UK ID cards delayed by a year
Pastor Dale Morgan
UK ID cards delayed by a year*
By George Jones, Political Editor
Last Updated: 6:04pm GMT 06/11/2006
# No ID card means no benefits, Blair tells migrants
# Tony Blair: We need ID cards to secure our borders and ease modern life
Identity cards will not become compulsory for British citizens until
after the next general election, Tony Blair has said.
He told his monthly news briefing all non-EU nationals will need them to
work or access public services from 2008, but he disclosed that the
timetable for Britons' to get cards on a voluntary basis has slipped to
2009.
Mr Blair announced that fresh legislation would needed before the cards
were made compulsory - which Labour plans to introduce after the next
general election, expected around 2009.
The Conservatives oppose ID cards, saying they would be an "expensive
plastic poll tax" and would be scrapped if they got into power.
Mr Blair used his monthly press conference in Downing Street to launch a
new drive to win public support for ID cards, dismissing concerns that
they were the latest development in a "Big Brother" surveillance society.
He said issue of ID cards was not primarily a question of civil
liberties but of using modern technology to deal with modern problems,
he said.
Mr Blair said that ID cards would add no more than around £30 to the
cost of a biometric passport - equal to £3 for each of its 10 years of
validity. Introduction of the cards would not only provide additional
protection against organised crime, terrorism and illegal immigration,
but would protect vulnerable people and make it easier to access services.
Surveys had shown that the public did not "have a problem" with the use
of CCTV cameras and anti-social behaviour orders to protect them from
crime, or DNA testing to detect criminals, Mr Blair said.
"We have a modern world that we are living in, that has new and
different types of crime. If we don't use technology in order to combat
it, then we won't be fighting crime effectively."
Having a secure means of proving identity would assist the authorities
in tackling benefit fraud, preventing foreigners coming to Britain to
access to non-emergency NHS treatment, and stopping illegal working, he
added.
It would also help ordinary law-abiding people with everyday tasks like
opening a bank account, applying for a mortgage or notifying changes of
address.
David Davis, Conservative home affairs spokesman, said Mr Blair claimed
ID cards would deal with benefit fraud, but one of his own ministers had
pointed out that 95 per cent of benefit fraud was caused by people lying
about their circumstances, not their identity.
He said ID cards would almost certainly cost £20bn. They would solve
very few problems and would be "Labour's final act of ineffective and
expensive authoritarianism."
Nick Clegg, Liberal Democrat home affairs spokesman, said: "Tony Blair
must be living in cloud-cuckoo land if he seriously believes that the
creation of the world's largest identity database will be a magic cure
for identity fraud.
"All the evidence from Britain and abroad shows that big government
databases just become the favoured target for ever more sophisticated
organised criminals."