|
ID cards: the truth
Related issues |
News /
Parliamentary Ping-Pong - Lords & Commons Battle Over ID Cards?16 March 2006 This week has seen the Identity Cards Bill booted back & forth between the House of Lords and House of Commons. The Lords continue to back the amendment to unlink ID card registration from passport renewals & applications, while the Commons keep voting to overturn this very sensible amendment. Linking ID cards & passports amounts to compulsion by stealth, and makes a mockery of the government line that ID cards would be voluntary to start with. http://www.silicon.com/publicsector/0,3800010403,39157282,00.htm The ID cards battle remains deadlocked after MPs again overturned a House of Lords amendment that would have prevented people being forced to register for an ID card when applying for a passport.
MPs voted by 292 votes to 241 votes - an increased majority of 51 - in favour of keeping the clause in the bill to make the passport a "designated document" tied in with ID cards and the National Identity Register (NIR) database.
It is the second time this week that MPs have overturned House of Lords' opposition to the ID cards bill and the parliamentary ping-pong will continue on Monday when peers vote on the legislation for the fourth time.
If the House of Lords continues to oppose what critics call the "compulsion by stealth" element of the bill then the government will be forced to invoke the Parliament Act in the next session in November to get ID cards on the Statute Book.
|
NO2ID campaign Defy ID network |
