UK government rolls back key part of digital ID plans | Politics
Ministers have rolled back a key element of proposed digital ID plans, leaving open the possibility of people being able to use other forms of ID to prove their right to work.
This will mean the IDs will no longer be compulsory for people of working age, which caused some controversy in September, given that the only planned mandatory element is proving the right to work in the UK.
It will be seen as the latest in a series of policy changes for farmers, including business rates and inheritance tax, although officials say this is not a U-turn but a change ahead of a detailed consultation on how the system will work.
When Keir Starmer announced his proposals for digital IDs by 2029, they were billed as voluntary, except that they would be mandatory for people to show they were legally allowed to work.
This was cited by the prime minister as the main benefit of the plan. “Digital identity is a tremendous opportunity for the UK,” he said. “It will make it harder to work illegally in this country and make our borders safer.”
In a process that is yet to be completed, people will be asked to verify their identity digitally, but this may also include existing documents such as passports. Our hope is that this will guard against illegal work while avoiding debates over a de facto mandatory ID system.
A government spokesman said: “We are committed to mandatory digital right-to-work checks. We have always been clear that details of the digital identity scheme will be determined following a comprehensive public consultation which will begin shortly.
“Digital ID will make daily life easier for people, enabling public services to be more personal, unified and effective, while remaining inclusive.”
Conservatives described the move as “another humiliating U-turn from the government”.
Shadow Cabinet minister Mike Wood said: “What was sold as a tough crackdown on illegal work is now set to become another costly, ill-considered experiment abandoned at the first sign of pressure from Labour’s backbenchers.”
Lisa Smart, the Liberal Democrats’ Cabinet Office spokeswoman, said: “No 10 needs to order motion sickness tablets in bulk at this rate to cope with all the U-turns.
“It was clear from the outset that this was a proposal doomed to fail and that it would cost taxpayers an inordinate amount of money to deliver absolutely nothing.
“The government now needs to confirm that the billions of pounds earmarked for the mandatory digital identity scheme will instead be spent on the NHS and frontline policing.”
A government source said the revised plans would not change the central tenet of the original proposal, which called for fitness-to-work checks to be made more stringent in line with systems in other countries.
They said many currently rely on employers seeing paper copies of documents, whereas in the new system this is likely to involve a digital check of a passport or e-visa.
