Labour's ID Cards Bill Slammed by Pendle Lib Dems

12.00.00am GMT Wed 16th Mar 2005

Two Pendle Liberal Democrats this week re-iterated their concerns over the Labour government's Identity Cards Bill, as it was reported that the Bill may be scrapped until after the general election.

The cards will cost £35 and will have to be paid for by the cardholder. The information on the card would include each citizen's name and address and biometric information such as fingerprints, face scans and iris scans. Anxieties have been raised, however, with the news that security and intelligence services, such as MI6, will be granted unprecedented and unlimited access to the central register database underpinning the identity cards.

Speaking from the European Parliament, MEP for the North West of England Sajjad Karim said,

"ID cards further erode the rights of individuals. We are moving closer and closer to a very controlled society and it is the minority communities, such as those in Pendle, that will suffer the most. Anybody that believes otherwise would do well to remember the comments of (Home Office Minister) Hazel Blears from earlier this month. This government should be truly ashamed of the discriminatory method of power implementation that it has put in place, but instead it carries on removing people's rights layer by layer."

Liberal Democrat Prospective Parliamentary Candidate for Pendle Shazad Anwar commented,

"Once again the Labour government has proven itself to be untrustworthy on these very important issues. With the amount of money that the ID cards will cost we could have 10,000 more police officers on our streets. Given the chance to make an informed choice, the vast majority of the people I have spoken to in Pendle would go for police, not plastic."