I HAVE long been a strong supporter of the benefits of identity cards. I became convinced of the advantages as a weapon in fighting crime when I was Police Minister from 1999 to 2001. I backed David Blunkett’s proposals when we discussed them in Cabinet and as Education Secretary I told the Home Affairs Select Committee last April of my personal support for the principle.

That is why I will today propose that the House of Commons gives a second reading to the Identity Cards Bill. I have been urged by opponents of this measure — such as Charles Kennedy and the Liberal Democrats — to “pause for thought” in the entirely forlorn hope that I will abandon the whole idea.

However, I believe that — quite apart from the security advantages — there will be enormous practical benefits. ID cards will potentially make a difference to any area of everyday life where you already have to prove your identity — such as opening a bank account, going abroad on holiday, claiming a benefit, buying goods on credit and renting a video. The possession of a clear, unequivocal and unique form of identity — in the shape of a card linked to a database holding biometrics — will offer significant benefits.

Moreover, their help in tackling fraud will save tens of millions of pounds of taxpayers’ money. Some £50 million a year is claimed illegally from the benefits systems using false identities. This money can be far better spent improving schools and hospitals and fighting crime and antisocial behaviour.

This drive towards secure identity is, of course, happening all over the world. Under current plans, for example, from next autumn British tourists who need a new passport will have to get a biometric one to visit the US or get a biometric visa. We will — rightly — have to bear the costs of introducing the new technology to enhance our passports anyway. We should take the opportunity of that investment to secure wider benefits such as those I set out here.

Of course, the Bill may be amended at the various stages of parliamentary discussion, and I will look carefully at all constructive suggestions to improve our proposals. But I have to say that my commitment to the principle of ID cards is very strong and will not waver, mainly because I think that they will help to make everyone a bit safer, at no real cost to civil liberties.

For example, a secure identity system will help to prevent terrorist activity, more than a third of which makes use of false identities. It will make it far easier to address the vile trafficking in vulnerable human beings that ends in the tragedies of Morecambe Bay, exploitative near-slave labour or vile forced prostitution. It will reduce identity fraud, which now costs the UK more than £1.3 billion every year.

I believe that some critics of our proposals are guilty of liberal woolly thinking and spreading false fears when they wrongly claim that ID cards will erode our civil liberties, will revisit 1984, usher in the “Big Brother” society, or establish some kind of totalitarian police state. Those kinds of nightmare will be no more true of ID cards, when they are introduced, than they have been for the spread of cash and credit cards, driving licences, passports, work security passes and any number of the other current forms of ID that most of us now carry.

In order to reinforce this point, the Bill does not make it compulsory to carry a card, nor does it give powers to the police to stop individuals and demand to see their card. Neither will the database which accompanies the card hold information such as medical records, religion or political beliefs.

Of course, ID cards cannot solve every problem. But — properly and carefully introduced, as they will be — they can be part of the solution. There is no contradiction between the introduction of ID cards and the wide range of other measures with which the Government seeks to fight crime.

I claim that the ID Cards Bill that I am introducing today is a profoundly civil libertarian measure because it promotes the most fundamental civil liberty in our society, which is the right to live free from crime and fear. Both in practice and in principle ID cards are right. I hope that they will gain wide support throughout our society, and the sooner the better.

Charles Clarke is Home Secretary

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