Brown: MPs will decide on ID cards

The prime minister has insisted that any move towards compulsory identity cards will be "a matter for Parliament to decide".

Gordon Brown was pressed on the subject by Conservative leader David Cameron in the Commons on Wednesday, his first question session with MPs of 2008.

But Brown denied that compulsory cards were inevitable and challenged the Tories over their own stance on the issue.

Cameron quoted a minister as saying recently that "it is the government's policy that ID cards should eventually be compulsory". "Is that still the case?" he asked.

The prime minister replied: "It is for Parliament to decide once we have the voluntary system in place."

Challenged on the recent loss of personal data by HM Revenue and Customs, Brown added that "the whole point of identity cards is to protect people's identity".

And he pointed out that Conservative security advisers Lord Stevens and Lady Neville Jones "both support identity cards".

However Cameron claimed that the last few months showed that the public did not want to "trust the government with any more of our identity information".

He reminded Brown of his recent statement that there would be "no compulsion for existing British citizens".  "Why did he give such a misleading answer?" the Tory leader asked.

Brown again insisted that it would be a  "matter for Parliament to decide".

He then challenged Cameron to say whether he supports the "identity cards for foreign nationals that we are introducing this year".

Cameron replied that "everybody in this House supports proper biometrics visas".

And making clear that he opposes mandatory cards for British nationals, he asked Brown for his "personal view" on compulsion.

But Brown said only: "It is the government's policy to move ahead with this... subject to a vote in Parliament depending on how the voluntary system goes."