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An ultimately doomed plan for compulsory ID cards was backed by Tony Blair two decades ago despite senior colleagues warning the scheme was a potential “disaster” that would draw comparisons with “Big Brother”, according to newly released official documents.
The then Labour prime minister pushed ahead regardless of concerns but the policy was ultimately shelved by his successor Gordon Brown before being scrapped by the Conservative-Liberal Democrat ruling coalition after the 2010 general election.
The issue is back on the political agenda after both Blair and former Tory leader William Hague called on the current Conservative government to revive the policy despite concerns about misuse of personal data.
Government papers from the time of the Blair administration released on Friday by the National Archives, show the prime minister’s strong desire to enact the policy, which had been drawn up with some enthusiasm by then home secretary David Blunkett.
But Andrew Adonis, at the time head of the policy unit in Downing Street who later became a peer and a cabinet minister, warned in a memo from late June 2003 that the plans carried “a grade A scope for disaster”.
He pointed out that a similar programme in Australia had been a failure: “The whole thing [was] scrapped within two years on the back of administrative cock-ups and a massive public backlash.”
In a memo in July 2002, William Perrin, private secretary and policy adviser to Blair, wrote that the “overall case” for ID cards was “not very strong in either financial or practical terms for citizens and government”. He said it would cost £1.3bn and take about nine years to achieve a 90 per cent rollout “for little concrete benefit”.
The central database needed for such a scheme to work would hold personal information such as fingerprints or retina scans, which Perrin warned Blair would “be seen as controversial, drawing Big Brother criticisms”.
In contrast, Blunkett had argued in mid-April 2003: “An identity card could be implemented inexpensively if fees were charged on the model I propose. The technology is readily available, and presents no obstacles. Moreover, the public are very supportive.”
Adonis warned that Blunkett was making the same mistake as the Australian government had by failing to resolve whether it would be mandatory to possess a card or carry one. The British government had not made clear what the card was for, he added.
Blair scribbled on the Adonis warning: “I accept all the problems but I just see this as an idea whose time has come and the problems can be resolved.”
Some of Blair’s cabinet ministers also had misgivings. Foreign secretary Jack Straw said in September 2003 that he was “unpersuaded” and cautioned that announcing the policy without explaining how the scheme would work “would not carry credibility”.
He further warned: “It would open us to accusations of casual policymaking on an issue that will affect every citizen in this country, many overseas, and many foreign nationals.”
Transport secretary Alistair Darling warned Downing Street in 2002 that he believed the introduction of a universal entitlement card would be costly and would raise important political considerations around the gathering, holding and processing of sensitive information by the government.
“We need to take some account of the fact that many people have great reservations about privacy, data protection and the use by government of personal information,” he wrote.
