the costs have soared and the supposed benefits have been challenged and disproved at every stage. The whole idea is discredited. The public in Scotland do not support it and the public in Scotland do not want it.
Mike Rumbles highlighted the fact that ID cards were last used in the UK between 1939 and 1952. They were introduced during a state of war—
On a point of order, Presiding Officer. If this is such an important debate for the Government, why is no minister currently in the chamber?
That is not a point of order.
I guess that some members of the Labour Party are a little bit agitated, but there we go.
To return to my point, between 1939 and 1951 the police had the powers to demand to see a person's identity card. If a person failed to show an ID card, they were required, on pain of a criminal offence, to turn up at a police station to show the ID card within two days. As Mike Rumbles said, it was not until Churchill took the step of repealing identity cards that they were done away with.
Let me conclude—laying aside the entertainment value provided by Lord Foulkes, who I see has moved to the empty Government front bench—by quoting from Lord Goddard's decision of 26 June 1951, in the case of Willcock v Muckle, which is the case that led to Churchill's decision to repeal the National Registration Act 1939. On the police's right to challenge people, Lord Goddard said:
"Of course, if they are looking for a stolen car or have reason to believe that a particular motorist is engaged in committing a crime, that is one thing, but to demand a national registration identity card from all and sundry, for instance, from a lady who may leave her car outside a shop longer than she should, or some trivial matter of that sort, is wholly unreasonable."
That is the danger that we faced. He continued:
"This Act was passed for security purposes, and not for the purposes for which, apparently, it is now sought to be used. To use Acts of Parliament, passed for particular purposes during war"—
I hope that the Labour Party is not telling us that we are at war—
"in times when the war is past"
is not appropriate. He went on:
"Further, in this country we have always prided ourselves on the good feeling that exists between the police and the public and such action tends to make the people resentful of the acts of the police and inclines them to obstruct the police instead of to assist them".
Those words were true in 1952; they would be equally true today. We must not accept these identity cards.
The debate has been useful in reminding us all what a complete waste of time and money ID cards will be. It has also shown us, from the way in which he has carried on this afternoon, the contempt in which Lord George Foulkes holds this Parliament.
The national identity card scheme will do nothing to provide real help in Scotland as we face the economic crisis. The scheme will create a system that results in excessive amounts of information on British citizens being held. The whole scheme distracts from the important issues that we should be discussing. That is not the fault of the Scottish Parliament; it is the fault of the Labour Government at Westminster.
With the Westminster Government's recent backtracking on the plan, it is clear that, even within the Labour Party, support is wavering. If the UK Government shifts policy and remains hesitant on its own proposals, why should the people of Scotland be convinced that the policy is the right one to follow?
I want to focus on a couple of aspects of the proposals that have been discussed during the debate by a number of members—their cost, and their ability to keep our country safe. There is no doubt that ID cards would come at a great cost to the entire country. The Identity Cards Act 2006 requires that the UK Government update Parliament at least every six months on the estimated public expenditure likely to be incurred to introduce the ID cards. As the minister pointed out, the latest cost estimates have been published by the UK Government. In the publication, it was revealed that the cost had risen by millions of pounds. That increase was combined with another substantial increase in providing ID cards to foreign nationals, making the total increase £60 million over the past six months. Those figures are startling. The taxpayer will forfeit huge sums of money to finance a scheme of questionable value.
As Bill Aitken said, a study that was carried out independently by the London School of Economics found that, although the UK Government estimated a £4.8 billion cost for ID cards, a more accurate figure would be something closer to £20 billion. With discrepancies such as those, it is understandable why many people are worried about the implementation of such a plan. Who knows how much the cost will really be?
Why pursue such an expensive scheme? Well, the UK Government is implementing its plans in the hope of creating better security for the British people against the threats of terrorism. However, the creation of ID cards will not prevent terrorist attacks—several public figures have acknowledged that fact. In an article by a consultant at GCHQ, claims that ID cards would help the fight against terrorism were completely dismissed. Even the former Home Secretary, Charles Clarke MP, admitted that the ID card scheme would not have prevented the bombings on 7 July 2005 in London. He said:
"I doubt if it would have made a difference."
We witnessed that in Spain, where ID cards are compulsory but did not stop the Madrid bombings in March 2004.
The proposals by the UK Government will not prevent the work of terrorists. Regardless, the UK Government—with the help of Lord George Foulkes, it seems—continues with its praise and support of ID cards, despite the evidence to the contrary. Although the scheme would give the UK Government massive amounts of control over our personal information, the Government has admitted that it cannot be trusted with our data, making a security breach all the more likely with ID cards. What is more, the agency that is to be responsible for running the ID card scheme has had its own security breached four times already. With a track record such as that, it is no wonder that people are sceptical about giving the Government even more access to such information.
What is more, ID cards will not prevent identity fraud or human trafficking. In fact, it has been suggested that ID cards could
"trigger massive identity fraud on a scale beyond anything we have seen before."
If the purpose of ID cards is to help the British population, they certainly are far from doing their job. In fact, they increase the susceptibility of UK citizens. Furthermore, the ID cards will not prevent human trafficking, because nothing can substitute for having a proper border police force and proper checks on people entering and leaving the country.
These ID cards are—put simply—an invasion of privacy. The UK Government could have almost 30 separate pieces of information on every citizen, all of which will be stored on a massive Home Office ID card database called the national register. The creation of such a register will allow anyone who can break into the system to obtain our personal information; it will also allow the Government to monitor us as it pleases.
The Scottish Conservatives know that these ID cards will do nothing to improve the security of our country and that they could make it worse. The costs that would be incurred by the Scottish people are outrageous and unnecessary, and it is ludicrous of the UK Government to think that the people should pay such a ridiculous amount of money. Instead of using taxpayers' money to finance a defective scheme, the UK Government should direct the funding at more worthwhile endeavours. We would scrap the UK Government's proposals and instead call for extra police and the creation of a new border police force. Those simple measures would provide much more for the people of Scotland than anything that an ID cards scheme could possibly achieve.
We are happy to support the amendment in Robert Brown's name and the amendment in Bill Aitken's name.
If the Calman commission needed evidence of a Government that showed little interest in its existing powers and more interest in the powers that it did not have, it need look no further than the current SNP Government, which enjoys the trappings of power but does little when it comes to taking responsibility for government.
Patrick Harvie has done a disservice to the links that we have formed with Malawi. The Parliament has close bonds with Malawi and I have welcomed residents of Malawi to my constituency. To say that we should not have debated Malawi in the way that we did—[Interruption.] I ask members to excuse me while I clarify the point. I did not say that we should not have done so. The way in which we debated Malawi was by ensuring that we used the powers that are available to the Scottish Parliament to take forward our effective relationship with Malawi.
On a point of order, Presiding Officer. The member has clearly accused me of saying that we should not have debated Malawi in the way that we did. The whole chamber, apart from Mr Martin, knows that I said no such thing. Will the member withdraw his accusation?
That is not a point of order.
May I clarify the point? I listened intently to what Mr Harvie said. Mr Harvie said that the Parliament debated Malawi. The Parliament debated Malawi in respect of the powers that we have available to us—we did not encroach on the powers that are available to Westminster. I reiterate that point for Mr Harvie.
The key point for Labour members is that the national identity scheme will allow people to prove their identity more easily. It will be harder for their identity to be stolen or misused because it will be protected by biometrics, and we believe that the scheme can prevent criminals from using false or multiple identities. We have said that on a number of occasions.
A serious point that every member of the Opposition parties has ignored is the fact that identity fraud is a problem. That problem, which is also being ignored by the Government, costs the public more than £1.7 billion a year on the latest estimates.
We must acknowledge that we have a responsibility to provide extra protection to those high-profile targets that terrorists have targeted in the past, particularly airports. I am delighted that the Home Secretary, Jacqui Smith, has shown real leadership in introducing new measures using identity cards for baggage handlers, check-in staff, aircraft engineers and immigration and customs officials.
Can Paul Martin cite any evidence from countries that have ID card schemes to show that their levels of identity fraud are any different? That information may or may not be available—I do not know. Does he know?
The debating points that we make here sometimes use examples from other countries. In this country, I did not expect the terrorist attack that took place in June last year, and I am afraid that we have had to react to that incident. I did not expect that to happen in this country.
We believe that those new measures will deliver a strengthened identity assurance regime, making pre-employment and security checks much easier for airside workers. We believe that that is the way forward.
Another area in which identity cards can be a success is employment. We cannot ignore the fact that there are employers out there, in our communities, who would willingly employ illegal workers and pay them well under the minimum wage. Not only does that have a negative impact on the local economy, but it is grossly unfair to those employees and employers who go about their business in a legitimate manner. The introduction of ID cards will provide an opportunity for technology to be used to prevent such practices from taking place and will leave unscrupulous employers in no doubt that their activities will be detected and, possibly, prevented.
A number of members have been extremely exercised about the information that will be held on the ID cards. Mr Rumbles is concerned that we would hold a picture of him on the card. It is not often that politicians do not want their pictures taken—I do not recall Mr Rumbles being concerned previously about pictures being taken in this chamber or outside this chamber. Indeed, I am sure that, on Mr Rumbles's website, there are a number of press releases that include photographs of him.
Perhaps Paul Martin does not realise how shy I am, but I never include photographs on press releases.
I am sure that we will check that statement for accuracy later.
The only information that is not provided on my photocard driving licence but which will be provided on the ID card is two fingerprints, which will be encrypted in the card. There is not much difference between the ID card and the photocard driving licence or any of the other cards that members of this chamber possess.
The issue of public support has been raised by a number of members. Independently conducted polls consistently show strong support for the principle of ID cards—recent research shows that support to be as high as 59 per cent. I take on board the point that Robert Brown made, which is that public support has reduced as a result of the loss of data throughout the period. However, I am clear that the agencies that are responsible for the holding of such data need to show greater care when they are handling and holding that data.
I do not think that Mr Ewing responded to my earlier question about information that has been lost by the Scottish Government over the past 18 months. An uncontested press release from Richard Simpson confirms that Nicola Sturgeon has presided over the largest loss of confidential files in Scottish history. More than 1 million confidential files have been lost by the SNP Government—that is the piece of information that Mr Ewing was unable to provide the Parliament with. I will not take lectures on this matter from this Government.
I remind Christine Grahame that she described previous incidents involving the loss of national health service files as "extremely alarming". I am sure that she is also alarmed that her party's Government has managed to lose more than 1 million confidential health files.
Once again, I protest about the way in which the Government treats this chamber like a debating society. When our prisons are bulging, our councils are facing massive cuts and our communities are living in fear, it would be better if the Government debated the issues that our communities face instead of taking every possible opportunity to pick a fight with Westminster.
We oppose the Government's motion and the Opposition parties' amendments.
This has been an interesting debate—I am not sure that it was at all times a constructive debate, but it was certainly heated. Several aspects stood out. The first involved the timing of the debate. This is exactly the right time to have this debate. Labour said that we should not have debated ID cards—it was the only party to oppose the debate; all other parties welcomed it. The Labour line would have been a bit more convincing if the party had actively opposed the debate in the Parliamentary Bureau. For Labour to give us a lecture in the chamber today was just a waste of our time.
On the substance of the issue of timing, it is axiomatic that the time to debate an issue is the time when something can be done about that issue. There would be no use in our debating the issue in 2020, when £5 billion—or, if the London School of Economics is correct, £18 billion—has been spent on the scheme. It is far better to debate the matter before the majority of that money has been spent, and to send out a clear signal from most of the parties in Scotland that we do not think that this is the right time to spend such a huge amount of money for so little—if any—benefit.
I bow to no one in arguing that this is the right time to debate ID cards, because minds can be changed. The UK Government has changed its mind on issues such as the length of time for which someone can be detained without charge—[Interruption.]
Minister, please speak into your microphone.
I am sorry, Presiding Officer.
The UK Government has changed its mind when it has been forced to do so by public opinion. Public opinion in Scotland on the issue of ID cards may well be mixed—it is not monolithic. However, I suspect that once the public are aware of the huge cost of the scheme—whether it is £5,000 million or three times that amount—they will conclude that that is far, far too much.
Since we debated ID cards last December, the world economy has begun to face the biggest recession for nearly 100 years. It therefore behoves those of us in public life to say, "Let's rethink all our discretionary expenditure". No expenditure could be more discretionary than the £5,000 million of discretionary expenditure on the ID card scheme. This is exactly the right time to decide whether to go ahead with such a massive commitment of public money, given that every member—even Labour members—can come up with ideas for how that money could be spent more effectively.
The Liberals and the Conservatives have suggested a greater number of police—or border police. Such ideas are well worth exploring, and we will support both amendments to the motion in an act of unity that involves all but one party in the Parliament. This is the right time for us to send a message from Scotland that that money should not be wasted on the scheme; instead, it should be devoted to more worthy aims. I am proud that we are sending that message tonight.
The cost is not the point. Does the minister accept that 72 per cent of the expenditure would be required anyway for the move to biometric passports? Is he saying that the SNP does not now support the move to biometric passports?
By 2012, which is three years away, there may be moves that would require us to have biometric data on a European level. By taking the lead on the issue of ID cards, the UK Government might incur entirely unnecessary expenditure. It has already wasted a lot of time and money by changing the identifier in the original plans, which involved the iris—it scrapped those plans, as it has changed so many other aspects of its so-called plans.
It is by no means clear that savings would be made, as the Home Office has alleged. Moreover, the Home Office has repeatedly refused to say exactly how the £5,000 million is broken down, on various grounds such as commercial confidentiality, potential breaches of procurement law or potential prejudice to procurement operations. Those grounds may be valid to some extent, but the fact remains that we have not had a proper breakdown. How, in the depths of a recession, can the Government propose spending £5,000 million of taxpayers' money without saying how it will be broken down? That is disgraceful. If any member thinks that this debate is a waste of time, they protest too much. They know very well that once the public realise what an incredible amount of money will be wasted on a scheme that may well serve no purpose at all, public opinion will certainly change.
The minister raises the issue of the economic decline that we currently face. Is he also concerned about the money that has been spent on the national conversation?
I would have thought that the member could do better than that. I do not know whether we are spending £5,000, or even £50,000, on the national conversation. To say that we should not have a conversation about the future government of our country is a pretty weak argument, and there is no comparison with this debate, which is about whether we should spend £5,000 million at a time when the economy is facing real problems.
In the past 24 hours, I have spoken to two employers in my constituency that are likely to issue redundancy consultations. I am sure that members throughout the chamber have had similar conversations. Day in, day out, we hear that people are losing their jobs, but then we hear that the UK Government is going to spend £5,000 million on something that is not necessary. Most of us have a passport and credit cards, and in any event everybody's identity has to be checked by lawyers, under money-laundering regulations, and in umpteen other circumstances. The proposal is ridiculous.
At the weekend, we were treated to the news that a former Labour Party candidate and former close confidante of many of Lord George Foulkes's colleagues in the House of Commons was for many years a Czech spy. That individual was a UK citizen. Had identity cards existed, rather than just being a Labour activist and a Czech spy, would they not have been a Labour activist and a Czech spy with a UK identity card that contributed not one iota to the security of the realm?
Not for the first time, Mr Carlaw makes a point that had not occurred to me. There is certainly a problem with Lord Foulkes's identity: it is not that we do not know who he is, but that we know far too much about him.
Another argument is that identity cards will contribute to the reduction in fraud. What complete and utter nonsense. If fraud is reducing, it is because, belatedly perhaps, the banks that issue credit cards have introduced a chip-and-pin system and now have several identifiers to verify people's identity. It is difficult for people to remember all the passwords—never mind their grandmother's maiden name and the rest—that they have to come up with when they are trying to sort things out. The idea that ID cards will sort out fraud is simply hokum.
I was touched by the Labour ranks' slavish loyalty to their London lords and masters. Sandra White appositely pointed out that, in a previous debate on ID cards, there were some slight hints of rebellion and suggestions that the orders from the chateau were not being implemented in the trenches. She was right to mention Pauline McNeill in dispatches. However, the rebellion was entirely snuffed out today. There was not a rebel in sight. Everybody was absolutely loyal to General Darling.
When General Darling was a mere private back in 1989, he made a speech about national identity cards in which he said:
"Identity cards … will not assist … the detection of those suspected of having committed offences."
That is a good argument. The now chancellor also said:
"The scheme would create a vast bureaucracy—an industry of identity."
Many industries in Scotland are going down the plughole, but at least we know that new Labour is committed to a new industry—the identity card industry.
Could you wind up now, please, minister?
Alistair Darling continued:
"Does the House seriously imagine that someone seeking to bring heroin or cocaine into the country or intending to blow up property or individuals would make the mistake of coming here without identification?"
Private Darling had a good point there, but he kept his best point until the end of his speech, when he said:
"if £350 million were available to set up this scheme the money would be better spent employing police officers to go out on the streets".—[Official Report, House of Commons, 10 February 1989; Vol 146, c 1310, 1314-1315.]
Hooray!
Let us hear it for Private Darling. What on earth happened in the intervening years, other than the price going up from £350 million to £5,000 million?
Could you come to a conclusion now, minister?
The best speech of the afternoon was from Bashir Ahmad. In answer to the proposition from the Labour benches that we should not be debating ID cards, he said that every person in Scotland will be affected, so of course we should debate the matter. He was quite right. I look forward to a united message on the matter from everyone—except General Darling's army.