Govt accused of 'burying' increased ID card costs
Thursday, 10 May 2007 12:00 AM
ID cards will cost at least £640 million more than estimated six months ago, the Home Office confirmed today.
In its six-monthly report to parliament, the Home Office said costs have been revised upwards from £4,910 million in October 2006 to £5,420 million.
Home secretary John Reid dismissed concerns that the ID card scheme will be remembered as another Home Office mishap and explained the additional costs were the result of new staff for counter-fraud measures.
Writing in the Guardian today he rejected claims that the scheme will cost £20 billion more than estimated as "sheer nonsense".
Once operational the ID card scheme will be largely self-funded, he insisted, while 70 per cent of the costs would have been spent anyway on passport upgrades. The Home Office insists costs for the public will remain the same.
However, the Conservatives warned the estimates published today do not take into account costs to be met by other departments, meaning they could rise further.
The bulk of opposition criticism was reserved for the timing of the report's publication, with both the Liberal Democrats and Conservatives accusing the government of "burying bad news" amid the coverage of Tony Blair's resignation.
Under section 37 of the ID Cards Act a report on the costs of ID cards must be put before parliament every six months. To fall within the deadline today's report should have been published by April 3rd.
In delaying publication until today, the government has broken the law, the Liberal Democrats claimed.
Home affairs spokesman Nick Clegg said: "It is bad enough that the government seeks to bury bad news behind the camouflage of Tony Blair's announcement.
"Breaking the law to do so breaks new ground even for Tony Blair's Labour party.
"This bad news has been illegally postponed, and is only now published a full month beyond the statutory deadline. That shows the depths of cynicism and media manipulation to which ministers are now resorting to ram this increasingly unpopular scheme through."
The Home Office denied it deliberately delayed publication and pointed out parliament was in recess on April 9th. A spokesman told politics.co.uk it was not possible to publish the report before today.
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