BRITAIN: British home secretary Charles Clarke has claimed the introduction of ID cards will help counter the creation of a "Big Brother" society in the United Kingdom.
However, the Conservatives said Labour's legacy will be state "surveillance from cradle to grave", and they vowed to overturn the controversial measure if returned to power.
Labour critics, meanwhile, have also identified the risk of rising electoral revolt against the Blair government's "authoritarian character" and again warned that ID cards could prove to be the prime minister's personal "poll tax".
Opening yesterday's second reading debate in the Commons, Mr Clarke sought to reassure MPs and members of the public, insisting possession of an ID card would remain voluntary without a further parliamentary vote and promising to put a cap on its cost to the citizen.
Mr Clarke also denied a suggestion from Labour MP Diane Abbott that his bill would extend police powers to stop people in the streets and declared Britain's ethnic minorities had nothing to fear from the measure.
However he was told by long-time Labour opponent David Winnock MP that if the government allowed a "free vote" in the Commons, the bill "would be thrown out by quite a large majority".
Ministers were confident of winning last night's "in principle" vote, with about just 21 Labour MPs seemingly ready to oppose the government at this stage.
However, Conservative, Liberal Democrat and Labour opponents appear increasingly confident that Mr Clarke's legislation will receive a mauling in the Lords and will return to the Commons at greater risk of defeat as opposition mounts.
The flavour of what could be a protracted parliamentary battle was evident in the opening exchanges yesterday, which heard Conservative leadership front-runner David Davis launch a blistering attack on the Blair government's attitude to traditional British liberties and values.
"If, 10 years ago, I had gone on radio and said that within a decade a Labour government would try to do away with jury trial, remove habeas corpus, eliminate the presumption of innocence, introduce punishment without trial and put house arrest on the statute book, they would have locked me up," he said.
Condemning the proposal as "not just excessive, but also expensive; not just illiberal but also impractical; not just unnecessary but also unworkable", Mr Davis quoted Monday's warning from the government's information commissioner that ID cards marked another step toward "the surveillance society".
The commissioner has said this development could not be viewed in isolation from other initiatives which served to build a detailed picture of people's lives, such as CCTV surveillance, the use of automatic number plate recognition, recording vehicle movements for law-enforcement and the recent proposal to use satellite tracking of vehicles for road charging.
"A vision rather like this was originally set out by a man called Blair who later changed his name to Orwell and wrote a book called 1984," Mr Davis said.
"It was supposed to be a warning. This government has used it as a text book."
Mr Davis directly challenged the frequently used argument that those with nothing to hide had nothing to fear.
The government was planning to establish a massive identity database within Whitehall and Mr Davis claimed it would be open to hackers and to abuse.
"A disgruntled minister, official or civil servant could access information about anyone in the country at the touch of a button."
Mr Clarke insisted there would be no compulsion on anyone to show their ID card in the street and stressed that people would have the right to check data held on them. He assured MPs information from the database would not be sold to private companies.
He disputed this week's London School of Economics report putting the cost of the scheme at up to three times the government estimate and maintained the extra cost of the ID card - on top of new passports including biometric data, such as iris scans and fingerprints - would be about £30 (€45).
Mr Clarke also argued that the ID card would protect citizens from identity theft. "I argue that the identity card has real benefits to the individual and society and that the ID card is a means of limiting abuse in our modern information society rather than a means of adding to it. It gives individuals the right to secure verification of their identity."
However, Labour MP Andrew Love said there would be a requirement for up to 51 separate categories of information required for the register. "That seems excessive to many people," he told Mr Clarke.
Mr Davis also dealt with the use which might be made of the ID card. "More than 50 years ago, the British courts ruled that the wartime ID card had outlived its usefulness, saying that 'it turns law abiding subjects into lawbreakers'. As a result Winston Churchill's government had the card abolished, but not before the three original purposes had turned into 39 different uses," he warned.