Darling fails to back ID cards

Alistair Darling did not back ID cards

Chancellor Alistair Darling failed to give unqualified backing to the government's £5.4bn National Identity Scheme yesterday after media reports that top cabinet ministers were planning to scrap the ID cards programme.

Asked at the Institute of Director's annual conference whether he supported ID cards, Darling refused to say yes and, according to a report in the Daily Mail, instead replied:

"ID cards are an interesting point because the lion's share of the expenditure is going on biometric passports. People are rightly concerned about who comes in and who goes out of this country."

He continued: "Your old conventional bog-standard passport was OK, but it was not too difficult to improvise, shall I say. The biometrics means that it's very much more difficult. That is the bigger cost."

Earlier this week The Independent reported that at least two members of the Cabinet were plotting to scrap the scheme to ease public finances.

And former Home Secretary David Blunkett, one of the architects of the scheme, also called for ID cards to be scrapped.

The scheme has come in for increased criticism at a time when public sector budgets are under severe pressure – both the Tories and the Liberal Democrats have said they would scrap it should they be elected next year.

But the Home Office insists many of the core IT systems, including the National Identity Register that will store peoples' biometrics, will also support new biometric passports and so scrapping ID cards will not release a huge pot of money.

Darling went on: "I don't think there's a single item of government expenditure that you can't say: 'Let's have a look at it, do we need to spend this money, can we spend it better and more efficiently?' That is something we are going to have to do."