Blunkett lands job with an ID cards company

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The former home secretary is working for Entrust, which provides the software for the company running Spain's national identity card system.

His job is to advise on "government relations" but Entrust insists he will not be lobbying the Home Office once the bidding process for ID cards begins here.

Mr Blunkett, now a backbench Labour MP, took up his job as chairman of Entrust's international advisory committee on March 1 after clearing his appointment with the Parliamentary advisory committee on business appointments.

The committee gave its approval on condition Mr Blunkett did not lobby ministers on Entrust's behalf for two years from the date he left government.

This would leave him free to do so from November this year, although Entrust said his job would never involve lobbying the British Government.

A spokesman for the firm, which has an office in Reading, said the committee the 59-year-old MP chairs helped with strategy on government relations. But he declined to say whether the firm intended to bid for ID card contracts in the UK.

The anti-ID card pressure group NO2ID described Mr Blunkett's job as "distasteful", warning he might "recycle" his ID card ideas in other EU countries.

Shadow Home Secretary David Davis said: "We can't have a situation where a high-profile former minister, particularly one who was so involved in the ID card scheme, is employed by a company looking for lucrative Government contracts."

Mr Blunkett's last company directorship, with DNA Bioscience, led to his resignation from his post as work and pensions minister in November 2005 after it emerged he failed to clear the job with the advisory committee on business appointments.