By Kable, 7 April 2005 08:40
NEWS The home secretary has pledged to stand by the ID cards bill if re-elected as opposition parties reject claims they have 'killed' the legislation
The government's identity card bill, which will not become law ahead of the general election, would be resurrected should Labour win, home secretary Charles Clarke confirmed yesterday.
Clarke blamed the Conservatives for preventing the legislation going through parliament before the election and claimed the opposition party had "decided to kill it". But he said that the government is confident it can push it through if re-elected.
"We believe we can carry the ID card bill," he told BBC's Newsnight programme. "We believe there's wide supportÂ… but there was a big wobble on the Tory side."
"The Lib Dems had not faced up to what was required when we made a number of proposals to try and encourage them to agree," he added.
George Osborne, the shadow chief secretary to the Treasury, denied his party was acting against the interests of national security in scrutinising the bill.
"This is one of the most important issues. It deserves proper scrutiny there are very serious issues about the practicability and the costsÂ…we have very serious concerns which have not been addressed in Parliament," he said.
"The Labour party has had eight years of government, with the biggest party majority in living memory and they have had plenty of time to push the legislation through."
Lib Dem party chair Matthew Taylor said the government had dropped the bill because of mounting concerns among the public.
"They talk about ID cards because they think it is popular with the electorate," he said. "Once the electorate find out how much they cost and that they don't work, they will find that it's not quite so popular and it has to go out of the window."
Comments
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1. Anon
ID cards - "would be resurrected should Labour win". Oh good. One more reason of many not to vote for them in the coming elections!
2. Jamie Bishop
One good reason not to vote labour then, now all we need is one good reason to vote conservative.
3. Karen Challinor
The bill was rushed through the house before anyone could find out that the ID card itself was just the tip of a very large iceberg.
Foreign nationals and service personnel who say they carry one and it's no problem are missing approximately seven eighths of the argument.
I personally don't have a problem with an ID card beyond it being expensive and compulsory i.e. it's a tax on being a citizen, I do have major issues with the rest of the bill though.
A database that doesn't comply with the data protection act and whose exact nature is a secret. Cross notification whereby changes in my health may be communicated to my tax office. And administrative convergence whereby this same information may be passed to external agencies such as insurers or banks are some small examples of my worries.
The technology required is expensive and has never been demonstrated to work reliably on a sample of more than a few thousand, would you like to be a false positive in the hunt for terrorists especially in view of the treatment you are likely to receive.
The bill shifts the burden of proof, you will be presumed guilty unless you can prove yourself innocent, how many people will have six years worth of daily minutae logged to assist in this proof.
The bill is badly thought out, unworkable in it's present state and manifestly cannot achieve it's stated aims, it does however give the state unmatched powers to monitor and control the activities of it's citizenzs.
The first rule I learned in IT was "Badly thought out idea = badly written specification = unworkable project = waste of time and money = sacked and looking for a new job" maybe we should apply this to politics and vote for someone else.
4. Ken Hall
The only way to stop the ID card for certain is to vote against labour.