(UK)Government drops ID card plans (BBC News)

Government drops ID card plans

Controversial plans to introduce a compulsory ID card scheme across the UK will not become law ahead of the election, Charles Clarke confirmed.

Tuesday, 5 April, 2005, 20:13 GMT 21:13 UK

The home secretary said the Tories had decided "to kill the bill" and said Labour would re-introduce the plans if re-elected on 5 May. Mr Clarke blamed splits within the Conservative Party.

A Tory spokesman has said it would be "quite wrong" to blame them for any failure to pass law before an election. "It is the government that decides the date of the election and the government who decided to pack the Queen's Speech with too much legislation," the spokesman said.

"Early priority"

He added the ID cards scheme was not due to come into force for 10 years so it was unwise and unnecessary to rush through a bill now. The Lib Dems have long opposed ID cards on civil liberties grounds. Mr Clarke said: "Labour's manifesto will confirm that the reintroduction of identity cards legislation will be an early priority after the election."

The ID scheme would cost an estimated £3bn and see each UK citizen issued with a "biometric" card bearing fingerprints and other personal details which would also be stored on a new database. Opponents say that the plans will infringe citizens' privacy but ministers insist they will help tackle illegal immigration, organised crime and terrorist groups.

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While they claimed that you wouldn't have to carry the cards around with you, or produce them on demand to the police, in practice it's very easy to see that happening, or life being next to impossible without doing so.

If Blair gets back in with a large majority, he'll force this through, though.

it was due in 10 years anyway? They'll just outwait a short attention span public, and slip it through whenever they think they can.

That's what they do here in the U.S.

Maybe you guys can kill the proposal entirely, that would be victory.