The chancellor has insisted she is “pretty relaxed” about what form of digital ID people use to prove their right to work in the UK, amid criticism of the government’s latest U-turn.
It emerged on Tuesday that a central element of Labour’s plans for digital ID cards was being rolled back, leaving open the possibility that people would be able to use other forms of identification to prove their right to work.
This will mean that the IDs, announced in September to some controversy, will no longer be mandatory for working-age people, given that the only planned obligatory element was to prove the right to work in the UK.
Speaking to BBC Breakfast, Rachel Reeves said: “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.”
While officials have insisted the move was not a U-turn, but merely a tweak before a detailed consultation on how the system will function, it has been viewed as the latest in a series of policy changes, including on business rates and inheritance tax for farmers.
The former Labour home secretary Lord Blunkett criticised the decision to water down the digital IDs policy, saying a lack of strategic planning meant opponents were able to kill it off.
Blunkett said: “The original announcement was not followed by a narrative or supportive statement or any kind of strategic plan which involves other ministers or those who are committed to it actually making the case.”
“As a consequence, those who are opposed to the scheme for all kinds of nefarious or very different reasons, some of them inexplicable, were able to mobilise public opinion and get the online opposition to it up and running,” he told the Today programme on BBC Radio 4.
“Very sadly it’s an indication of failure not to be able to enunciate why this policy mattered, to be able to follow through with the detail of how it worked and then follow through with a plan.”
Reeves insisted that she did not think most people minded whether it was one piece of digital ID or a form of digital ID that can be verified. “But the point is, we’re trying to address a problem,” she said.
Put to her that continually backtracking on policy shakes the public’s and backbenchers’ confidence, Reeves said: “The key thing is where you’re trying to go. Our government, this government, our focus is on growing the economy and improving living standards for working people.”
When Keir Starmer announced the proposal for digital IDs by 2029 they were billed as voluntary, with the exception that they would be mandatory for people to show they were legally allowed to work.
This was portrayed by him as a primary benefit of the initiative. “Digital ID is an enormous opportunity for the UK,” the prime minister said at the time. “It will make it tougher to work illegally in this country, making our borders more secure.”
Members of the public will still be required to verify their ID digitally, by a process still to be finished, but this could involve existing documents such as a passport. The hope is that this would crack down on illegal working while avoiding the controversy of an in effect compulsory ID system.
