Starmer says you’ll never need a digital ID for hospital – but admits he has no idea how much scheme will cost

Sir Keir Starmer said the public would never need a digital ID to access the hospital but admitted the full cost of the new scheme was still unknown.

The Prime Minister reiterated on Thursday that digital IDs will only be mandatory when the right to work is at stake.

The scheme was first announced last month, touted as a way to prove a person has the right to work in the UK as part of the government’s bid to reduce illegal immigration.

“Absolutely not,” Sir Keir told the BBC on Thursday when asked whether a digital ID would be needed to access a hospital.

“It will not be mandatory, except for the right to work and the right to have a digital identity,” he said. “You’ll never need an ID to get into a hospital or anything like that.”

But he acknowledged that officials were unclear about how much the program would cost overall.

Asked what the final bill might be and whether it would be led by a major tech firm, the Prime Minister said: “There is no additional cost at the moment because we are going through the consultation process, so all of that has been taken into account.

“And we won’t know the full cost until we get to the end of this implementation.”

He claimed evidence elsewhere showed the scheme saved money by preventing fraud.

The Prime Minister was speaking during a bank visit and compared digital identity technology to technologies currently available to the public.

“The idea of ​​having an identity on your phone is not that different from having a bank account on your phone or other apps that people have on their phones,” he said.

He also said that using the technology for surveillance would be out of the question.

Sir Keir announced last month that the government would introduce a new ID system that will be mandatory for people working in the UK by 2029.

He told a summit in London: “If we get this digital ID system up and running and the public are with us, it will be the basis of the modern state and enable some really quite exciting civil service reform in the future.”

The Prime Minister also said the technology would help convince voters that the immigration system was “fair”, saying: “Honest, pragmatic, fair-minded people want us to solve the problems they see around them.”

The government has previously said the digital identity cart will be kept on people’s phones, similar to the NHS app or contactless payment systems.

This document will be issued free of charge to anyone who has the right to live or work in the UK, whether British-born or foreign-born.

It will contain information such as the person’s name, date of birth and photo.

How the program will work for non-smartphone users will be discussed as part of the consultation process.