Meg Hillier, home office minister, will next week outline details of the next phase of Britain’s £5.4bn ID card programme – with the government insisting that the public still wants the scheme.
But with MPs on Tuesday calling for the project to be ditched, ministers have a fight on their hands to justify not only its cost but its scope.
In an intervention that summed up the government’s failure to build a national consensus behind the programme, Bob Russell, a Liberal Democrat MP, asked the home secretary Jacqui Smith, as she gave evidence to a select committee: “Why don’t you take this opportunity to make yourself really popular and abandon the project?”
Critics will argue that the introduction of ID cards might have progressed more smoothly if taxpayers had been given a consistent account of exactly why so much of their money was being spent on the project.
There has been no single narrative explaining what deficiency the card is supposed to address: instead, it has been sold as a cure-all remedy for a host of problems.
One minute it was touted as tackling illegal immigration or benefit fraud; the next it was the magic bullet for terrorism and organised crime.
Most benignly, it has been presented as a tool to enable citizens to access a host of public services: “A modern-day public good,” in the words of Liam Byrne, home office minister, like “railways in the 19th century and the national grid”.
“The idea has been that ID cards can impact on so many aspects of life, and where there is a particular issue of the day the cards have been thrown up as a solution,” says Danny Sriskandarajah, head of migration at the Institute for Public Policy Research.
Many of these theories, however, have crumbled under close examination. Some of the most notorious terrorists in history – for example, the 9/11 bombers – had little or no previous criminal record and would not have been uncovered by ID cards, for example.
Other benefits, such as detecting illegal immigrants, would accrue only if the card was taken up by every other citizen in the UK and was immune to forgery.
Meanwhile, a series of public data losses have further dented confidence in the scheme.
The original plan was to phase in the cards for UK citizens on a voluntary basis in 2009. This date now appears to have slipped to 2012 – although people renewing passports will be able to take up the cards from next year.
Only British workers “employed in positions of trust” would need ID cards sooner.
Some observers have sensed a relative cooling of the rhetoric since Gordon Brown became prime minister last summer. Although in favour of the scheme, Mr Brown, in his former post as chancellor, is known to have argued against it during cabinet meetings.
David Blunkett, perhaps the most ardent supporter of the project, is now languishing on the backbenches.
But with immigration high on the public agenda, the government is pressing ahead later this year with cards for foreign nationals residing in the UK. Even this will raise questions about logistics: for example, whether all will have to come to London for fingerprinting and at what cost.
