Ministers 'setting themselves up to fail' on ID cards
Monday, 10 July 2006 12:00 AM
Campaigners against ID cards have stepped up their calls for the scheme to be scrapped after leaked documents show major civil service unease about the plans.
Emails between two senior civil servants reveal the government is considering a watered-down version of the nationwide identity cards scheme, in recognition that the original plans cannot be introduced by the 2008 deadline.
But the correspondence, published in The Sunday Times, suggests civil servants believe even this "face-saving" exercise is doomed, with one noting: "I conclude that we are setting ourselves up to fail."
Shadow home secretary David Davis warned the emails were the "classic signs of a Whitehall IT project about to go disastrously wrong", adding: "These civil servants can see plainly what the government refuses to accept.
"The prime minister's obsession with this project will actually weaken our security and cost at least £20 billion. It's time they admitted failure and cancelled this project."
Liberal Democrat home affairs spokesman Nick Clegg added: "How long will this government continue to live in denial by ignoring the mountain of doubts about Tony Blair's harebrained ID cards scheme?"
Both parties had opposed the introduction of a nationwide identity card scheme amid concerns about the impact it would have on civil liberties, the costs of such a large project and the feasibility of it being introduced on time.
The email correspondence last month was between Peter Smith, acting commercial director at the Identity and Passport Service (IPS), which is charged with introducing ID cards, and David Foord, ID card project director at the Office of Government Commerce.
In one, Mr Foord says the proposed 'early variant scheme' "has all the inauspicious signs of a project continuing to be driven by an arbitrary end date rather than reality", to which Mr Smith replies: "It was a Mr Blair who wanted the 'early variant' card. Not my idea..."
In his return email, Mr Foord says: "I do not have a problem with ministers wanting a face-saving solution, but we need to be clear with the programme team, senior officials, special advisors and ministers etc just what this implies.
"They need to understand this, because a botched introduction of a descoped early variant ID card., if it is subject to a media feeding frenzy .which it might well be close to a general election, could put back the introduction of ID cards for a generation."
Phil Booth, national co-ordinator of campaign group NO2ID, warned that the revelation that Mr Blair's timetable for introducing ID cards was rushed to fit on a "political agenda" showed the whole scheme was a "complete sham".
However, while a Home Office spokesman admitted there was an "early variant" of ID cards in the pipeline, he said: "Any suggestion we have abandoned their introduction is simply wrong."
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