PRESS RELEASE
Issued by:
Councillor paula Southwood
Date of Issue: December 18th 2007
Contact numbers: 07718 582397

Wirral Tories out of step with Cameron's Conservatives

Following last night's meeting of Wirral's Full Council, Paula Southwood , Liberal Democrat Parliamentary Spokesperson in Wirral South said,

“Astonishingly Wirral Conservatives voted against opposing the national ID Card Scheme; bucking Cameron's view about ID cards. ”

“I could not believe how much local Conservatives differ from their nationally publicised party view.”

“The issue in question was whether they support ID cards and the billions that will be wasted or whether they would instead, like the Liberal Democrats, prefer the money to be spent putting more police on the streets”

“As usual the Conservatives tried to confuse things, but in the end I could not believe that they have chosen to publicly denounce the Cameron Conservatives' view.”

Accusing the Conservatives of ‘flip-flop politics', she said of their previous stance on ID cards.

“First they were for them, then they sat on the fence, now they are against them, but only half-heartedly.”
“The Conservatives are a party without principles. They are willing to ditch the values they previously claimed to hold dear, in the naked pursuit of power for themselves.”

Equally Liberal Democrat Paula Southwood quoted Tony Blair, who was opposed to ID cards originally.

She said,
“I was not surprised by local Labour supporting Gordon Brown but I was surprised how quickly they formed up with the flip-flop Tories on Wirral.” Ends more/

Editors' notes:

Labour and the Conservatives voted together against a motion opposing the Government's ID card scheme .

Press release issued following the Council meeting.

Full transcript of Paula Southwood 's speech at Wirral's Full Council meeting 17 December 2007 follows below.

SPEECH TO FULL COUNCIL DECEMBER 17 2007

Council, I am pleased to be able to speak today in support of Liberal Democrat Party Policy, but disappointed and embarrassed that it once again follows a display of pantomime politics by the other two parties.

ID cards are an issue where the Liberal Democrats have once again been the strong, reasoned and consistent voice of opposition.

And though I am pleased to see the public engaging with the debate in recent weeks, I take no pleasure at all in the cause of this debate being yet another lapse in government data security.

Data Loss

As I am sure you are all aware, the most recent scandal has meant that the confidential details of 25 million UK residents have been lost. The latest figures for Wirral lead to an estimate that this will impact 41,000 of our own residents.

This is 41,000 people, here on Wirral who through no fault of there own have been placed at risk of fraud.

These are people who shred their bills; watch over their shoulder when they draw out cash and file documents securely. Yet their own government shows a flagrant dis-respect for the confidential nature of the details that are entrusted to them.

And this breach is the latest in a long line of data losses. To cover a few of the cases that have occurred this year alone…

In April, documents were found on Nottingham Street containing sensitive information that had been stamped by Revenue and Customs officials.

In October a laptop computer holding sensitive information about hundreds of people was stolen from the boot of a car belonging to revenue and customers worker.
In November more than 15,000 Standard Life customers were put at risk of fraud after a courier lost a computer disk containing their personal information.

And just this evening we are hearing of the loss of details of 3 million driving test candidates by the DVLA.

And the list goes on, and will continue to grow until the government starts to address the major flaws in its data security.

The current state of data protection in the public sector adds ever more weight to the case for putting a stop to this headlong dash towards an ill thought through, ineffective, and costly national ID database.

They won't work

The liberal democrats have long been against the introduction of ID cards. There are a number of reasons behind this, but the most fundamental of these is very simple. They won't work. They won't cut illegal immigration, they won't prevent terrorism, they won't reduce ID theft and they won't prevent fraud

There is quite simply no evidence at all that the introduction of a national ID register would help to tackle terrorism .

ID cards would not present an obstacle to most terrorists and in fact those who attacked New York in 2001 and Madrid in 2004 carried perfectly valid identity documents.

And Charles Clarke himself admitted that the national ID scheme would have done nothing to prevent the 7 th July attacks in London .

Some have claimed that the national identity register would somehow reduce Illegal immigration. However there is no logic behind this; People will still enter Britain using foreign documents—either genuine or forged

And ID cards offer no more deterrent to people smugglers than the already existing system of passports and visas.

Whilst we have no national border police ensuring that restrictions on our borders are enforced, then no amount of ID registration will solve the problem.

There has been much made of the potential to reduce benefit fraud , and yet identity is only a tiny part of the problem in the benefit system.

Figures for fraudulent claims made under false identity are just £50 million of an estimated total of £2 billion per year. So what possible logic would there be to spend five and a half billion to save 50 million . No economist, not even Gordon Brown could justify that.

IT Systems

So we have established that there is no evidence at all for any of the claimed benefits of the ID cards, but what about the associated risks ?

I have worked in government IT systems over a number of years, and I have experienced first hand the disarray and poor management exhibited therein. Until there are sweeping changes made to the way the government manages large IT implementations, it is simply madness to take on something of this size.

IT providers have stated that identity systems work best when limited in design. The Home Office scheme however, combines untested technologies on an unprecedented scale. Its many different proposed uses, will create huge numbers of potential failure points.

The government simply hasn't given the necessary assurance that it will manage these safely.

In fact quite the opposite; they have rejected all 23 recommendations on data security from the House of Lords Science and Technology Committee.

Conservatives

And what of the Tory stance on this issue ?

The Conservatives are quite simply a shambles on ID cards.

First they were for them, then they sat on the fence, now they are against them, but only half-heartedly.

Once again on the difficult issues of the day it is left to the Liberal Democrats to be the real opposition to this Government.

The Conservatives remain deeply split on ID cards. In the 2004/5 session - they backed the bill's second reading ( though I understand David Cameron didn't actually bother to vote), then abstained at the third reading.

By the time the bill was reintroduced in 2005/6 they had flip-flopped again and adopted the Liberal Democrat position of principled opposition, though this time David Cameron didn't even attend the bill's first vote.

Unlike the Liberal Democrats, the conservatives are a party without principals. They are willing to ditch the values they previously claimed to hold dear, in the naked pursuit of power for themselves.

And now it seems that the local Tory party are defining their national party policy and changing where they will spend the potential savings from scrapping ID Cards. Have they now discovered that fewer prisons are needed ? Or less police on the streets ?

Or perhaps the Wirral Tory party have done some detailed analysis of the figures on the cost of ID cards, and discovered that their party's previous figures were incorrect, and they actually have an extra £30 million spare from cutting ID cards to spend on the backdating of the police pay rise.

It seems more likely to me that this is the worst kind of opportunist politics, offering a panacea that they could never deliver on.

The tories, as in so many areas simply don't know what they stand for, and the Liberal Democrats are the true voice of opposition in this country.

Summing Up

In researching this speech I came across quotes from a number of people speaking out against ID cards. There were lots of great and well respected people I could have quoted – I chose just one, from a well known politician of history;

“Instead of wasting hundreds of millions of pounds on compulsory ID cards as the Tory Right demand, let that money provide thousands of extra police officers on the beat in our local communities.”

That one's from Tony Blair in a speech to the 1995 labour conference.

So this motion calls on local MPs to lobby government to reconsider the legislation. It proposes that they listen to the fears and concerns of the people of Wirral and take some action, rather than blindly following the party line with a complete disregard for those who elected them.

I am not optimistic that they will listen, given their past history, I think it more likely that they will blindly follow their leader whichever way he takes them.

I hope that is not the case, I hope they will listen, and I hope they will take action to protect the residents of Wirral before it is too late.