£5.6bn ID cards estimate criticised

Campaigners against ID cards warned that the bill could rise further, after the Home Office's Identity and Passport Service acknowledged there were "uncertainties" about the cost and a "significant probability" that its estimates would change as the massive project progressed.

Liberal Democrats called on the Government to scrap ID cards and spend the money instead on additional police.

"It is becoming more and more clear that identity cards are going to be a vast waste of taxpayers' money," said the party's home affairs spokesman Nick Clegg.

"The fact that the cost keeps changing shows how loose a grip the Government has got on the finances of this ill-judged scheme."

Under the Identity Card Act, all foreign nationals in the UK are required to hold biometric ID cards from 2008, and all UK passport applicants will be issued with them from 2010.

The Government is required to provide a rolling 10-year estimate of the cost of setting up and operating the scheme every six months.

The IPS estimate of £5.612 billion for the period October 2007 to October 2017 is £71 million higher than the current estimate for the previous 10-year period, April 2007 to April 2017.

A Home Office spokesman said that this was because the relatively low level of spending during the current preparatory phase was bound to increase once the issuing of cards and biometric passports was in full swing.

The predicted cost for the 10 years from April 2007 has actually fallen by £185 million since the last estimates were produced in May. This was due to expectations that, in future, customers will delay renewing their passports, reducing the total volume of demand, as well as cuts in the predicted cost of producing the passports and cards.