Business and Planning Bill — House of Lords, 2020-07-20
Topic: Domestic Commerce
Lucy Neville-Rolfe (Conservative, Centre-right): My Lords, I shall speak to Amendment 52 on digital ID and I thank the noble Lords, Lord Clement-Jones and Lord Stevenson of Balmacara, as well as my noble friends Lord Bourne of Aberystwyth and Lord Arbuthnot of Edrom—who was squeezed out by the limit of four proposers. I also thank the British Retail Consortium for its advice. The members are old friends because for many years during my Tesco days, I was the consortium’s deputy chair. It turns out that digital ID is a subject that garners great interest right across the House and indeed, despite her rather discouraging comments in Committee, I discover that it is also of considerable interest to my noble friend the Minister, and her response today will be critical There are two key issues. The first is the urgent need for digital ID to complement the system of physical ID on which we currently rely for sales of alcohol, whether in shops or in pubs. This, as the Minister explained in Committee, is because there is no industry standard for digital ID. Ironically, the work on developing it has been delayed by the pandemic until next year, as we heard from the Minister. That seems to be very slow given the security technology that exists and our proficiency in such matters here in the UK The situation with alcohol contrasts with that on verifying sales of knives—which is surely more dangerous—tobacco, lottery tickets and fireworks. Digital ID is in regular use in all these areas, despite the lack of this standard. Operators are ready and willing to use this for alcohol too, and it would bring benefits through productivity, fraud control and—this is the second key issue for today—infection control under coronavirus. Its use would remove the need for customers or staff to wash hands or resanitise. There would be no requirement to show paper ID or carry a passport, as some youngsters do when they go out, sometimes leading to loss in my experience. That is a serious matter, given current Passport Office delays. It is especially helpful at automatic check-outs and could speed up queues at pubs and elsewhere Our Amendment 52 permits the use of digital verification, provided the licence or certificate holder reasonably believes, with all reasonable precautions and due diligence, that the individual purchasing alcohol is under 18 years old. The amendment is drafted, in effect, to allow the Government a trial for digital ID. It would end after six months, in January, and could be extended once only, by which time we expect the industry standard to be in operation and Covid to be behind us We need both a firm commitment from the Government to make this standard happen in the first half of next year and a temporary arrangement to permit the use of digital ID during Covid. For some other requirements, for example at the CMA and ICO, regulators are operating an easement programme during Covid. Another approach that occurs to me is for the Government to give guidance to trading standards that the requirement for paper checks for age ID for alcohol will not be enforced, where there is a reliable digital verification method in operation, until the new standard is adopted. We all want proper enforcement. We must make progress on this, and I look forward to hearing what the Minister says before pressing my amendment.