Mr. Tim Duggan:

Yes, it will be, and it is absolutely intended that that would be the case. It was always the intention that the public services card would be used for public services - hence the name - in the same way that the personal public services number is for public services. There is a distinction between that and how it will be used in the public services. For instance, the specific public service bodies that are allowed to use the card are set out in legislation, in schedule 5 of the Social Welfare Consolidation Act 2005 . No other public bodies or private commercial bodies may request the public services card other than those listed in that schedule. Although the Minister has powers under the legislation to specify bodies through regulation he has never used that power, and the Department has never sought to use that power. We have always used primary legislation as the means of adding any bodies to that list. We have done that very deliberately and specifically to allow for debate in the House and to allow for it to be as public as possible. It is the intention that public bodies would use the public services card as a means of authenticating the identity of its customers. That has always been the intention since the Government made that specific decision back in 2005. It is absolutely also the case that private sector bodies would not be allowed to request a public service card for any commercial transactions, and the way that we ensure that that happens is by making sure that only those bodies specified in legislation can seek it.

There is no danger of it going beyond that, unless the Government chooses to allow it to do so.