Jacqui Smith is ploughing ahead with the ID card scheme, despite the fact that she will not be Home Secretary for much longer
Manchester 'launch' for ID cards Manchester will this autumn become the first city where people can sign up for an ID card, she says.
Anyone over 16 in the city who holds a UK passport will be able to apply for a card at a post office or pharmacy.
The home secretary's speech signals her determination to push ahead with the cards - expected to cost people between £30 and £60 each - despite opposition.
David Blunkett said earlier this month that ID cards should be scrapped in favour of biometric passports; each card will cost £30 with a further £30 charge for collecting the data.
The Conservatives said the idea of trialling the scheme in one city was "nonsensical".
"The government is split down the middle on ID cards but it looks as if Jacqui Smith is carrying on regardless," said shadow home secretary Chris Grayling.
"They should abandon this farce and scrap the whole scheme."
Dr Edgar Whitley of the London School of Economics has been warning about the cost of the scheme - which he has estimated at £10bn-£20bn - for the past four years.
The government's figure for the cost to the Home Office is about £5bn.
Dr Whitley told BBC Radio 4's Today programme: "The more I learn about it, the less impressed I've become.
"The government said one of the benefits would be you'll be able to use your identity card to get personalised public services.”
Am I being dim but, aren’t passports a form of ID that is accepted, if the ID card replaced the passport then there may be a small positive factor, but to have ID cards and passports is a sledgehammer to a nut policy.
And the other snag is that to obtain an ID card you will need some sort of identification, oh yes, a passport will do, so what about people who do not have a passport, do they become invisible in our totalitarian state?
Yet another pointless, expensive waste of money and time thought up by the “brains” in the Government.
We already have an “ID card” it’s called a passport! We don’t need both.
“If a nation values anything more than freedom, it will lose its freedom, and the irony of it is that if it is comfort or money that it values more, it will lose that too.” W. Somerset Maugham
Angus
Angus Dei on all and sundry
NHS Behind the headlines
NHS-THE OTHER SIDE
Manchester 'launch' for ID cards Manchester will this autumn become the first city where people can sign up for an ID card, she says.
Anyone over 16 in the city who holds a UK passport will be able to apply for a card at a post office or pharmacy.
The home secretary's speech signals her determination to push ahead with the cards - expected to cost people between £30 and £60 each - despite opposition.
David Blunkett said earlier this month that ID cards should be scrapped in favour of biometric passports; each card will cost £30 with a further £30 charge for collecting the data.
The Conservatives said the idea of trialling the scheme in one city was "nonsensical".
"The government is split down the middle on ID cards but it looks as if Jacqui Smith is carrying on regardless," said shadow home secretary Chris Grayling.
"They should abandon this farce and scrap the whole scheme."
Dr Edgar Whitley of the London School of Economics has been warning about the cost of the scheme - which he has estimated at £10bn-£20bn - for the past four years.
The government's figure for the cost to the Home Office is about £5bn.
Dr Whitley told BBC Radio 4's Today programme: "The more I learn about it, the less impressed I've become.
"The government said one of the benefits would be you'll be able to use your identity card to get personalised public services.”
Am I being dim but, aren’t passports a form of ID that is accepted, if the ID card replaced the passport then there may be a small positive factor, but to have ID cards and passports is a sledgehammer to a nut policy.
And the other snag is that to obtain an ID card you will need some sort of identification, oh yes, a passport will do, so what about people who do not have a passport, do they become invisible in our totalitarian state?
Yet another pointless, expensive waste of money and time thought up by the “brains” in the Government.
We already have an “ID card” it’s called a passport! We don’t need both.
“If a nation values anything more than freedom, it will lose its freedom, and the irony of it is that if it is comfort or money that it values more, it will lose that too.” W. Somerset Maugham
Angus
Angus Dei on all and sundry
NHS Behind the headlines
NHS-THE OTHER SIDE
1 comment:
Perhaps the cost of an ID Card could be charged to JS's parliamentary expenses sheet?
Anyway, why do I need to know who I am if I know who I am - and I have a passport? One of the silliest ideas this side of the planet. Mind you the US Radio talk show host is about to sue her. I hope he wins
RP
http://www.drritapal.blogspot.com
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