• Question by: John Biggs
• Meeting date: 15 June 2005

I thought perhaps I should start by correcting something that Angie (Bray) said, which is of course that the Conservative Party had two positions on identity cards. I was quite interested in this debate, but I was wondering if we could explore it in another direction in terms of policing, which is about the value and usage of biometric data, and I think I have two questions. The first is whether you think ' and I suspect I know what the answer is ' Londoners should welcome or fear the growing development of biometric testing? For example, whether or not...

• Question by: Angie Bray
• Meeting date: 15 June 2005

You are expecting a lot more of the same then?

• Question by: Angie Bray
• Meeting date: 15 June 2005

You accept that you were criticised in a number of areas for that?

• Question by: Darren Johnson
• Meeting date: 15 June 2005

Some of it could, if we were not to go down that route, and could be theoretically spent a lot more effectively.

• Question by: Darren Johnson
• Meeting date: 15 June 2005

Finally can I just ask a question about the cost of them? Do you think that that provides good value for money - several billion pounds and then the cost per person? Do you think that provides good value for money in terms of tackling fraud or serious crime or terrorism or whatever, or would you prefer that money to be made available to you for other things to spend on, in terms of tackling death, crime, etc.

• Question by: Darren Johnson
• Meeting date: 15 June 2005

): If it is not the whole answer, then basically we are just providing another tool for people to counterfeit, and it is not going to tackle any of the problems of identity theft, of fraudulent access to benefits, or whatever, is it?

• Question by: Darren Johnson
• Meeting date: 15 June 2005

On the issue of carrying ID cards, and I was very reassured by your comments that you do not want to go down the route at all of having to produce your ID on demand in the street, if we do not have a `stop and produce- approach to this, then how can they be effective?

• Question by: Angie Bray
• Meeting date: 15 June 2005

Do you think that in hindsight, given those doubts which you are expressing today, albeit within certain limits, that it was entirely appropriate for you to wade in on such a controversial issue as this, when all three mainstream parties had particular views on it, during the general election campaign? The Independent on Sunday said, `it should have been unthinkable for Britain's most senior police officer to endorse a controversial government policy in the run up to the general election'. Others were also critical of you, and given that you could have couched it, as you have done today, in...

• Question by: Darren Johnson
• Meeting date: 15 June 2005

I appreciate your answers but they do beg an awful lot of questions at this stage about the Government's proposals, and the Government`s proposals are now fairly well advanced. For Britain's most senior police officer to be asking such fundamental questions about whether they will be effective or not, or how they will be used, does beg some serious questions about whether we are going down the right road with these.

• Question by: Angie Bray
• Meeting date: 15 June 2005

Sir Ian (Blair), it can scarcely help the public debate, I suggest, when a senior person like yourself goes in public to express a range of views on this issue, if I may put that to you. First of all we had you as a bit of a doubter. Then we had your interview on `Breakfast with Frost', on 17 April, when you said, `I was not particularly keen on ID cards until recently', which tended to give the impression that you had now been persuaded that they were indeed a good thing to be introduced, and now you are...