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Government retreats over making £5billion ID cards compulsory
Martin Bentham, Home Affairs Editor30.06.09
Ministers today admitted that identity cards will not be compulsory in a major retreat on one of the Government's flagship policies.
Home Secretary Alan Johnson also conceded that claims that the cards would prove a key weapon against terrorism had been overblown and that it had been a "mistake" to allow this impression to be given to the public.
The double retreat will be seized upon by Opposition parties and campaigners who have argued the £5billion scheme is unnecessary and excessively expensive
Mr Johnson, in his first significant pronouncement since taking over at the Home Office, today unveiled the latest details of the scheme.
He insisted that the Government remained determined to press ahead with the cards and claimed that scrapping them would save taxpayers "diddly squat" and undermine efforts to combat fraud and immigration crime.
The most significant disclosures came when he revealed that pilot schemes for airside workers at London City and Manchester airports to have cards were being scrapped in what had been the first attempt to make the cards compulsory.
The decision comes despite previous ministerial claims that ID cards would be a vital weapon in combating terrorism. Mr Johnson claimed that the Government had not been responsible for over-hyping the schemes use against terrorists, but added: "We should not have allowed the perception to go around that this was a panacea." He said ministers - who had aspired to make cards mandatory for all citizens by 2018 - had decided that "compulsion was counterproductive" in airports and that a voluntary approach would now be pursued. Asked whether this support for personal choice would apply to all other citizens, Mr Johnson said: "I want to move this forward on the basis of personal choice not compulsion."
The Home Secretary said pilot projects to allow people in Manchester to enrol for the cards, which will cost £30 per person, would be accelerated to elsewhere in the north-west next year and would also become available to Londoners next year.
Insisting the scheme's introduction was being speeded up he added that other benefits would include assisting "the fight against underage drinking" as young people were given a new way of proving their age in bars.
Reader views (31)
Before we celebrate the demise of the compulsory ID card, we should remember that this is the slipperiest Government in recent memory: I hope the media check this out in detail to make sure it is not a case of Mr Johnson being economical with the truth and spinning to try and win round voters over this deeply unpopular scheme.
- Adam, London, UK
The cards wont be compulsory but, according to reports elsewhere in the media, if you want to go abroad your details will be added to to the ID database (no mention of that being scrapped eh?)!
To be fair, maybe they have finally realised that it will be incredibly expensive, will do nothing to stop crime or terrorism, will do nothing to stop identity theft or benefit fraud. More likley is thay have realised that people will be elctorally massacred if they push on with this white elephant.
To cut a long story short, since when have sheep been branded for the benefit of the sheep? We are not sheep. Actually, we are goats, who are markedly more intelligent than sheep...
- Ian, Cambridge
'Adam Harrow' Like your point, but remember halitosis is better than no breath at all.
- Alan, carlisle uk
All these recent NuLabour tweakings has the pungent effluvial waft of Baron Mandelson of Foy in the county of Herefordshire and Hartlepool in the county of Durham or I'm a Scotsman.
- Edgar Frenulum, Blighty
Trouble is Nu-Lying-Labours immature student cabinet can't see the wood for the tree's. Go to the country you gutless bunch of miss-fits.
- Mike, London
Terrorists and many illegal immigrants make fake papers - passports and legal documents. They would have no trouble duplicating an identity card so what is the point? This government are a bunch of fools.
- Lin, London England
Well if it's not compulsory then it's a complete and utter waste of time and money, (now there's a shock).
It goes against the wishes of the vast, vast majority of people in this country and it's a badly conceived, badly planned, badly executed waste of money, (whoo, another shock!).
Besides, does anyone seriously think a would-be suicide bomber is going to be put off because he hasn't got the right paperwork?
- John T, London
ltaulber, Are there any nulab policies that haven't turned out to be rubbish, well all the ones the tories aren't going to scarap for a start ,which apart from saferneighbourhood policing,id cards ,fox hunting, and the spending commitment is all of them
- John P Reid, london
They must think we're idiots, but then they have won three elections.
- Sceptic3, Guildford UK
Gordon Brown retreats - full stop,
- Albert Hall, hove england
£5bn to counter under-age drinking? Diddly squat?
The mind boggles.
Election, please, ASAP!
- John C, Leatherhead, UK
Dave Davies. Have there been any NuLabour policies whuch haven't turned out to be utter lies and rubbish? If there were, I must have sneezed and missed them.
- L.Taubler, London / ENGLAND
Deckchairs and Titanic spring to mind.
There will be very few survivors of HMS Parliamentary Labour Party by this time next year. There are certainly not enough lifeboats to go round.
- Ken, Brighton, East Sussex
When he says it wont be compulsory does this mmean I can open a bank account, get a mortgage get on an airplane without needing one oor are they still going to coerce us to get the things.
- Ayylyn, Orihuela Costa
Just listened to Johnson spouting pure spin and waffle about the defunct ID cards. He is reading from the same script as MISS SMIFF and JACKBOOT STRAW.
What Gormless Brown, Blunkett, Meddlesum and Jackboot Straw wanted was for EVERYONE in the UK to BUY an ID card - then Joe Public would have been forced to show the ID card to any local council freak or other jobsworth fifty times every day.
THE SOONER THIS POLICE STATE NONSENSE IS RELEGATED TO THE DUSTBIN, ALONG WITH 645 MP's THE BETTER.
- Reuben Camara, Republic of Morecambe, UK
I would love to know how much has already been spent on this white elephant. If it's not compulsory, what is the point in proceeding at all?
- Nobby Clark, Perth, the Scottish one
most countries in the world have ID cards and they haven't had any problems so far. what have we got?? nothing!! go to any bank in the UK and try to open an account they will ask you for ANY IDENDTIFICATION which we don't have apart from a utility bill if you've got your own house...I say make it compulsory..
- Kc, Londonboy
I don't believe a word of this. It's very easy to make the things compulsory in all but name - just wait for the announcement that you'll need to have one to gain access to the NHS for example. All in the name of fraud prevention of course. I'll only believe this abominable scheme has died when it's canceled entirely and irrevocably. Nu Labour, Nu Stasi, nothing's changed.
- Derek, London
Money that could have gone to good causes,
- C Cusano, Bedford
Apparently if you have done nothing wrong you have nothing to fear from any identity card. Even though it holds information about you if you are innocent then this information won't..... cause... you.... any erm problems at all.
Is our parliment full of idiots?
- Guy, Plymouth
That's a pity: I was looking forward to setting fire to mine and posting it back to the government. No one needs to be an open book for the state security aparatus, and ID cards belong in Nazi Germany only.
- Neil, London, London UK
I will only trust this accursed government when (if) they announce that:
- The Identity Cards Act has been repealed
- All civil servants working on ID Cards and the Big Brother database (NIR) have been transferred to other roles
- They've closed down all of the 63 new 'interrogation centres' - the grand design for ID requires intrusive interviews on our personal lives.
The government is merely avoiding a big confrontation in its Manchester heartland before the next election.
By the way the figure for the 'voluntary card' should be £60 if you include the 'voluntary' extra cost of being fingerprinted like a criminal. (Plus countless millions of taxpayers' money that has already been wasted, over which we've had no choice....)
- Jools, London
Thank god! Man, if he did that he would be more of an idiot then he looks.
- Jack, Derbyshire
It really worries me that people might fall for Labour's latest attempts to make themselves electable, like backtracking on public sector targets and now backtracking on making ID Cards compulsory.
They are doing it SIMPLY because they realise they are currently completely unelectable. But the moment they're back in power they will re-instate all their Draconian policies with us unable to stop them.
Please, people, don't fall for their smoke and mirrors tactics. If Labour are re-elected it'll simply be more of the same... a complete disaster, with us powerless to stop it. All these matters they are backtracking on will be straight back on the table.
Think honestly about what they have done for you over the last 12 years, not what they CLAIM they will do in the future, and you will realise their tenure has been an unmitigated disaster and we would be foolish to go down the same route again.
- Steven, London
TALLY HO!
the government are on the run, the fox has broken cover.
they now realise, too late, that their draconian, mother knows best nanny survelience state were policies too far and too unpopular.
now that they broken the magic mirror which reflected the vain glory and disguised the total and farcical ineptness of the new labour daydream they stare desperately into the black void of depression and total rejection and will promise a blue moon and sixpence, with jam tomorrow and a walk down the yellow brick road if some fool on a hill would believe anything they said and let them cling to power.
they leapt to power on the broken back of public scorn, at the power crazy corruption and scandel of a tory implosion and so it will be when camerons mob grab the throne, only to be cast aside in later years for the same inept inexactitudes.
we rarely vote for a party and its ideals and vague promises as vote against the incumbent party for the disasters and arrogance of their administration.
- M.O'Brien, ;london.uk
So since honest people won't feel the need to justify themselves, we're left with a voluntary scheme for criminals and illegal immigrants: it all begins to make sense...
- Mdj E10, london uk
Another policy failure for Labour. The list of failures is getting very very long.
- Dave Davies, Basingstoke, Hants
How can scrapping the scheme - saving £5bn be 'diddly squat'? Surely this money is vital to the clearing some of the debt?
- Andy, london
Yet another huge plank of NuLab policy thrown on the fire of £ reality politics.
Oh well, only one year left and then, quite possibly, we will have seen the last Labour govt. to rule England.
I see that the proposed council 'homes for honkies' has been dubbed unlawful by the Tories under both existing and incoming legislation. This too will be quietly dropped along with marching yobs to ATM's etc etc. What a truly strange bunch, Brown Balls and Mandy are. How did the UK end up being run by liars and freaks?
- Undercover Elephant, Dole Farm, Crays Hill, Essex
Who on earth in their right mind will voluntarily shell out £30 for something which is now being acknowledged is a waste of money and of little practical value?
- Neil45, Gloucestershire, England.
So if it isn't going to help in the fight against terrorism, illegal immigration, benefit fraud, halitosis and won't be compulsory then what is the point in proceeding with it? Who will bother to get one?
- Adam, Harrow, UK
