[NetBehaviour] Ministers reject ID card claims

[marc]

*Ministers reject ID card claims
Rebel MPs and peers prepare to oppose bill analysts claim scheme could cost
up to £18bn*

Michael White, political editor
Monday June 27, 2005

The Guardian

http://politics.guardian.co.uk/homeaffairs/story/0,11026,1515460,00.html#art
icle_continue

Senior ministers refused to compromise yesterday in the face of a ferocious
onslaught from MPs, trade unions and civil liberty groups seeking to
overwhelm tomorrow's Commons second reading of the ID cards bill.
As critics stepped up the pressure on the system they have sought to paint
as a "plastic poll tax", the scheme's achilles heel was increasingly being
seen as the cost - between £15bn and £18bn, according to some independent
analysts.

The home secretary, Charles Clarke, intervened to counter claims about the
misuses to which the ID card data could be put. Ministers dismissed as
"complete and utter nonsense" one report that personal details about 44
million adults could be bought by firms for £750 a head.

So incensed are some party loyalists that Labour's chairman, Ian McCartney,
issued a statement reminding hostile MPs and trade unions such as Unison and
the T&GWU that - unlike the foundation hospitals row and other rebellions -
there was extensive prior consultation over ID cards.

Recalling how they were part of the"Warwick agreement" with the unions in
2004, subsequently endorsed by Labour's conference, Mr McCartney said: "The
Warwick agreement is not pick and mix."

A loyalist MP said: "The unions would complain if other bits of the Warwick
agreement were dropped." The rebel MP Bob Marshall-Andrews QC, countered:
"There is a very heavy groundswell of opinion against it." He predicted that
the scheme would prove to be "a failure of [Millennium] Dome-like
proportions, only infinitely bigger. It's going to be a national scandal."

In the stalled attempt to pass the bill before the election, 19 Labour MPs
rebelled. Tony Blair now has a Commons majority of 67, so 34 rebels - the
Campaign Group plus a handful of libertarians - could be enough to defeat
him.

But not all MPs will vote and few in either camp expect Mr Clarke to lose a
second reading on a bill which was a manifesto pledge two months ago. It
would be the first such defeat since a backbench Tory revolt against Sunday
trading in 1986.

More serious, Tory and Lib Dem peers plus Labour critics in the upper house,
are hinting that they may have no such inhibitions and are prepared to defy
the convention that the Lords does not block a manifesto bill.

At the least, amendments will be used to weaken the bill, which the T&GWU
opposes on cost, practicability and civil liberties grounds. Unison predicts
that some public sector officials might not cooperate with the scheme's
implementation.

Among criticisms of the bill voiced yesterday were:

· Irish citizens living in Britain or commuting across the borders will not
have to carry ID cards;

· EDS, the US computer company involved in the mismanagement of the tax
credit scheme may, reportedly, get a central role in the ID card data base;

· the London School of Economics puts the cost of the scheme at £12bn-£18bn;
the IT analyst Kable says £15bn.

The Home Office still insists the scheme, run in conjunction with biometric
passports, will cost £5.8bn over 10 years or £93 a card; Kable's claim is
£248 each, the LSE's as high as £300. Mr Clarke dismissed the latter as "a
complete nonsense figure" but admitted that the £93 estimate is still
"merely indicative".

Price could crucially affect public attitudes because voters are more
pragmatic than other critics. A Mail on Sunday poll yesterday suggested
that, while a majority of the country (57%) backs the introduction of ID
cards, only one in 10 would be prepared to pay £100 for one. If the price
were triple that - as some critics claim - that support plummets to just 2%.

Ministers argue that the worldwide move towards biometric passport data, led
by the US, means that most of the costs are inevitable and that for ID cards
will be marginal. 

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