ID card delays ‘show plans are crumbling’
The Conservatives have warned that plans to introduce a nationwide identity card system are “crumbling” after the government admitted delays were likely.
A Home Office source told the BBC that the timetable for bringing in ID cards from 2008 “might change”, subject to the new home secretary’s plans to reorganise the department.
Mr Reid declared the Home Office “not fit for purpose” within weeks of arriving in his job, and has set about implementing a widespread review of all its functions.
“The timetable is very much secondary to the review the home secretary is carrying out,” the source told the BBC.
The news comes after leaked emails from within the Identity and Passport Service (IPS), which is responsible for delivering the scheme, revealed that senior civil servants have major misgivings about the timetable for introducing ID cards.
This lunchtime a Home Office spokesman refused to confirm that delays were being factored into the plans for identity cards, but said the government had always intended the programme to be introduced in stages.
He said biometric identity was “absolutely central to our future plans”, noting that biometric passports had already begun to be rolled out, and said the IPS was “well-placed” to deliver the ID card project.
“We are continuing to roll that programme out, and these will be important building blocks in delivery of the wider national identity scheme,” he added.
“As part of the Home Office review we are ensuring that the sequencing of our plans is coherent and addresses the priorities of British citizens as the home secretary has identified.
“We have always made clear that its introduction would be in stages – an incremental process. That remains the position.”
However, shadow home secretary David Davis rejected this analysis, saying: “This ID card project continues to crumble as doubts about its effectiveness, technology and cost pile up.
“It is becoming ever clearer, even from the government’s own perspective, that they should abandon this expensive plastic poll tax which, far from improving our security, may well make it worse.”
