Coalition celebrates ID card demise
By politics.co.uk staff
ID cards have less than a month before being permanently cancelled, after the passing of the Identity Documents Act.
The legislation received royal assent before parliament rose for the Christmas recess yesterday.
It means Labour’s controversial ID cards scheme, which outraged civil liberties campaigners and proved divisive throughout the last decade in British politics, will meet its final demise in the first month of January 2011.
All ID cards will be cancelled within a month of the Act passing. The national identity register, which contains the biographic information and biometric fingerprint data of card holders, will be physically destroyed within two months.
Home Office minister Damian Green said the identity card scheme had been was “intrusive, bullying, ineffective and expensive”.
“The government is committed to scaling back the power of the state and restoring civil liberties,” he commented.
“This is just the first step in the process of restoring and maintaining our freedoms.”
Labour did not issue a comment in response. The opposition under Ed Miliband’s new leadership has already conceded much of New Labour’s agenda went too far on civil liberties.
Planned investment totalling £835 million has been saved, the Home Office said, but £292 million has already been spent on ID cards. Existing cardholders will be notified of the change in writing.
