Captain Brittles wrote:Does anybody know how they are going to force people to take one of these cards. How will it work ? How long will it take to process 40 million people ? What are the consequences of refusing ? etc.
They won't have to force people to take them, they're just going to use the simple technique of making all national/government services available ONLY on presentation of a valid Entitlement Card (and ID card), NHS, pensions, benefits etc. etc.
Refusing will be swept up later. Fines and heavier penalties are in the pipeline if you dig up the earler publicity.
Our hero clearly stated in the debate tonight, that compulsion would be introduced as soon as it was possible, and was always in their minds. It was not in the initial phase, as the realised they could not enforce it if they could not guarantee to able to supply everyone with the very item that was to be made compulsory.
I believe this was followed by a minesterial mumble mumble - not mandatory to carry them - mumble mumble.
I think it's safe to assume that this also means it's in their minds, but as they're not compulsory to have, then there's no point in making them mandatory to carry... at this stage.