Like too many politicians nowadays, Murray doesn't seem to understand how Government works in a democracy.

If they had the sense to drop this insane scheme, it wouldn't cost a penny, but no doubt they will spend a vast amount of taxpayers money on advancing the plan and will very probably end up abandoning it in the end - lots of money spent for nothing at the end of it. Seems to be the usual procedure for Governments nowadays.

Probably will be worse than that—the parts that had some potential benefit will be jettisoned; the components that even as part of the whole had no discernible benefit and likely detrimental, will be vehemently retained with massively greater cost and harm in the absence of unretained parts.

You will get the worst of all possible worlds.

I've met Murray briefly.

Actually seemed a reasonable, pretty switched on guy.

My father knew him a lot better and liked him, he normally hated all politicians, especially Labour and the SNP.

Of course as a minister he has to hold his nose and the govt. line at the same time but that's the price you pay if you want to sit at the big table on the extra ministerial salary.

I think most MP's have their hypocrisy detectors and embarrassment factor invisibly removed the moment they walk through the doors of parliament, or maybe it happens when they put the papers in to stand for election.

He was the only decent alternative to the pool of political pond life that we get to vote for round here. Unfortunaelty he is in the Labour party, a bunch of second rate chancers that are going to take this country down with them.

Digital ID will be a disaster. Just waiting for the first data breach, when some shady scroats from Russia or Iran run off with all our personal data.

Is the alternative first rate chancers or third rate chancers? Which would you prefer?

I thought the incompetent vs competent chancer, which is worse? Question had been comprehensively answered by the Liz Truss vs Rishi Sunak pm thing few years ago.

Try reading Isabel Hardman's book 'Why we get the wrong politicians' before judging them too harshly. Being an MP is a difficult job, whatever your political affiliation.

In essence, the stated reason for digital identification cards is to help control illegal working by immigrants (legal and illegal) and therefore deter illegal immigration. Whether that is the only reason is, of course, open to debate. But illegal immigration and migration are such complicated issues (would you want to live in Afghanistan, Syria, Sudan, Iraq, Libya, Iran etc?) that digital IDs is not going to solve the problem on its own.

Employers are already supposed to check eligibility. Giving those who don't do that another way to check isn't going to help. Spending a fraction of the cost on enforcing the existing checks would actually achieve something.

"In essence, the stated reason for digital identification cards is to help control illegal working by immigrants (legal and illegal) and therefore deter illegal immigration. "

This is a lie that only the stupidest pond life could believe. How many illegal immigrants do you think are going to say "It's not safe to the channel now. They have Starmercards."?

"digital IDs is not going to solve the problem"

They're not going to solve any problem. Starmercards are going to create lots of new, avoidable and unnecessary problems: pervasive mass surveillance of everyone, devastating harms when the database gets compromised, shutdown of everything when the database fails or the cloud provider fucks up, everyone's loss of privacy, etc, etc.

Don't 'dis pond life. Much of it is in general useful to the biosphere it lives in. It's the scum on top that is a pain in the arse and needs a good clearout regularly!

As for your employment data - it's probably heading to the USSA like our medical data.

While the disabled get told they are an "unsustainable cost" and they have to "toughen up"

It would be useful if the OBR published how much similar or related schemes cost in other countries. Many European countries have ID cards and/or apps so it would interesting to see how much they cost to implement and run compared to what's being proposed here. I know that the politicians would play the "but ours is different, better, etc?" game but if the UK proposal is ten times the cost of, say, Sweden or Italy, then it would prompt some interesting questions.

But that's the key to the whole thing.

Many European countries have, to varying extents, more centralised systems of identity and it is quite common for there to be a legal requirement to carry an official ID card. Work is in progress to establish an [1]EU Digital Identity Wallet which will probably start off with digital driving licences, but create a framework for various forms of digital ID for both public and private use across the EU. The aim is to reduce the cost of multiple, incompatible systems and the reliance on paper documents.

On the other hand, the UK is rollling out a system allegedly for the sole purpose of proving the right to work (though it may have other, "voluntary" uses). The thing is, there is already a digital system in place to verify the right to work of most non-UK citizens (the employer gets a "share code" in the same way you can check a driving licence or a Power of Attorney) and so this is essentially a gimmick. It will also require people who already have proof of British or Irish nationality to apply for (and presumably regularly renew) right-to-work ID while still requiring the paper documentation (such as birth certificate or passport) to get the digital ID.

In the former case, the goal is to save money (of course, it ultimately may not do so, but that's the nature of IT projects...) while in the latter case the goal is to add complexity to an existing system for the sake of a few "hostile environment" headlines. Having got the headlines, the smart thing would presumably be to quietly shelve the project.

Of course, one of the problems with the current system is all the exceptions - people who are entitled to work but don't have a biometric residece card or arrived from the EU before a post-Brexit cutoff date or have the right to work in certain occupations but not others. Currently, employers have to take the risk they've correctly interpreted the rules. If they go ahead, the government is going to be stuck with the task of interpreting its own rules, which is where you can expect the costs to start to over-run.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/EU_Digital_Identity_Wallet

We all saw how well that worked with the IR35 query system where HMRC consistently gave the wrong advice.

£1.8b to introduce something my passport already does?

Seems a bizarre waste of money. I wonder who's benefiting from it?

Your passport really only works at the border and not everyone has a passport or wants a passport.

A simple physical card that works with a card reader, like a bank card, would be far simpler and cheaper to roll out.

It would cost far, far more. Two reasons:

1) The scope is far wider, at least by an order of magnitude.

2) Compulsory, which means the £94.50 every 9 years has to come out of general taxation.

The cost of printing is basically irrelevant, it's the cost of everything else.

If we assumed that passport application fees cover the full cost (they don't), and knock off £4.50 for printing, then it's a minimum cost of £10×70M = £700 million per year.

In reality it's higher, because passports are subsidised from general taxation. So the OBR estimate is not far off the minimum, if it goes well.

The cost of printing is basically irrelevant, it's the cost of everything else.

If we assumed that passport application fees cover the full cost (they don't), and knock off £4.50 for printing, then it's a minimum cost of £10×70M = £700 million per year.

I'm pretty sure part of the cost of a UK passport was due to the cost being increased to pay for the last Labour attempt at imposing ID Cards. That got scrapped, but the cost of a passport wasn't reduced.

What does the Venn diagram look like for people who don't want a passport but would want a digital ID card? I'm picturing two circles touching at the very slightest points.

There are 51.6 million British passport holders in the UK. Out of under 70 million people in the country. So we'd be printing 51.6 million cards for people who already have at least one passport.

And passports already have wireless functionality. And machine-readable text. And a format that's not just UK-compatible but also able to work with foreign governments' documents.

And there's a whole global industry of companies making software to read and verify and test and prove software and hardware for passports.

There are criminal networks already trying to forge passports around the world, and huge funds in the security space being spent preventing that. The criminal networks would also clone the digital ID cards, so that security effort would need to be replicated for a separate physical card.

There is no way that a physical card would be simpler or even bordering on cost effective versus using Passports. It needs more than twice as many documents producing, the duplication of effort and infrastructure is colossal, whole new regulatory frameworks need to be created, it loses the ability to also work with foreign nationals who are in the country, and the practical benefit is zero.

Doing a bit of poking around in the government's own data, as of September 2025, there are approx 42.7m active full, driving licences (https://www.data.gov.uk/dataset/d0be1ed2-9907-4ec4-b552-c048f6aec16a/driving-licence-data). There are also 10.4 million provisionals.

According to (https://www.ons.gov.uk/datasets/TS013/editions/2021/versions/3) there are around 45.7m passport holders, as of 2023.

The UK Population estimate according to ONS is 69.5m (https://www.ons.gov.uk/peoplepopulationandcommunity/populationandmigration/populationestimates/bulletins/provisionalpopulationestimatefortheuk/latest).

The 2024 population data suggests around 21.4% of the population under 17 (so aren't able to get a provisional licence, but may have a passport) - around 13m (https://www.ons.gov.uk/peoplepopulationandcommunity/populationandmigration/populationestimates/bulletins/annualmidyearpopulationestimates/mid2024#age-structure-of-the-population), and there's no reason the believe the 2025 proportion is much bigger.

There are significant overlaps here in many of these sets, so the question of who exactly doesn't have any form of ID at this point is probably not a silly one to ask. How many of these people exist? There will be a significant number, but the next question to ask then is:will having a digital ID be any better for them particularly?

I can see the case for a universal identifier to be able to join some data across these cases for government services, but authorisation across domains still bothers me, along with the obvious possibly of breaches, and possible overreach and feature creep, as well as other concerns about how requests for ID may be used or deployed in future.

Weren't they all supposed to have been hoovered up with a free 'I have the right to vote' card when they introduced voter ID?

Eighteen years ago it was estimated that there were at least 77m people in the country (https://www.independent.co.uk/news/business/comment/city-eye-facts-on-a-plate-our-population-is-at-least-77-million-5328454.html), so take those ONS figures with a large heap of salt.

My children both chose Irish passports to which they are entitled on the basis of having been born in Belfast. It enables them to retain EU citizenship and, as my son says. being half Yorkshire, it's cheaper then the UK passport.

"A simple physical card that works with a card reader,......"

The trouble with any form of mandatory identification, whether it be digital or a physical card is that a mandatory ID is something that has never been required within the UK, and over the years has become directly associated with extremist totalitarian dictatorships in the British collective mind. Perhaps this will change with the current younger generations, but for now it still remains a very strong association for anyone whose memory goes back to before the fall of Eastern European communism.

I lived in Italy for a while in the 80s and remember feeling the same thing when told that I had to carry ID at all times - either my passport or get an ID card and it could be demanded at any time for any reason by any of the various types of police. It certainly felt (for a while) like a police state, although nothing ever happened in practice. When I got my Italian ID card (much easier than lugging the UK passport around) they sent a policeman to check my flat to make sure I really lived there. He checked the wardrobe to see if the clothes looked like they fitted me and asked me to play a couple of chords on the guitar that was leaning against the couch. They took identity pretty seriously and when I returned to the UK I found it a bit disconcerting that all I needed to prove my identity to open a bank account or get HP was a recent gas or phone bill, which proved difficult because I was renting a room in a mate's house.

Opening a bank account in someone else's name in the UK is really easy. Not that I would stoop so low, you understand, but fraudsters have done so in my actual name ("Eclectic Man" is, in fact, not my real name, my parents were eccentric, not mad), with, to my certain knowledge , Barclays, HSBC, TSB, Yorkshire Building Society, Family building Society, and the Skipton Building Society and with Hargreaves Landsdown, the share management company. They have used them to steal over £120,000 from me.

So, personally, ID cards, if done securely and well, sound pretty good to me.

"much easier than lugging the UK passport around"

Do you carry yours within a suitcase or rolled up rug?? A UK Passport is about the same size as most phones, but much thinner. I don't know how we manage to lug those cumbersome phones around with us.

When it becomes a standard card, people will put them in their folding-wallet type phone cases (mostly women due to not having wallets and proper pockets to put them in), and lose them on a yearly basis.

A UK Passport in the 80s was bigger than today and had a hard cover with sharp corners. It didn't fit in a denim jacket pocket (my standard non-work everyday wear in those days). I carried it in my jeans back pocket before I got an ID card and it was very tatty as a result. The problem with carrying today's UK passport on a regular basis is that the check-in and gate staff are very twitchy about any damage whatsoever to a passoport and have been known to deny boarding for very minor damage.

Your passport really only works at the border

But I thought that the digital ID was only needed when you wanted to start a new job. What you are admitting is that digital ID is going to be used for far, far more than we are currently told.

not everyone has a passport or wants a passport.

But many people have a driving license. OK: many is not all but between passports & driving license you cover most people.

Oh: you do not need a car or have passed the test to have a driving license - you have to have one to be able to take driving lessons.

But I thought that the digital ID was only needed when you wanted to start a new job. What you are admitting is that digital ID is going to be used for far, far more than we are currently told.

But we are being told, at least in very vague terms-

Prime Minister Keir Starmer said they would also "offer ordinary citizens countless benefits, like being able to prove your identity to access key services swiftly."

Which is much like Labour's last attempt at imposing ID Cards. Use creeping compulsion so that ID Cards are needed where they weren't needed before. Like, I dunno.. validating your online connection so that we don't need to go through pesky Online Safety Act age verification. Or ensuring that all online communications, messages, VoIP calls etc are automagically signed with your Digital ID so that calling people muppets, or asking about 'models' with petrol bombs can be swiftly punished. Online anonymity will be a thing of the past, so obey, citizen..

We have driving licences in this country, not licenses.

"A simple physical card that works with a card reader, like a bank card, would be far simpler and cheaper to roll out."

It's going to be installed on your smartphone. If you don't have one you'll have to buy one and then have HMG compulsorily install on it some with unknown limits of functionality.

And no benefits for the people who'll pay for it

I've already got a national identity - it's my NI number.

I also have a passport, a driving license and a NHS number. Surely a compination of those would already do the job?

I have been working since 2008. Every job I've gone in to I have shown my passport and I have shown my NI.

It's a weird feeling to be in when you're told that your passport alone isn't good enough to prove who you are in the country you live in, but is perfectly fine when I want to go abroad to 190+ other countries?

The problem is that people are working. We need more barriers to prevent people from working otherwise why would employers spend money on AI?

They insist on two documents as a cross check - much like 2FA

Your NI number is in no way useful as a form of ID due to the way the NI system works (or doesn't work, depending on your point of view).

There are large quantities of NI numbers attached to no-one, others attached to more than one person, people attached to more than one NI number. The system is beyond redemption so far as being a formal, effective general purpose ID is concerned, but it more or less functions for the purpose it fulfils---not an 'ID Card'.

... forgetting that it is you & I who ultimately are paying for it.

We also pay for the subsidised bars and restaurants at Westminster.

It would not surprise me at all if MPs claim for a working lunch, thereby getting free beer

Oh, no, they're not forgetting that. It's just that their sole concern is who is being paid for it.

Yet another Labour U-turn

2024:

Labour rejects Tony Blair's call for digital ID cards

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/c87rgj4e0rzo

more like £16B and eight (ok, so I'm being generous) years late.

I am wondering how many more nails Starmer can knock in to Labour's coffin?

If I had wanted a right-wing, authoritarian, control freak, migrant hating government I would have voted for one.

Don't worry you'll have that opportunity at the next election. This lot are just fumbling around trying not to offend too many people, but clearly succeeding in doing the opposite. Do we really imagine any of the other lots would be much different?

And the existing digital ID system GOV.UK One https://signin.account.gov.uk/sign-in-or-create is almost unusable even though hardly anyone has to use it. Of the 4 people I know who attempted sign-up and identity verification, only 2 have managed it so far. Help pages and telephone support are, of course, unusable or unavailable. And this only needs to be used by a fairly small number of people - less than a million I believe (people who have to file company information and some others).

Imagine what would happen if 60+ million people all had to sign up to the eventual national ID solution over the course of (say) a year?

.....https://use-their-id.com

I’ll let you work out the rest.

"days after the minister responsible refused to name a figure."

Is this another one the OBR let escape?

Pretty sure my two banking apps and four credit card apps haven't spent £1.8b between them on the ID side of their apps. They are good enough for me to trust them to access my money.