Blair's promise on ID cards "worthless"

11.11.27am GMT Mon 13th Feb 2006

Tony Blair's latest ID card promise has been exposed as "worthless" by David Howarth.

The Prime Minister recently pledged that making ID cards compulsory would require fresh legislation. However, an obscure new law debated last week in the House of Commons would give Blair and his ministers the power to change the law "by Order".

David commented:

"Tony Blair promised us that he would need to enact new primary legislation to make ID cards compulsory, but this bill makes this promise worthless. Under these proposals Blair could introduce compulsory ID cards through negative resolution without scrutiny by Parliament.

"He is attempting to short-circuit parliamentary procedures and we have only the word of a junior minister that the Government won't use this power for controversial measures. Who is to decide what is controversial, the Government? Do we really want unknown future governments to have such wide-ranging powers without proper safeguards?"