No ID Cards until 2009

The Commons passes the ID Cards Bill on Tuesday stating that ID cards will be voluntary (read compulsory for anyone wanting to have a passport and/or driving licence) from 2008.

However, from Computer Weekly, comes this:

The government’s £5.8bn national ID card project has slipped back a year following delays in passing the ID card bill through Parliament, a government minister conceded yesterday.

Home Office minister Andy Burnham said that the first ID cards would not be introduced until 2009, a year later than originally planned.

I knew there’d be problems with ID cards, but, fuck me, I didn’t think they’d happen this quickly!

The £580m a year running cost of the scheme [according to the government, but not according to anyone else] does not include spending on ID cards by other government departments, who will have to make their own business cases for making use of ID cards.

But so far, Burnham said, other government departments had not approached the Home Office with funds for the project.

Maybe they’re thinking “You made the bed, you lie in it”…

It should also be pointed out that the government still has no idea about what it wants from the system!

It should be noted that every time the government has to make a statement defending ID cards, it’s Andy Burnham (MP for Leigh, i.e. a safe Labour seat) who makes it. He must be the scapegoat for when it all falls apart…