Biometric passports should be used as long overdue identity cards in this country - Lord Mann

Today, CCTV and mobile phone tracing and data are the commonplace evidence used in criminal convictions and Google Maps has literally filmed everybody’s house. Big data is not just held by multiple companies, but sold on. Analogue politicians struggle to survive in a digital world.

The primary argument about ID cards is therefore no longer valid. The intelligence services fear that other states, particularly China, hold multiple data sources on most of us.

In this context the case for ID cards becomes clearer and simpler. We are the only country in Western Europe without an ID card. Despite the fact that supermarkets know micro detail of every loyalty card holder’s shopping patterns, that Apple products are trackable to every location we go and that airports have already started using biometric passports as the entry security into and increasingly out of airports, removing people checking people in the process, you can still use UK hospitals and get work without verifiable ID in the United Kingdom.

In Germany, you have to register at the Town Hall in order to work and produce documentation for health treatment. Across Europe verifiable ID has long been the norm.

I propose such a system for the UK, but with simplicity.

I would make the UK biometric passport the ID card for all those that have a biometric passport and allow those nationals of countries with a verifiable biometric system that legal right to have their passport as their ID card - Americans, Canadians, Australians, Dutch, Germans and other foreign nationals with a biometric passport.

So, the biometric passport becomes the ID card for the vast majority with no big bureaucracy or cost, which was the one weakness of the Blunkett scheme.

I would exclude under 16s and allow the over 70s to be able to use their last passport as valid ID, removing the need for those no longer needing a passport because of age to have to purchase a new one.

A smaller group of undocumented people without biometric passports remain and they would be required to obtain a biometric ID card.

We refund the governments of other countries, like Spain or Ireland, hundreds of millions for the costs of UK citizens living there and using their health service, but are unable to reclaim the money for their citizens using the NHS which costs the NHS over half a billion every year.

That is over £500 million lost, not by charging foreigners, but by being unable to reclaim the majority of money due from foreign governments where we have a reciprocal health arrangement.

My ID card proposal transforms that situation by creating a verifiable ID system and making it straightforward to recharge other governments.

For work and indeed out of work benefits, you should be required to provide verifiable identity. The gangmasters and people traffickers will not welcome an ID card system.

But it is also a positive in accessing banking, helping avoid fraud and surviving in the digital era.

I also think that a lack of an ID card system is a factor in why we get people risking their lives to enter the country. Everybody knows that once in the UK, you can work without producing verifiable identification.

I would also learn the lessons from our Visa Consulates in India, a country with a billion people. The reason there are no Indian nationals crossing the Channel in small boats is that the UK has a Visa Consulate system in India so if you are seeking to come here you have no choice but to use the system.

That will not work in war zones, but a Visa Consulate in Albania would work, as would one at our Consulate in Kurdish controlled Iraq. One in Calais or Northern France would also make a significant difference.

Nobody with a biometric passport can legitimately claim that my ID card proposal in any way impacts on them, as they already have a passport. Those citizens of other countries with a biometric passport would also be exempt.

Heathrow and other airports are soon to bring in biometric passport entry into the country, similar to how the barcodes on tickets gains you access into airports already, but a huge difference to how we will re-enter the country.

Tel Aviv airport in Israel, probably the most security conscious in the world, already uses biometric passport entry. I scanned my passport into a machine on arrival and got a slip of paper which guaranteed me automatic entry. No queues, no hassle.

This is the digital world we live in. Today’s analogue politicians need to catch up with the technology and make biometric ID compulsory in the UK. My proposal would automatically introduce it for over 90 per cent of the adult population overnight.

John Mann is a member of the House of Lords.