ID Debate




       
       
       
 
NB: THIS TRANSCRIPT WAS TYPED FROM A TRANSCRIPTION UNIT RECORDING AND NOT 
COPIED FROM AN ORIGINAL SCRIPT: BECAUSE OF THE POSSIBILITY OF MIS-HEARING AND 
THE DIFFICULTY, IN SOME CASES OF IDENTIFYING INDIVIDUAL SPEAKERS, THE BBC 
                       CANNOT VOUCH FOR ITS ACCURACY. 
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                                ON THE RECORD   
 
 
RECORDED FROM TRANSMISSION: BBC-1                               DATE: 28.5.95 
.............................................................................. 
 
JOHN HUMPHRYS:                         Good afternoon. Do we want a national 
identity card? The government wants to know what we think and that's what this 
programme is about.   We have a live studio audience; two teams of politicians 
representing both sides in the debate;  and we'll find out which argument wins 
the day.  That's after the News read by Moira Stuart. 
 
NEWS 
 
HUMPHRYS:                              Hello again.  A different On The Record 
this week because we're debating identity cards - and by "we" I mean a live 
studio audience and two teams of MPs.  One of the interesting things about this 
great debate is that it's created some unlikely alliances: right-wing Tories 
and left-wing opposition both fighting on the same side.  We have both sides 
here:  Jeff Rooker, Labour, and Sir Ivan Lawrence, Tory, are for an ID card. 
Mike O'Brien, Labour and Richard Shepherd, Tory, are against.  They'll try to 
convince you and the audience here in the studio of their case. 
 
                                       But first, let's be clear what we're 
talking about.  The Green Paper that came out on Wednesday asked the simple 
question: should there be a national identity card. Mark Weston-Turner reports  
on that.  
 
MARK WESTON-TURNER:                    Britons last had to carry ID cards 
during and after the Second World War, but in 1952 they went after a judge 
ruled it was an emergency measure inappropriate for peace time.  But now 
the Home Secretary thinks ID cards could be helpful in the crime war.
 
MICHAEL HOWARD MP:                     The police think that it would be an 
advantage in the fight against crime, and it could also have uses as a travel 
document, so there are a number of ways in which an identity card could have 
advantages.  I want to test the arguments for those advantages, test the 
arguments against, and then we shall decide how to move forward. 
 
WESTON-TURNER:                         Michael Howard's Green Paper has a 
number of options, the first two of which aren't really new at all.  Option one 
is coming anyway.  Drivers will have their photograph on the new licence from 
next year.   Option two is a travel document which could replace the British 
Visitors Passport, due to be scrapped this year, or the two could be combined 
into the new voluntary government card.   The third option is that the 
government could do nothing, but the fourth option favoured by the police is a 
compulsory national identity card. 
 
FRED BROUGHTON:                        The key benefits of a identification 
card would be the additional support that it would give police to identity 
individuals they're dealing with, and in investigating crime from summonses
through to serious crime what's crucial is identification of the individual 
they're dealing with, and that's what ID cards give the police, and no doubt 
it'll help prevent crime. 
 
WESTON-TURNER:                         But some criminologists say identity is 
not the major issue in most crimes, and the public will have been sold a pup if 
they think it'll make much difference. 
 
PROFESSOR MICHAEL LEVI:                The public are very alarmed about crime 
and they want something done about it.   ID cards sound as though they're 
going to do something about it, but the police are not very likely to be able 
to detect many more offenders as a result of any kind of ID card scheme 
voluntary or compulsory. 
 
WESTON-TURNER:                         So whatever happens to the Green Paper, 
one scheme will definitely come in, the photo-driving licence - few have a 
problem with that.  The question that remains unanswered is do we need a 
national identity card on top of everything else we carry.  Mark Weston-Turner, 
On The Record, Westminster. 
 
HUMPHRYS:                              So there we are - that's the question, 
should there be one, do we want one?   Before we find out what the audience 
here thinks let's take a look at the findings of an opinion poll.  We asked 
MORI to question a thousand people across the country and here's what they 
found out.  To the question: On balance do you support or oppose the 
introduction of a national identity card scheme, most people - seventy-five per 
cent were in favour.  Seventeen per cent said they were opposed, and eight per 
cent had no opinon.  But might that change when we've been subjected to a 
proper debate.  Well, our studio audience will provide the answer or part of 
it, so let me ask you in the audience, ladies and gentlemen where you stand in 
this great debate.  I take it you all have views of one sort or another and 
you've also got little buttons to press, which will tell us what you think, so 
would you please press your buttons now and tell us whether you are in favour 
or whether you're opposed or whether you remain to be convinced one way or the 
other.  Would you press your buttons now please. 
 
                                       And there we are.   So that's a rather 
narrower majority in favour than the national majority we have, but still a 
clear majority.  We have forty-nine per cent in the studio who are in favour, 
twenty-eight per cent who are opposed, and a large number, twenty-three per 
cent who are undecided.  So let's find out on what you base all that.  Perhaps 
you'd put up your hands those of you who are in favour, who voted in favour.  
Yes, gentleman here - why did you vote in favour? 
 
UNNAMED MAN:                       Well, in my opinion, ID cards offer a way of 
preventing fraud and crime.  If an individual has nothing to hide he shouldn't 
mind carrying an identification card. 
 
HUMPHRYS:                              Right, so it's good from the point of 
view of preventing fraud, and if you've nothing to hide why worry about it.  
Somebody else who was - yes sir, gentleman over there? 
 
UNNAMED MAN:                       I particularly feel that the police of 
course will gain some benefits from it, but secondarily I feel that the 
ambulance services dealing with large accidents, railways et cetera, would be 
immensely valuable if they could have blood groups et cetera on to it.
 
HUMPHRYS:                              Let's come back to that perhaps in a bit 
more detail, the police view of it all, but there was a lady here I think you 
put your hand up? 
 
UNNAMED WOMAN:                         Yes, I married - I'm British but I 
married an American and we carry the drivers licence with our picture. 
 
HUMPHRYS:                              That's got a photograph on it, yeah. 
 
UNNAMED WOMAN:                         Exactly.  And if you don't have a 
drivers licence, then you are supposed to get an ID card. 
 
HUMPHRYS:                              So you're for it, and you've tried it 
and that's a sort of ID card in one sense, and you think it works alright. 
 
UNNAMED WOMAN:                         Yes, I do. 
 
HUMPHYRS:                              But that's in the United States of
course.
 
UNNAMED WOMAN:                         It is, yes. But you need it to cash 
cheques and you know, I just think everybody should have one. 

HUMPHRYS:                              Right.  Okay, now would you put up your 
hands if you were against, and then perhaps - gentleman there? 
 
UNNNAMED MAN:                          Personally I don't think it'll make any 
difference to organised crime.   The real criminals always get away with it, 
the police hardly catch anybody involved in real crime. 
 
HUMPHYRS:                              Have you had any experience yourself of 
... 
 
UNNAMED MAN:                           Well, I got stopped just after the war.  
I was coming back from the West End with a friend of mine and we stood talking 
under a lamp-post and then these two big burly chaps in raincoats and trilby 
hats at that time came along, and I didn't have my identity card on me and they 
frightened the life out of me and I had to go home and get my identity card 
which was ... 
 
HUMPHRYS:                              And then take it to the police station 
to prove you were who you said you were. 
 
UNNAMED MAN:                           No, they didn't do that, but it did 
worry me and it was very frightening at the time. 
 
HUMPHRYS:                              Okay, and somebody else who was opposed, 
there was a - yes, madam? 
 
UNNAMED WOMAN:                         Well, you won't get - it's a 
misconception to think that crime will go away just by identity cards.  You've 
got to get the root of why there's crime in the first place, the social and 
psychological conditions that actually bring crime anyway. 
 
HUMPHRYS:                              Yes, okay.  Those who haven't made up 
their minds yet.  We'll come back to some more arguments against, but somebody 
who hasn't made up his or her mind, yes, the lady here, you haven't made up 
your mind yet. 
 
UNNAMED WOMAN:                         Yes, I haven't made up my mind.  I was 
for it, but I work in a chemist and we have a lot of people coming in and 
saying they don't pay for prescriptions, and really I think they should, but 
there's no proof.  Well, I don't know what the arguments are or what will be on 
the identity card, whether it will be shown whether they should or should not 
pay. 
 
HUMPHRYS:                              Right, Oh well, that's an interesting 
point.  We may be able to return to that, but that's it for the moment, but 
we'll come back to you of course during the course of the programme.  Let's 
see now if we can persuade you in the audience, and indeed you at home to 
change your mind one way or the other.  Before we hear from our politicians we 
have two films to show you.  We asked Kim Catcheside and Emma Udwin, reporters 
on this programme, to put aside their normal journalistic impartiality and 
present the cases for and against.  First Kim Catcheside who argues for the 
introduction of ID cards. 
 
KIM CATCHESIDE:                        Who is this man?  And who's she?  And 
Him?  Is he what he seems?  Identity cards would answer your questions.  For 
many of us identity cards whether it be for a work place or even a health club, 
are part of every day life today but here at ID Data in Northamptonshire, the 
bright new world of tomorrow is already here.   They're experts in so-called 
smart card technology, that's a card with a computer chip on it, capable of 
carrying pages of useful information, designed to take some of the hassle out 
of modern life. 
 
PETER COX:                             The smart card can carry your health 
details, it could carry the access code to your motorcar, it could carry 
information to enable you to get into the telephone network, it would enable 
you if you like, to carry your social security details and even your tax 
details. 
 
CATCHESIDE:                            So, instead of all this, all I need is 
this.  Good morning. 
 
ACTRESS:                               Good morning. 
 
CATCHESIDE:                            I'd like to withdraw five hundred pounds 
from my current account. 
 
ACTRESS:                               Alright, have you got your ID card 
please. 
 
CATCHESIDE:                            Yes, of course. 
 
ACTRESS:                               Thank you, that will do nicely.   And 
how would you like the money? 
 
CATCHESIDE:                            Fifties please. 
 
ACTRESS:                               There you go, thank you. 
 
CATCHESIDE:                            Thank you very much. 
 
                                       Can I take that please. 
 
ACTOR:                                 Certainly, that's forty nine pounds 
fifty please. 
 
CATCHESIDE:                            ID card okay? 
 
ACTOR:                                 That's fine, thank you. 
 
CATCHSIDE:                             Thank you. 
 
ACTOR:                                 Lovely, thank you. 
 
CATCHESIDE:                            Thanks. 
 
                                       Half a pint of ...... please. 
 
ACTOR:                                 May I see your ID please? 
 
CATCHESIDE:                            Pleasure. 
 
ACTOR:                                 Thank you very much indeed. 
 
ACTOR:                                 Okay I've got it, she's diabetic, she's 
had a history of these attacks before. 
 
CATCHESIDE:                            So there are lots of ways an ID card 
could make your life easier and safer.  But what of the disadvantages that it 
may be used by the police, well you've got nothing to hide and nothing to fear. 
 
                                       They've got something to hide though. 
And he's got plenty to hide. 
 
                                       Social Security offices all over Britain 
are the scene of the crime of the century, forget the great train robbery, it's 
estimated that a massive five billion pounds a year is being stolen by social 
security fraudsters, that's your money, the equivalent of three pence off the 
basic rate of tax.  Identity cards would cut social security fraud. 
 
                                       Credit and cash card fraud costs a 
hundred million pounds each year, banking organisations believe a smart card 
would cut fraud sigificantly. 
 
                                       And driving test fraud is now 
widespread, according to the RAC, upto five thousand people every year are 
getting other people to sit their driving tests for them.  ID cards would help 
keep unqualified drivers off our roads and save lives. 
 
                                       So identity cards, convenience, peace of 
mind and money in the bank, that's why seventy five per cent of the people in 
our On The Record poll said they wanted identity cards. 
 
HUMPHRYS:                              That was Kim Catcheside reporting.  Now 
with the case against Emma Udwin. 
 
ACTRESS:                               I'm afraid I've run out of petrol. 
 
POLICE:                                Identity card please madam. 
 
ACTRESS:                               But I've only run out of petrol. 
 
POLICE:                                Identity card please. 
 
ACTRESS:                               I must have it in here somewhere. 
 
POLICE:                                I'm sorry madam, I'll have to ask you to 
come down to the police station with me. 
 
ACTRESS:                               This is ridiculous. 
 
POLICE:                                I'm sorry. 
 
EMMA UDWIN:                            All this has happened before, last time 
this country had ID cards, that's why they were abolished.  British citizens 
wouldn't stand for them. 
 
                                       The right to go unchallenged about our 
business is something foreigners envy us.  Don't let them take that freedom 
away from you. 
 
                                       It's not just your identity that will be 
on these cards, they could give all kinds of private information about you.  
The government, the police,  complete strangers, all with access to your most 
intimate details.  But what if they get your records wrong?  Human error? 
Computer error?  You'd be labelled with their mistakes.   The State will be 
watching you and it won't come cheap, even the government admits current 
estimates are probably far too low. 
 
ACTOR:                                 This scheme could cost a billion pounds 
to set up, that means higher taxes.  Or cuts elsewhere. 
 
UDWIN:                                 They'll tell you it's worth the money, 
that ID cards will help crack down on crime.  Even the government knows it's 
not true. 
 
ACTOR:                                 We know who the criminals are, it's 
finding the evidence to nail them that's the problem. 
 
UDWIN:                                 They'll tell you ID cards will cut 
Social Security fraud, but even the government knows they're not the answer. 
 
ACTOR:                                 We lose money usually because people lie 
about their circumstances not about their names. 
 
UDWIN:                                 And fraud experts agree the forgers of 
today will be faking ID cards tomorrow. 
 
                                       With ID cards you'll lose your freedom.  
You'll lose your privacy.  And you'll be paying dearly for something that 
doesn't even work.  If you value your identity, say 'no' to ID cards. 
 
HUMPHRYS:                              Well that was Emma Udwin, so what do the 
audience here make of those arguments.  Perhaps somebody who was unconvinced 
either way before we saw those films, somebody who hadn't decided in the 
audience, who hadn't decided before?  Yes sir, what about you, what.. 
 
UNNAMED MAN:                           I was concerned only about the 
possibility or the certainty of forging the identity cards and even with 
electronic gadgetry of today, it still can be done by the criminals and we have 
no real firm indication that the police will be anymore successful. 
 
HUMPHRYS:                              So having seen those films you'd come 
down at, the moment anyway, against? 
 
UNNAMED MAN:                           I'm inclined a little bit that way shall 
we say yes. 
 
HUMPHRYS:                              Alright what about somebody else, yes 
the gentleman right at the very back there...what were you before? 
 
UNNAMED MAN:                           Undecided. 
 
HUMPHRYS:                              You were undecided, right. 
 
UNNAMED MAN:                           Yeah.  Nobody knows the extent that this 
thing is going to go to, at the moment it's just an ID card and it seems it 
could be quite practical in certain instances but how far is it going to go, 
what records are going to be on it, I mean, they mentioned twenty two records 
there, you can keep a lot more than that on a data base. 
 
HUMPHRYS:                              So at the moment you are tending towards 
against. 
 
UNNAMED MAN:                           Probably against. 
 
HUMPHRYS:                              Okay, somebody who was for it before we 
saw those films yeah, okay, a lady there, you were for them yeah. 
 
UNNAMED WOMAN:                         Yes I definitely think they are a good 
idea for crime in shops and things, when children come in and they say they are 
sixteen and they are not and in the war they were obviously a good thing, I 
think they are very good, I think they should be.... 
 
HUMPHRYS:                              So you've not been persuaded by that 
film against about the sort of development of the police state and all that 
sort of thing. 
 
UNNAMED WOMAN:                         No, they are a good idea. 
 
HUMPHRYS:                              I think we actually have a couple of 
policemen in the audience don't we, yes, you are presumably being a policeman, 
I don't know why I should make this assumption but presumably you are for it? 
 
UNNAMED MAN:                           Well it's an assumption but I am for it. 
 
HUMPHRYS:                              You are for it. 
 
UNNAMED MAN:                           This is my personal view but that's em, 
of course that's like something off Star Trek than the reality, police officers 
don't deal with people like that. 
 
HUMPHRYS:                              Well forgetting the caricature of the 
policemen, we know you're all a nice lot. 
 
UNNAMED MAN:                           I think the actual crime aspect where it 
will be most valuable is tracing criminals we are looking for and there are 
thousands and thousands of people who have committed offences who are still at
large we can't detect. 
 
HUMPHRYS:                              But I understood the argument here was 
that you know who the villains are, it's a question of actually catching them
doing the evil deed, that was your problem.  ID cards aren't going to help with 
that are they? 
 
UNNAMED MAN:                           Well often we know who the criminals are 
but they change identity with various bits of correspondence which are easy to 
get and we find it very difficult to catch them. 
 
HUMPHRYS:                              Alright, somebody who was against cards 
and having seen ..yeah the lady there. 
 
UNNAMED WOMAN:                         I don't fancy being stopped in the 
streets I think it's going to.. 
 
HUMPHRYS:                              Sorry you don't want them... 
 
UNNAMED WOMAN:                         I am against identity cards, I think it 
will make little Hitlers of the police, I think they'll just come up to any 
group and say can you show us your identity cards. 
 
HUMPHRYS:                              But that film we saw... 
 
UNNAMED WOMAN:                         Authority will go to their heads I 
am sure of it. 
 
HUMPHRYS:                              Yeah, what about what that policeman 
said though, that it's going to help them catch the villains, I mean that's 
persuasive isn't it? 
 
UNNAMED WOMAN:                         No, you still need evidence, you need 
hard evidence to nail them. 
 
HUMPHRYS:                              But if they don't know, if at the moment 
they can't catch them, they physically can't get a handle on them because
they change their identity all the time then it makes it a problem for them 
doesn't it? 
 
UNNAMED WOMAN:                         They still need to prove they've done 
the crime whatever name.... 
 
HUMPHRYS:                              Alright a lady here, just a very quick 
one and then I want to go to the politicians yeah. 
 
UNNAMED WOMAN:                         It's a lot to do with your movements, 
it's nothing to do with the photograph, it's to do with the movements, there's 
a very sinister background to it.  Where were you on a certain date is what 
worries me... 
 
HUMPHRYS:                              Right so you were persuaded by that 
second film then to be worried about it.
 
UNNAMED WOMAN:                         I always was against this and I am even 
more against it after seeing that film. 
 
HUMPHRYS:                              Yeah, okay, well thanks very much I'll 
come back to you again because now we are going to hear from our politicians 
and this basically is where they do my job for me, because they are going to 
cross-examine each other for a certain period of time so let me give the first 
hit as it were to Richard Shepherd and Mike O'Brien. Now you've got a bit of 
persuading to do here at the moment gentlemen because at the moment you're on 
the losing side, you're going to have seven minutes, and it's a strictly 
limited seven minutes to cross-examine the other two, so you have your seven 
minutes beginning now Richard Shepherd and Mike O'Brien. 
 
RICHARD SHEPHERD MP:                   I wanted to ask Ivan if it were 
appropriate, bearing in mind that with the voluntary card in France you can be 
held up in a police station up to six hours, and in a compulsory system such as 
Germany up to twenty-four hours if you cannot produce your identity card or a 
satisfactory form of identity.  What compulsion do you envisage under our 
compulsory identity card scheme? 
 
SIR IVAN LAWRENCE MP:                  Well, it's a question whether we're 
going to have compulsion or voluntary.  The question mark that I think is in 
everybody's mind is whether we ought to have it at all, and I think that 
voluntary would be more acceptable to most people, although obviously we would 
be able to deal with more crime if it was compulsory.  I've been in France and 
I've been in Germany, and I've asked the people there whether they don't like 
the idea of them having identity cards, and they both - both countries can't 
understand what our objection is.  They have them, they are useful for life, 
they're useful for taking care of some elements of crime, and they think we're 
nuts to be arguing about it. 
 
SHEPHERD:                              But if they're voluntary I don't 
understand the point.   If we don't have to carry them then it doesn't meet 
many of the concerns of this audience, and therefore we understood that this 
was compulsion that you were looking for.  I mean the criminals just won't 
carry them. 
 
LAWRENCE:                              No, it's not necessarily compulsion 
we're looking at.  The Green Paper says look at it all, to see whether in 
principle it would be a good idea.  Obviously if it's voluntary, then people 
who need to have benefits, people who need to genuinely show that they are 
proper claimants, that they've got a right to ask for videos, tobacco and 
drinks, and that they're not under age, people that have got a proper, genuine 
right to claim social security benefit will have great facility having them.  
People who are knocked down in the street and have got an allergy or who have 
got diabetes or something like that, it will be useful for them to have them 
voluntarily.  Later on, I mean it may well be if ninety-nine per cent of the 
public have them voluntarily then it will look like compulsion, but it doesn't 
necessarily have to be compulsion. 
 
SHEPHERD:                              But, no-one suggests that.  I'm just not 
clear in my mind.  Do you believe in it - compulsion for identity cards? 
 
LAWRENCE:                              I think it will be very useful for 
society, for the reduction of crime which people think to be terribly 
important, if they were compulsory. 
 
SHEPHERD:                              And therefore what are the punishments 
that you would seek for those not carrying them? 
 
LAWRENCE:                              Well, we would have to consider whether 
or not there should be punishments, whether or not you say, present it next day 
in a police station, whether you say, if you haven't got it you should be fined 
on the spot.  These are things that have got to be worked out, but they are 
further down the line than deciding on principle whether they would be a good 
idea. 
 
MIKE O'BRIEN MP:                       Can I ask Jeff a question now.  Public 
concern Jeff, is obviously about things like burglary, street crime 
particularly mugging, theft.   Looking at the international comparisons in 
other countries, the House of Commons library tells me that there's no 
evidence, no statistical evidence, not reports which show that having an ID 
card actually deals with these issues.  It doesn't even deal with issues like 
fraud.  Have you come across any reports or statistical evidence from countries 
that do have ID cards which shows that it actually cuts crime? 
 
JEFF ROOKER MP:                        No, and I don't actually claim that it 
does.  I wouldn't got for compulsion, I wouldn't go for a rule that you had to 
carry it with you.  I believe the citizen should have a right to be able to 
assert their identity when they wish, and under our present system there is no 
right of assertion of your own identity.  All kinds of cards we carry are only 
any good for that particular purpose.  I mean last week for example one of our 
parliamentary colleagues was denied access to his own building society account 
because he couldn't produce his passport.   I've mean Terry Davis has gone 
ballistic with the chairman of Abbey National.  That was the kind of situation 
when he didn't have the right to assert his identity, so I come from a 
different course, and I don't accept that crime - the solution of crime of 
course would be in all our interests, when people might see it as a panacea, 
there is so much crime related to identity now, the falsification, what was 
wrong in the film, it's actually a thousand driving test imposters a week 
succeed, it's fifty thousand a year, people sitting examinations for other 
people....... 
 
O'BRIEN:                               But this is being dealt with next year 
isn't it Jeff, with the introduction of the photograph on the driving licence, 
from the first of July 1996 and providing it's taken at the time  - the 
photograph is taken at the time the test is taken, then that - there should be 
no problem with that, so we don't need a national identity card. 
 
ROOKER:                                No, but the remarkable thing about it is 
of course, parliament has not actually debated or approved that.  That is a 
result of a European directive, and likewise of the Social Security switchcard, 
that is a ministerial decision.  Parliament has not decided that.  Pensioners 
lose their order books, will be given a magnetic card to protect security and 
enhance them (sic)  but we've not debated that. 
 
SHEPHERD::                             No, absolutely, but I just wanted to 
come back again if I may to Ivan.  It looks as if we're doing a bi-partisan 
thing here, but I'm worried about..from the smart cards that we saw in 
your film and all the tasks that it can gather together, and the identities 
that it can give us.  One of the problems we have as members of parliament is 
the question of error.  Now what happens - how do you correct an error on this, 
because we don't necessarily know what's on the card, and we find the 
difficulties that we have, the poll tax, court judgements in fact on poll tax 
things was sometimes wrong for a variety of reasons.  Is this all recorded on 
our card, can action be taken as a consequence. How do we correct error? 
 
LAWRENCE:                              Well, you're making an assumption to 
begin with that you're going to have a hundred things on a card.  There's no 
reason to make that assumption since all of the countries in Europe that have 
identity cards whether they're voluntary or compulsory in those countries, and 
they're not complaining about them, only have a limited number of items on 
them.  One need only have one's name, one's address, one's date of birth, one's 
blood group if it's going to help you, one's allegeries if they're going to 
help you, one's illnesses if they're going to help you in case of a terrible 
accident, you don't have to have one's tax details.  One doesn't have to have 
all those things on it, so I think that to go on the assumption that if we're 
going to have identity cards we're necessarily going to have ten thousand 
items on it is nonsense. 
 
SHEPHERD:                              I didn't.  You reminded me that we were 
looking at the Green Paper which raises the possibility that we can have these 
on it.  Your own film raised the possibility that we can have these on it.  
I'm only asking about where there are errors in the recording of this, and this 
is a factor of bureaucratic society and bureaucratic life, they make mistakes
and to get those corrected is extremely difficult in our normal lives now.   
Now on something that is an internal passport if there is an error on that 
internal passport, my good..... and we don't necessarily know about it.  This 
could bedevil us for the rest of our lives. 
 
LAWRENCE:                              Well, all of the computerised 
information now is subject to the citizen being able to ask what's on it and to 
check, but I don't think you need make the assumption that identity cards 
require all that kind of detail, they don't.  To be useful both in the 
detection of crime and to be useful for making life simpler you don't need a 
thousand details, and you don't need the sort of detail which will need 
correction. 
 
HUMPHRYS:                              I'm going to have to stop you there 
Richard, you've had your seven minutes.   It's down to the audience now to ask 
some questions of their own.  There was a lady in the front who looked really 
disgusted at something that was said, and I'm not quite sure what it was.
 
UNNAMED WOMAN:                         This ID card, even though it has a 
minimum of information on it, that can obviously lead to more information being 
tapped on you. Just because you have this smart card it doesn't stop there does 
it?  It wouldn't stop there, there's lots of things, I know - I've been into a 
shop and I've been told no, - someone rang me up and they told them exactly 
everything about me, even down to how many children I have, which.... 
 
HUMPHRYS:                              And it worries you that you don't 
actually know what is on this card, because there's no way you can tell. 
 
UNNAMED WOMAN:                         No..
 
HUMPHRYS:                              Yes, alright, who wants to deal with 
that? 
 
ROOKER:                                Well, there ought to be obviously, if 
ever such a card voluntarily was ever introduced there's got to be an 
independent means of the individual citizen having an independent check on 
what's on that card. 
 
HUMPHRYS:                              We can't even see our own medical 
records can we? 
 
ROOKER:                                That's the problem in our society at the 
moment.  We haven't got access to a lot of information about us.  If we had 
even a voluntary system we'd have to give the citizen the right not only to 
assert their identity, but to know what's on that identity card so they can 
control the information.  There's an enormous amount of information held about 
us that we're not allowed to know.  I totally diagree with this state of 
affairs. 
 
HUMPHRYS:                              Gentleman at the back there.  Yes, no 
you, sorry in the second row, yes you look concerned. 
 
UNNAMED MAN                            We live in a democratic society or at 
least fairly democratic.  There's no saying what will happen in the future, and 
when are these cards going to start from, from the day you're born? And they're 
going to carry everything on it?  It will do eventually, there's nothing to 
stop it happening. 
 
HUMPHRYS:                              And what's to stop a future government, 
this government might behave entirely responsibly, the next government might, 
but what about the one after that, what about the possibility that governments 
change, policies change and the next government or the next but one might want 
actually to abuse the system in some way. 
 
LAWRENCE:                              Well, parliament will protect the 
individual against too many terrible things. As it absolutely does now. 
The matters can be raised all the time, but I don't know why you make 
the assumption that all of these details that you don't like are going to be 
put on, or that you can't check them if they are put on.  The only items that 
are going to be put on are the....that need to be put on are the fundamental 
matters that say that you are who you are and that somebody doesn't use your 
name, your identity in order to cheat the rest of society out of its money. 
 
HUMPHRYS:                              Gentleman in the second row there, yes 
sir. 
 
UNNAMED MAN:                           In a way I think this debate's probably 
come about twenty, thirty years too late.  I come from an information 
technology background.  If you look at the situation there is ID around at the 
moment, and my point is this.  Why not have it properly controlled, debated by 
the government for the benefit of the people, because anybody can pay 
twenty-five to thirty pounds and go to some unscrupulous organisation, it's 
happened in parliament, people will present exactly what your credit rating is, 
they will use fraud - I think if it can be sold by the government as a benefit 
to the people properly monitored, properly controlled, surely it's better than 
the technology that exists today. 
 
HUMPHRYS:                              Right, the man at the back there, just 
second row from the back. 
 
UNNAMED MAN:                           With the amount of computer hackers 
we've got in this country now, how secure is that data going to be on the 
systems? 
 
HUMPHRYS:                              Right.  And let me let this lady in the 
front just make her quick point, lady in the front row here. 
 
UNNAMED WOMAN:                         Well, I've actually personally, I've 
lived in France for six years and I had a card identity and to be quite honest 
I found it very very practical.  For going to a library for example I have to 
produce a gas bill. You have a card identity or some form and you have it on 
the spot. 
 
HUMPHRYS;                              Yes, Okay.  Deal with a couple of those 
points, the one about the gentleman with the IT background said there's no way 
 - the gentleman at the back there rather said, how do we know it's not going 
to be fiddled basically? 
 
LAWRENCE:                              Well, I agree with the gentleman who 
spoke last on this side, that there is more protection in having a properly 
regulated system than there is in the multi-systems that we have at the moment. 
Do you know my driving licence has my driving convictions on it, which is an 
infringement of my civil liberties, but if we had one of these cards we could 
require that it didn't have driving...speeding convictions on it, so I would 
be safer than I am even now. 
 
HUMPHRYS:                              We'll ask you to show us your licence 
later, but that for the moment, that's it from these two.  Now they get the 
chance to cross-examine the other side, to cross-examine Richard Shepherd and 
Mike O'Brien. Seven minutes from now gentlemen. 
 
LAWRENCE:                              Can I just ask you this firstly, that 
the overwhelming body of people in the country, seventy-five per cent on the 
public opinion poll, who must of course be assuming that there is a downside to 
identity cards, that it will an infringement of some of their liberty, 
nevertheless think it's a jolly good idea because it will make life simpler for 
them and reduce the amount of crime.  The police want it.  If you're really 
serious about the need to reduce crime why don't you support it? 
 
O'BRIEN:                               Well can I take that one Richard?  In 
Australia in 1986 there was a debate about having the introduction of ID cards. 
At the start of that debate, seventy per cent of Australians wanted ID cards, 
three months later, after that debate had concluded, only thirty per cent of 
them wanted it because they knew that it ran counter to the traditions of 
individual liberty, because it was unclear what benefits it would bring. It 
wouldn't really fight crime because there was the danger of function creep, as 
they called it in Australia, where the government would start wanting it for 
one purpose and then move on and more government departments, eventually twenty 
government..Australian government departments wanted access to that information 
and in terms of the police wanting it.  The police, I suspect, would say if you 
asked them and public as well, what's the priority - putting more officers on 
thye beat, ensuring that we have proper crime prevention policies, putting 
locks on every householders' windows so that we could reduce burglaries by 
fifty per cent, putting CCTV, closed circuit television cameras in town centres 
so we could roam freely there without dangers of muggers.  If we asked what the 
priorities were for expenditure, I suspect the police would say let's get some 
more officers on the beat, I mean I'm losing fifty officers in Warwickshire 
this year.  If there's six hundrd million pounds from the Home Office floating 
about, I want six million pounds of that please, to save the fifty officers'
jobs in Warwickshire. 
 
LAWRENCE:                              But if we were to be able to reduce a 
proportion of the five billion pounds of Social Security fraud, where people do 
impersonate other people, not just mistake their circumstances but a proportion 
of it is misrepresenting other people, if we can make sure that people who get 
driving licences and take take driving tests are the real people who are 
qualified to do so, if we can make sure that those who apply for education 
grants are the people who ought to have them, then the amount of saving to the 
state in the reduction in crime and the reduction of waste of money should 
liberate millions of pounds which we could very well use for also having more 
policemen on the beat and more of the things that you and most of the public 
think are necessary so why do you brush that to one side and say that that is 
not the..... 
 
SHEPHERD:                              It's the generalisation of the claim.  
This is a panacea that no one's ever seen the light of before, it will take 
limescale out of your toilet bowel on this basis.  In truth when you examine 
just some of the facts there, five billion on Social Security fraud.  Now I 
know Ivan follows these very closely for the Secretary of State, who is not 
lenient on these matters, said that this was of an order of about, probably 
about a hundred and fifty million in terms of mispersonation, pretending you 
are somebody else.  In fact most of the fraud in this country is in the details 
claiming circumstances that aren't true. That's where it lies so when you throw 
in a figure like five thousand million, gosh, we are all differential.    
 
                                       As you unpick this argument, just as the 
Australians did. When they saw what it meant and the powers of the State 
against the individual, very surreptitiously the cross being able to relate 
what this piece of information means to that piece of information there, they 
rejected it out of hand and the tradition of the English speaking, our sort of 
democracies, that's Australia, Canada, New Zealand and the United States, the 
lady permitting, is not to have a compulsory identity card.  It is convenient 
to have an identity, there's no question about that in life and you see how it 
trades on our instinct to say, I've nothing to nothing to fear, nothing at all 
but I want an identity.  The Royal Bank of Scotland has put it on their cards 
and it's eliminated ninety per cent of fraud they've said, it's a civil 
transaction, nothing to do with the relationship of the citizen to the State 
and to the officials of the State. 
 
ROOKER:                                But do you not think Parliament should 
actually encourage some legislation to stop the private contracters, the Banks 
who are going to put fingerprints and bio-metrics of individuals on cards, as 
you say, a private arrangement.  The travel bosses will do it, the colleges and 
the libraries and the video clubs will do, where there is no Parliamentary 
legislation or control, where this could be abused by the con-man and the con 
artists on individual citizens. Don't you think we should have a view on that 
from a Parliamentary point? 
 
SHEPHERD:                              Absolutely but after all it's the 
customers' choice.  I don't have to go to the Royal Bank of Scotland, I don't 
have to use that video shop and I don't have to take ... 
 
ROOKER:                                One last one then.  Were you aware of 
the comments a few weeks ago of a spokesman for the Electrol Registration 
Officers in this country, to the view that the result of the next election 
could depend on the amount of fraud on the electoral register, now how do we 
overcome that if we don't do something about identity? 
 
SHEPHERD:                              Well it's always been a problem on it, I 
don't see why fraudulent identity...it's always been a problem personation as 
you know and I don't see why it is that an identity card, which can be forged, 
and this is our great fear on this thing, that we're mis-now-recorded with 
forged cards answers that question. Of those that are determined to destroy the 
system, to beat it, to cheat, to lie, they'll go to the forged card. 
 
ROOKER:                                What do I say to the elderly couple in 
my constituency who gave birth thirty years ago to two girl twins and presently 
there is a citizen in this country, a person, who's using the identity of one 
of those twins, the name, the date of birth, the place of birth, the same names 
of both parents and yet those twins, both of them, only lived for twenty four 
hours.  Now surely the abuse that we've got at the present time, at the ease of 
access of birth certificates, national insurance numbers are given away like 
confetti within the DHS at the present time, allowing a massive amount of abuse 
to go on.  What do I say to those elderly couple in my constituency who have 
had this tragedy brought back to them after thirty years because someone is 
using the identity of one of their dead children. 
 
O'BRIEN:                               What you can't say is that ID cards will 
deal with that issue because it simply won't.       
 
ROOKER:                                The present system has failed. 
 
O'BRIEN:                               Yes but ID Cards won't deal with it. 
 
HUMPHRYS:                              You've had your seven minutes, thank you 
very much.  It's your turn in the audience.   Obviously passions running a 
little higher now.  Yes sir, gentleman in the front row here. 
 
UNNAMED MAN:                           I think, as Richard Shepherd was saying,
that it's a question of civil liberties.  I don't see what business it is of 
the government what my bank details are, what my credit rating is, what my 
sexual orientation is.  I don't see what business it is of the police to stop 
me in the street, when I'm walking my dog late at night and haul me down to the 
police station if I haven't got my card. 
 
HUMPHRYS:                              Ivan Lawrence. 
 
LAWRENCE:                              Well they won't do that.  No, no there 
will be right for the police to stop you and for no reason at all to ask 
whether....what you're identity is. 
 
UNNAMED MAN:                         What is the point of having an identity 
card if the police can't ask you for it? 
 
HUMPHRYS:                              But you're saying specifically a 
compulsory card.  
 
LAWRENCE:                              The law at the moment is that if you are 
behaving suspiciously and the police have reasonable grounds for doing so, they 
think you're burglaring, you're pickpocketing or you're doing something 
dishonest, they can stop you and they can seize you and they can search you.  
Now if you have an identity card to show that you are a legitimate citizen, 
then you are protected against precisely the risks that we have now of the 
intrusion into your liberty. 
 
HUMPHRYS:                              Everybody wants to ask a question.  
Gentleman in the third row with your hand up, with the stripy tie and then 
perhaps next to you. Yes, go ahead. 
 
UNNAMED MAN:                           Can I just follow on with regard to 
portecting citizens' rights, lots of people are arrested because they have 
poor identification and.....identification.  They commit a minor offence, 
police officers can't summon them to court because they don't know who 
they are, so they have to be arrested and taken to a police station.  Now 
that's an infringement of people's rights, where if they had an ID card they 
wouldn't be arrested in the first place. 
 
HUMPHRYS:                              So you're agreeing with them.  Right, 
okay, next to you. Yes, no, no, next to you.  There we are. 
 
UNNAMED MAN:                           So you've got your ID cards and it 
becomes a smart card and all your transactions used via this card and it'll all 
be logged on so everywhere you go, they becan traced if somebody can get into 
the system, to find out where you've been at what particular time, what 
transactions you've made. 
 
HUMPHRYS:                              So you're worried about it being abused. 
Now I'll come back to you later, gentlemen but we've got to give them a chance 
to answer first.  Yes. 
 
ROOKER:                                Well I wouldn't support that because 
that would be taking it far too far.  Nobody's advocating that kind of 
information on a smart card, a blood group, yes, a DNA profile, no.  I mean 
there is the distinction that I would draw and I belong to one of the minority 
blood groups so I would be quite pleased to have my own blood group on my card 
but I wouldn't have the DNA profile on the card. 
 
HUMPHRYS:                              The gentleman with a beard towards the
back on right hand side. 
 
UNNAMED MAN:                           You don't actually have to produce the 
card because I believe that you can read the cards from ten metres away so you 
won't actually have to produce the card, they can be read from ten metres 
away.  So it means that I could just be walking along, it would be in my wallet 
and it would just be read by some... 
 
HUMPHRYS:                              You'll have to explain that I think, how 
do you read a card from ten metres? 
 
UNNAMED MAN:                           The cards are of the ability of the 
technology nowadays means that you can read the cards from ten metres 
away. 
 
HUMPHRYS;                              Good lord, I didn't know that.  Right, 
yes, sir what do you say to that?  If it can be read from ten metres away? 
 
ROOKER:                                I mean it would be useful if a lady was 
trapped in a car, alone, dark at night and a police officer on patrol drove 
past her, then I'd have some questions to ask.  I'd want to know why he didn't 
stop and ask her if she needed help, rather than wait for some rapist or some 
mugger to come along.  I mean that film there was an absolute travesty of 
the arguments put across in terms of safety. 
 
HUMPHRYS:                              Gentleman in the second row with the 
specs on.  Yes. 
 
UNNAMED MAN:                           The technology today is that you can 
have a bar coded silicon chip, you can actually see these positions of these 
people if they carry these cards from satellite.  Now what worries me is that 
the Secret Service in this country, there's six thousand people standing around 
twiddling their thumbs, they could be used by the government to spy on our own 
people and using this type of.. 
                                                                          
LAWRENCE:                              You don't have to go that far down the 
line. Nobody is suggesting that you've got..... 
 
HUMPHRYS:                              Sorry, sorry.  There's an awful lot that 
everybody wants to say but we're going to have to run strictly to time 
otherwise the thing doesn't work.  Thank for that for the moment, we'll have 
more from both..all of you later.  But, that's the cross-examination over for 
the moment but obviously in any debate like this what the papers say is going 
to sway opinion one way or another, so let's have a look at what they have been 
saying and Matthew Parris of The Times has been reading them.  
 
MATTHEW PARRIS:                        We are, it seems, in our guts either for 
ID cards or against them and passionately, so passionately that we snatch at 
any convenient argument.  For Oberone Waugh who asks in the Sunday Telegraph;  
 
VOICE OVER:                           Will Mr. Howard now "Snoop to conquer?".  
 
PARRIS:                               One reason to be against ID cards is that 
some readers will be for them. 
 
VOICE OVER:                           Most of us will be able to identify 
ourselves as law abiding, credit worthy, disease free subjects of the Queen, 
while others whose cards tell a different story, can be locked up or deported 
or injected with largactil as appropriate.  This beautiful simplicity of view
would be harmless enough if it could be confinded to the leader columns of the 
Sun.' 
 
PARRIS:                               On cue in comes the leader column of the 
Sun.   
 
VOICE OVER:                           Why the fuss over identity cards?  We're 
asked to prove who we are all the time, hiring a car, writing a cheque, even 
taking out a video, there's even a ready made slogan for the identity card, 
don't leave home without it.    
 
PARRIS:                               But don't worry, if you do forget says 
former Home Secretary Kenneth Baker in the Daily Express; 
 
VOICE OVER:                           Just as with a driving licence, you could 
show it at a later date. 
 
PARRIS:                                But even if you're forced to carry them, 
well, according to the Daily Star, so what. 
 
VOICE OVER:                            If you aren't a legal alien, terrorist, 
burgler or dope dealer on the run, what's the harm in the plan?  So don't be 
afraid to tell these civil rights people that we've had enough of the clap 
trap, it's thanks to them and their spineless political pot washers that 
Britain is going to hell in a basket. 
 
PARRIS:                                They'll only be voluntary, but even if 
they aren't you won't have to carry them but even if you do, well stop 
whingeing, any argument will do.  As it will for the anti ID-brigade, for whom 
it is claimed firstly that these cards wouldn't actually do much. 
 
VOICE OVER:                            It is very doubtful whether identity 
cards would actually have such strong practical use. 
 
PARRIS:                                Says the Sunday Telegraph.  Richard 
Littlejohn in the Sun was not so sure. 
 
VOICE OVER:                            If we ever get identity cards they will 
be used to bully, nanny and harass us by the police, government officials and 
assorted golliwog inspectors and museli merchants. 
 
PARRIS:                                To the fury of Essex, the Times adds the 
fury of Sussex. 
 
VOICE OVER:                            The ID card should never have been 
touched. 
 
PARRIS:                                Says its leading article. 
 
VOICE OVER:                            This government has surely caused enough 
fury in middle England already not to risk provoking anymore. 
 
PARRIS:                                And the Times shows us three happy 
Germans, anything that makes Germans happy must be sinister.   In the Telegraph 
John Casey (phon) a Cambridge don, warns that Aristotle would not have approved.
Citizens are related to their rulers, said Aristotle by; 
 
VOICE OVER:                            A kind of friendship.  It is no part of 
this relationship that we have to produce proof of who we are or even to 
declare who we are. 
 
PARRIS:                                Id cards don't work and won't be useful 
to the government, and if they are useful they oughten to be used and whether 
they are useful or not, the whole idea is philosophically offensive, Aristotle 
thinks so.  And what does Denis Cashman (phon) think.  Dr. Cashman has written 
to The Times. 
 
VOICE OVER:                            Sir, I should like to assure readers 
that there was no intention upon my part to deceive when I said it was not me 
driving the car but Sebastian Coe. 
 
PARRIS:                                Otherwise known as Jerry Wiggin.  So 
here's a solution, don't let MPs impose ID cards on us, why don't we impose ID 
cards on MPs. 
 
HUMPHRYS:                              So that's what the papers have to say, 
let's now give both sides a chance to sum up each of their arguments, they will 
get one minute each, one minute only, that's a strict minute, I'll chop them 
off if they go over.  First the argument for identity cards, Sir Ivan Lawrence. 
 
LAWRENCE:                              Members of Parliament have identity 
cards and the world has not collapsed.  We do not need to go down the line of 
having identity cards that do anymore than identify people, we've got driving 
licence, cash cards, all kinds of old people's cards and student cards which 
identify us and if they could be made more rational and simple, our lives would 
be simpler, we would have less crime, we would have the support and the 
encouragement given to the police, the overwhelming majority of people in this 
country want identification cards, most of the countries in Europe have them 
and see no complaint and, after all, at the end of the day, if you have nothing 
to hide, you have nothing to fear. 
 
HUMPHRYS:                              Sir Ivan Lawrence, thank you.  And now a
minute to Mike O'Brien to sum up for the opposition, opposed to identity cards 
your minute begins now. 
 
O'BRIEN:                               Let me just leave you with a few points 
to consider.  There are much more effective ways of fighting crime than ID 
cards, putting more policemen on the beat, put locks on windows, making  sure 
we have CC TV in town centres, those are the effective ways and we have a 
tradition in this country you know of privacy and individual freedom, that 
should not be undermined unless there is proof that it will effectively combat 
crime, but international comparisons show that in countries with ID cards it 
doesn't actually combat crime and, you know, do you really want a bureaucrat to 
be able to access personal details about you from his computer, I don't, I 
suspect you won't, I suspect you want to fight crime like me, so let's put some 
more policemen on the beat and forget about these ID cards. 
 
HUMPHRYS:                              Mike O'Brien thank you very much 
indeed. Well now let's see whether or if or how you've been swayed by the 
arguments for and against.  Let me remind you that how you voted the first time 
I asked you to press your buttons, forty nine per cent of you were in favour of 
ID cards, twenty eight per cent were against, twenty three per cent had not 
decided.  So let me now ask you to press your buttons again if you would on the 
basis of what we've been hearing in the last forty five minutes or so, would 
you press your buttons now please.  Well, isn't that interesting, some broad 
smiles over on my right here, the MPs who argued against and thirty seven per 
cent of you now are approving of the idea, fifty per cent, half of you are 
against it and thirteen per cent still undecided.  Well, let's ask those, some 
of you who said 'no' I am sorry who said 'yes' originally, and have said no 
now, what caused you to change your mind?  Yes there's..it's the other way 
about let me do that first and then I'll come back to you, the lady in the back 
there, you want.. 
 
UNNAMED WOMAN:                         No I haven't changed my mind. 
 
HUMPHRYS:                              You haven't changed your mind. 
 
UNNAMED WOMAN:                         No because I do market research and it's 
exactly proved the point that when you go out in the street and you ask someone 
for a yes or no answer they'll often give you yes or no and then when they go 
home and think about it they change and that's exactly what's happened today. 
 
HUMPHRYS:                              Yeah well exactly, but we gave people 
here the chance to hear the arguments, precisely... 
 
UNNAMED WOMAN:                         You haven't asked the Mori poll again, 
you'd need to go back to those hundred people again. 
 
HUMPHRYS:                              Well unfortunately we can't get a 
thousand people in the studio on a Sunday lunchtime, not even with...somebody 
who did change their mind who began by saying 'yes' they were in favour and are 
now opposed, somebody who took that view.  Yes, the gentleman there, you 
started saying that you were broadly in favour, you're now opposed why? 
 
UNNAMED MAN:                           I think after seeing the amount of 
confusion that's going on, I am wondering about the security aspect and the 
hacking in but I totally agree with the 'no' side now that if we put more money 
into police officers on the beat and also security and that's why I've gone 
back the other way now. 
 
HUMPHRYS:                              Ah right so Mike O'Brien's argument 
about putting more Bobbies on the beat was what really persuaded you.   
 
UNNAMED MAN:                           Absolutely yeah. 
 
HUMPHRYS:                              Okay. Somebody else who, yes, were you 
originally in favour now you're against? 
 
UNNAMED WOMAN:                         I was, well I'm undecided now. 
 
HUMPHRYS:                              Oh you're undecided now right, so you're 
sort of half way there perhaps.  Why what's caused you to have second thoughts? 
 
UNNAMED MAN:                           We'll get you next time. 
 
UNNAMED WOMAN:                         Well it's the hacking into the computers 
and the muddle ups that you can get from it. 
 
HUMPHRYS:                              It's interesting isn't it that most of 
you are not saying we're afraid of policemen having the access or anything, but 
it's the wretched computer that's causing you concerns, yeah, somebody, the 
gentleman at the back we've not heard from before, yes, you're worried about 
the computer as well are you? 
 
UNNAMED MAN:                           Not so much I just think that the 
criminal fraternity will see this as a pay rise to them. 
 
HUMPHRYS:                              How? 
 
UNNAMED MAN:                           Because there's no doubt that fraud will 
be rife. 
 
HUMPHRYS:                              Right so in other words there's going to 
be an awful lot of forging cards going around if it happens yes.  Well they've 
got lots of things they can forge at the moment I suppose haven't they? 
 
UNNAMED MAN:                           They have but they'll have some more as 
well. 
 
HUMPHRYS:                              Alright, somebody, the gentleman in the 
very front row here. 
 
UNNAMED MAN:                           Well my views are still what was I was 
though.... 
 
HUMPHRYS:                              Oh you haven't changed then? 
 
UNNAMED MAN:                           No I haven't changed my views because I 
still feel it's going to be a help for people ...but I am looking on it more 
for the safety factor of people if they had the accidents, that was brought up 
earlier, if they got fingerprint on it or anything like it, blood groups, 
allergies, that's the side of it I .... 
 
HUMPHRYS:                              You could carry a card with you now 
couldn't you saying this is my blood group, these are my allergies, couldn't 
you do that at the moment? 
 
UNNAMED MAN:                           Yes but I still feel that it ....when 
you go into shops to if you want to buy commodities. 
 
HUMPHRYS:                              Right yeah okay, take that point.  The 
gentleman over here....what was your original position and what's your position
now? 
 
UNNAMED MAN:                           I'm more entrenched in being against it 
to be honest. 
 
HUMPHRYS:                              Right. 
 
UNNAMED MAN:                           We've been persuaded that perhaps it's 
just identity now I don't know the figures but I assume that the majority of 
people in this country have got a passport which is a means of identity.  If 
it's just for identity why do we have to spend a billion pounds on something 
else that will do.... 
 
HUMPHRYS:                              If no money were involved would you feel 
happy about it? 
 
UNNAMED MAN:                           No. 
 
HUMPHRYS:                              If it could happen for free you 
still wouldn't like the idea, okay.  Somebody, yeah, the lady there. 
 
UNNAMED WOMAN:                         I was undecided beforehand, I am still
undecided.  I can see the views for and against and I can understand both of 
them, the gentleman that was saying it should be..we should have the system, it 
should not be compulsory, it should be upto the individual because it would 
help people that are ill and need to know if they have got a rare blood group 
yes, the gentlemen there saying no, yes, they are correct too because the 
criminal fraternity are not going to use this system and it's open like all 
systems to abuse. 
 
HUMPHRYS:                              I take your point.  The lady at the very 
back row there, yeah.  What was your view originally? 
 
UNNAMED WOMAN:                         I was against and I still very much am, 
especially on the evidence we've seen.   What if your card was stolen, somebody 
could steel your complete identity. 
 
HUMPHRYS:                              Okay, what about somebody who changed 
his or her mind during the course of the programme that's really whom I'd like 
to hear from now, somebody who changed their mind, undecided and have now 
decided one way or the other. 
 
UNNAMED WOMAN:                         I changed my mind. 
 
HUMPHRYS:                              You did change your mind. 
 
UNNAMED WOMAN:                         Yes. 
 
HUMPHRYS:                              Ah yes that's right because you were... 
 
UNNAMED WOMAN:                         Yes I was for it but I think now there 
are too many personal details on it. 
 
HUMPHRYS:                              So you've gone the whole way over you've 
gone from being for to being against. 
 
UNNAMED WOMAN:                         Yes I have. 
  
HUMPHRYS:                              So you have obviously done a very good 
job on the..... 
 
UNNAMED WOMAN:                         Yes they've done a good job on that one.
    
HUMPHRYS:                              Which one, you pointed at them.
                                                                                
UNNAMED WOMAN:                         Yes yes, more policemen on the beat and 
that sort of thing. 
 
HUMPHRYS:                              Okay, a quick, very quick thought, 
literally a sentence from you sir, we've not heard from you. 
 
UNNAMED MAN:                           I changed from undecided to no as well, 
but we must....there is the wider issue at stake, you talk about putting more 
Bobbies on the beat and so forth but we've got to make sure that does happen, 
perhaps community policing as well, it's all very well saying no to an ID card 
but we've got to address the problems of law and order as well. 
 
HUMPHRYS:                              And a very quick word from you sir and 
then we've got to go back to the MPs. 
 
UNNAMED MAN:                           I think tightly controlled for 
identification and medical purposes, the identity card is absolutely a hundred 
per cent for me. 
 
HUMPHRYS:                              Right so you remain convinced by it, but 
you lost the argument gentlemen. 
 
ROOKER:                                I think the audience showed a very 
healthy scepticism towards computers and the use of technology where individual 
citizens are concerned, absolutely right. 
 
HUMPHRYS:                              So how are you going to win the debate 
when it does comes... 
 
ROOKER:                                No because I could almost argue I almost 
convinced myself that..no no because my starting point, my starting point, I've 
no moral or philosophical argument against identity cards, the fact is the 
citizens should have the legal right, the right to assert their identity. 
 
HUMPHRYS:                              Right you've made that point. 
 
ROOKER:                                What I would want to do is have very 
tightly controlled, not have the fear that obviously these people have got of 
technology and abuse and data protection frankly is abused in this country 
today. 
 
HUMPHRYS:                              Right so gentlemen on this side, the 
victors, if they manage to solve that problem it rather sounds as if this 
audience might swing back the other way. 
 
O'BRIEN:                               There are more effective ways of 
fighting crime, ID cards in other countries don't deal with the problems like 
fraud and certainly don't deal..I mean, a burglar does not leave his ID card 
behind him, a mugger doesn't run up to you in the street and show your ID card, 
those issues aren't solved by ID cards, we've got to have more officers on the 
beat, we've got to have the sort of things .... 
 
HUMPHRYS:                              As you said, well the debate will go to 
parliament obviously, you will then, I'm sorry we've got to end it there Sir 
Ivan, you will eventually decide for us no doubt.  That's it for the moment.
It'll be a while yet obviously before we know what the government decides to do 
but your views in this clearly are going to matter one way or the other, it's 
been a fascinating debate the way it's swung today. 
 
                                       There'll be no On The Record next week, 
instead I'll be chairing a discussion on Europe, part of a day of programmes on 
BBC1 and BBC2 twenty years to the day since we voted in the referendum to keep 
Britain in Europe.  On The Record will be back in two weeks and then I'll be 
interviewing Gordon Brown on Labour's plans for the economy.  Until then, good 
afternoon. 
 
                                ...oooOOOooo...