Mandatory digital ID plans ditched as prime minister rejects 13 U-turns accusation
Labour said it is committed to having digital right-to-work checks but that a digital ID or other digital documentation, such as a biometric passport chip, would now be accepted
Heidi Alexander read a list of Labour U-turns on Sky News
Digital ID for right-to-work checks will no longer be mandatory in the UK, the Transport Secretary has confirmed.
Heidi Alexander said Labour was committed to having digital right-to-work checks but that a digital ID or other digital documentation, such as a biometric passport chip, would now be accepted.
In a heated interview, the Cabinet minister rejected accusations that Labour was making repeated U-turns after getting criticism over its plans. She said Labour was being honest with people, adding: “Change is going to take time, but we are making progress.”
Asked about plans to ditch digital ID, she told Sky News: “We are committed to having mandatory digital right-to-work checks.
“Now that might be that someone has the digital ID that the government makes freely available. It’s on their phone. They can use that to demonstrate their right to work in the country. Equally, it might be the check of a biometric chip in a passport, which is digitally done.”
READ MORE: Digital ID ‘to be scaled back in major climbdown’ after huge backlash
She added: “At the moment, we’ve got a mish-mash of a paper system where no digital records are kept and that makes it very hard to properly target your enforcement operations against illegal working.”
Ms Alexander was challenged on accusations that Labour has made 13 U-turns since being in power, including on welfare spending, farmers’ inheritance tax rates, winter fuel payments and the two-child benefit limit.
Picking up on the two-child benefit limit, the Cabinet minister said she rejected it was a U-turn, saying: “We were always clear, as soon as we came into government that we were setting up a child poverty task force, and we’d look at every lever available to us and tackle the problem of child poverty. I don’t believe it is a U-turn.”
Chancellor Rachel Reeves added that the Government is “pretty relaxed” about what form of digital documentation people use to prove their right to work amid the digital ID U-turn. She told BBC Breakfast: “On the digital ID, for starters, I do think this story has been a bit overwritten. We are saying that you will need mandatory digital ID to be able to work in the UK.
“Now the difference is whether that has to be one piece of ID, a digital ID card, or whether it could be an e-visa or an e-passport, and we’re pretty relaxed about what form that takes.”
Support for digital ID cards dropped from 35% in the early summer to -14% just after Mr Starmer announced his plans to introduce them ahead of Labour’s September annual conference.
In October, Keir Starmer vowed to push ahead with controversial digital ID plans despite their unpopularity with the public. The PM attempted to turn around the tide on public opinion and emphasise the benefits of the policy, such as using digital ID to buy alcohol after you turn 18 or to help students avoid having to dig out their birth certificates when they’re trying to rent a place at university.
It came after he initially unveiled the digital ID plans with an emphasis on making them mandatory for proving your right to work in the UK in a crackdown on illegal working.
In September, the PM said: “It has been too easy for people to enter the country, work in the shadow economy and remain illegally. We must be absolutely clear that tackling every aspect of the problem of illegal immigration is essential.” And he vowed: “You will not be able to work in the UK if you don’t have a digital ID, it’s as simple as that.”
But concerns were raised by MPs and campaigners over civil liberties, state surveillance and privacy of data.
In November MPs were told the Government’s digital ID policy has been so badly botched that it is now “irrecoverable”. Silki Carlo, director of pressure group Big Brother Watch, told the cross-party Home Affairs Select Committee: “I don’t think anyone in this room genuinely believes that the mandatory digital ID is about illegal working.”
And she continued: “I think that it’s likely that the way that this announcement has been managed makes it irrecoverable for this government and potentially for the next five to 10 years.”
A consultation on digital ID cards is set to be launched in the coming weeks on the plans.
The digital IDs – which would be stored on smartphones in GOV.UK’s wallet app – will allow employers or landlords to verify a citizen’s right to live and work in the UK by making it easier for them to check someone’s immigration status. They would be checked against a central database of people entitled to live and work in the UK.
