By Jo Best, 11 February 2005 14:05
NEWS Political opposition to the ID Card Bill has crumbled as the controversial legislation took a significant step towards becoming law.
The Bill was passed with 224 votes to 64 as some Labour MPs joined with the Liberal Democrats in voting against the legislation that would force UK citizens to carry identity cards for the first time since World War II.
The Tories, who had previously declared the legislation was deeply flawed, recently pulled a political U-turn and claimed they would support the legislation. However, at the crucial vote, Conservative MPs abstained from voting.
David Davis said the abstention was due to answered questions over the legislation and added the Bill had been rushed though Parliament, after the time given to debate amendments was deemed too short by opponents.
Richard Allan, Lib Dem MP for Sheffield Hallam, said: "The Bill is complex and has significant technical, financial and privacy implications that cannot be covered under the programme motion before us today. Its complexity has grown during the passage of the Bill thus far, so there are many areas that need further clarification that we will not have time to deal with."
Despite the huge majority supporting the Bill, its passage into law isn't yet guaranteed. With the Labour government keen to get the Bill into law before the expected spring general election, the Tories in the House of Lords are expected to spin out negotiations.
Any protracted debate on the legislation in the Lords will mean the government won't have enough time to get the Bill though the Upper House before the general election, effectively killing it off.
Labour, could however, reintroduce the Bill if re-elected.
Comments
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1. Karen Challinor
Just for once please let the Lords do the right thing
2. anonymous
What worries me about ID cards is the premise under which they are being introduced. Which is massively flawed. The Government have stated this is a response to terrorism and illegal immigration. On both counts ID cards will make no difference. The hijackers that were responsible for 9/11 got into the US using their own legal passports and identities. Not every terrorist is a known individual travelling in disguise! On the issue of illegal immigrants, unless everyone is expected to produce an ID card to turn up to work for cash on a building site or in a restaurant for below minimum wage I fail to see what difference they will make. It might make it harder to claim benefit, but that system is so flawed anyway another way round will be found.
So what is the real motivation for rushing through this legislation? Why are the government being so bullish about an expensive project with little or no obvious benefit ?
I would suggest there are other targets where this cash could be better spent, perhaps unifying the insurers databases with the DVLA so that every Taxed car also had an insurance certificate lodged against it would be better, and throw an MOT in with that and we may have fewer fatalities due to unfit cars on the road. That would be an immediate benefit I think most of us would sign up for.
3. eggy bread
If the Torries weren't sure, why didn't they vote "no" rather than abstaining and thus letting an ill debated motion pass?
4. Ken
The tories abstained from the ID card vote because they do want the ID card, but are ambarrased by how much of Labours policies they agree with. (They pretend to be an opposition). Tory and Labour are different sides of the same flawed corrupt coin.
The Lib dems can spout all they like against ID cards, but their support of all things EU means that they actually do support ID cards too. The EU is proposing an EU wide bio-metric trackable ID card.
Of all the mainstream parties, only UKIP are against ID cards and against detention without charge or trial and would have the power to create the environment where ID cards are not implemented and for liberty and justice to prevail in the UK.