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The Guardian
12 hours ago
- Politics
- The Guardian
Digital ID cards would be good for Britain – and a secret weapon for Labour against Reform
'Papers please!' Those words strike terror in a thousand war movies. Stasi or Gestapo officers are a breed apart from the unarmed plod who demands no ID cards from free British people. So when the government contemplates a universal ID, it sends instinctive twitches down some spines. Though not many. Times and public attitudes have changed. And so have the political imperatives, for it seems that, for a Labour government struggling to seize the narrative after a difficult year in power, digital ID cards – and the sense of national belonging they could strengthen – may just be the weapon needed to fight off the ever-rising threat of Nigel Farage's Reform. Look to Labour Together, the thinktank closest to government, which has just published a paper calling for a digital ID system – a 'verifiable digital credential downloaded onto a user's smartphone, which could be instantly checked by employers or landlords using a free verifier app'. One of its main virtues is simplification. There are currently 191 ways to set up accounts and access services on with 44 sign-in methods. A universal ID is popular: More in Common finds 53% in favour, with 25% strongly in favour and only 19% against, backed by a majority of supporters of Labour, the Tories, the Liberal Democrats and Reform UK, and across all ages. The co-author of the foreword to the report, the Rother Valley MP Jake Richards, talks in terms of 'the citizen taking back control of their own data and public services'. One portal, no more forgotten passwords, simple, safe, everything in one place for everyone. What's not to like? Some will protest at the apparent loss of a romantic freedom, the right to vanish and start life anew, the call of the open road. But that's a fairytale, a fantasy of a bygone era. Everyone knows everything already. As Richards puts it to me: 'Last night I drank a Guinness. This morning I'm getting ads for Guinness.' The algorithms catch us already everywhere. Buy a lampshade and lampshades chase you all over the internet (which suggests algorithmic cluelessness: I've already bought that lampshade). You may restrict what you let out, but AI will find you, assessing your age and address from a host of databases. Better to control everything from one government-run base. It seems clear to me that the report is fundamentally about immigration – Labour wants to make it easier to identify people with no right to live here or claim public services. The policies behind the 'stop the boats' and 'smash the gangs' slogans can never hope to guard every beach from every rubber dinghy, whatever politicians pretend, any more than they can 'end crime'. But ID would be a second line of defence against undocumented migrants who would find getting a job, renting a flat or using public services near impossible without one. Curbing benefit fraud is also cited as another argument in favour by poll respondents in the report; with ID cards for all claimants, those ever-suspicious of benefit cheats, despite the very low fraud levels at just 2.2%, might be reassured. ID cards, designed to guard borders, could calm some alarm at migration among those who wildly overestimate the numbers arriving undocumented. The report forcefully labels it the 'BritCard', the first of its kind since the second world war. With a groundswell of support among the new cohort of Labour MPs, Richards says it's not just red wallers in favour, but everyone who's alarmed by Reform's frightening advance. Former home secretaries back it – Alan Johnson, David Blunkett, Charles Clarke, Jack Straw, Amber Rudd, plus William Hague. Tony Blair has always advocated it, with a tortured history of trying to introduce a plastic 'entitlement' card. First tried in 2003, the idea was backed by the Met police commissioner, who called it an 'absolutely essential' tool in the war against terrorism. By 2010 it was briefly available to some, but abolished by the incoming coalition government. The cost was a killer: £85 for a combined card and passport. This time a universal digital ID would be free, say its promoters. The authors would make it mandatory – Jake Richards wouldn't. But that may make little difference once it became near-impossible to access anything without it. Real risks need to be resolved first, as a computer rejecting you unjustly would cut off access to everything. The Home Office would have to improve radically, given its track record. We cannot forget that some Windrush victims are still waiting for compensation while others dare not approach the untrusted Home Office, source of their trauma. Any system would need cast-iron guarantees that being denied services on the basis of not having a valid BritCard would be dealt with instantly by senior enough officials to make robust decisions with rapid appeal to courts not blocked by backlogs. But the political advantages are crystal clear. The almost 37,000 migrants arriving by boat last year signify a state's loss of control. It has been reported that some would-be arrivals in Calais choose the UK because it doesn't have ID cards, unlike most of the EU. Adjudicating who is entitled to be here is the state's first duty, controlling who shares in a democracy and the public services that voters pay into. ID cards are a social democratic cause, because they help define security not only as border controls for who comes in, but as the right for everyone here to share in our mutual social security. In truth this is a political rebranding of what's happening already. E-visas are rolling out to all foreign residents, with the existing One Login and Wallet doing the same digital identity work. Make it one ID system and the government can claim the political credit. Its promoters relish a public fight with civil liberties and privacy groups to prove Labour's seriousness about national identity. Watch the dash to leave the European convention on human rights (ECHR), promoted by the now near-identical Kemi Badenoch and Nigel Farage. Labour will rightly have none of it. No 10 is not yet committed on digital ID cards – but lest anyone think Labour lacks a pride and purpose when it comes to British identity, this is the time to bring in ID cards to endow everyone with proof of their national rights. Polly Toynbee is a Guardian columnist
Daily Mirror
4 days ago
- Politics
- Daily Mirror
Mandatory ID cards on your phone being weighed up - what it would mean for you
Proposals for new 'BritCards' - which would prove whether someone has the right to live and work in the UK - are being looked at by ministers amid claims it will help tackle illegal migration Ministers are looking at plans to bring in mandatory digital ID cards for every adult in the UK. Backers say the new "BritCard" - which would be linked to Government records - would help tackle illegal migration and rogue landlords. A new report says the ID, which would be stored on smartphones, would make right-to-rent and right-to-work checks quicker and easier. Former PM Tony Blair has long called for ID cards, but the Government previously said it was not planning to bring them in. However a new report by think-tank Labour Together has been passed to No10's policy unit. Backbench MPs Jake Richards and Adam Jogee say the ID cards would be a "full, country-wide effort" allowing people to prove their right to be here. The think-tank said in a report that a "mandatory, universal, national identity credential" can help the UK secure its borders. BritCards would be issued free of charge to everyone with the right to live and work in the UK, Labour Together says. It estimates it would cost between £140million and £400million to set up. Mr Richards and Mr Jogee wrote that digital ID "will help improve the enforcement of our rules dramatically". They continued: "But it is also progressive because it gives our residents and citizens thecast iron guarantees they have not previously had. This is your have a right to be here. This will make your life easier." Supporters argue the move would help prevent a repeat of the Windrush scandal, which saw hundreds of people wrongly deported or threatened with deportation. Morgan Wild, Chief Policy Adviser at Labour Together said: 'The state makes everyone, whether they are a British citizen or not, prove their right to work or rent. "But we don't give everyone with the right to be here the ability to prove it. That leads to discrimination, unjust deportation and, as happened in the worst Windrush cases, dying in a country that is not your own. Through a national effort to provide everyone with proof of their right to be here, BritCard can stop that from ever happening again.' The think-tank's paper argues that BritCards should initially be rolled out for right-to-rent and right-to-work checks. It says this would support the Government's clampdown on irregular migration and those living in the UK illegally. Polling for Labour Together suggests around 80% of Brits support the idea for the specific purpose of tackling illegal migration. The paper says it will help tackle forgery and discrimination by landlords. Kirsty Innes, Director of Technology at Labour Together said: 'A progressive society can only work if we have meaningful borders. BritCard would make it far harder to flout the illegal work and illegal rent rules, and far easier to identify and punish exploitative illegal employers and landlords.' Introducing ID cards was a pet project of Tony Blair's. He tried to bring in compulsory identification documents when he was PM. Last year he said: "We need a plan to control immigration. If we don't have rules, we get prejudices. "In office, I believed the best solution was a system of identity so that we know precisely who has a right to be here. "With, again, technology, we should move as the world is moving to digital ID. If not, new border controls will have to be highly effective." But at the time Home Secretary Yvette Cooper said: "It's not in our manifesto. That's not our approach."
The Guardian
4 days ago
- Politics
- The Guardian
Downing Street exploring options for ‘progressive' UK digital IDs
Downing Street is exploring new proposals for a digital ID card to crack down on illegal migration, rogue landlords and exploitative work, set out in a policy paper authored by a centre-left thinktank. The paper has been handed to the No 10 policy unit to flesh out proposals for a BritCard, which would be a mandatory digital credential that Labour Together claims could help avoid another Windrush scandal. But it said it would also help reduce vast numbers of visa overstayers, saying half of those whose asylum claims were turned down over the past 14 years were likely still to be in the UK. It proposes a free, secure digital ID, stored on a person's smartphone using ministers' planned Wallet app, rebranded as the BritCard app. That could then be verified by employers, immigration, banks and landlords using a free verifier app. The proposal from the thinktank, whose founders include the No 10 chief of staff Morgan McSweeney, has been backed previously by dozens of Labour MPs, with the new paper endorsed by two 'red wall' MPs, Jake Richards and Adam Jogee. The analysis in the paper found that the ID cards – a hugely controversial policy proposal during Tony Blair's era – would make right-to-rent and right-to-work checks quicker and easier for tenants and employees. The paper said that it would cost up to £400m to build the system and around £10m a year to administer as a free-to-use phone app. Labour Together said that as well as helping to tackle illegal migration, it would also have a progressive benefit of giving people a clear way of proving they belonged in the country. It said previous projects, such as the NHS app and EU settled status, despite some problems, had nevertheless proven such a project was possible with satisfaction from the majority of users. In their foreword, Richards, the MP for Rother Valley, and Jogee, the MP for Newcastle-under-Lyme, said the BritCard 'should form an important part of Labour's enforcement strategy that does not compromise our principles and values'. They said that those living in the UK without regular status were 'exploited by criminal employers, which in turn suppresses wages for legal citizens and migrants alike'. They said the coalition government's 'hostile environment' had made very little difference to the overall numbers but had had a disproportionately cruel effect on those unfairly targeted. 'The Windrush scandal saw thousands of people wrongly targeted by immigration enforcement, including many legitimate British citizens who were unjustly detained or deported,' they said. 'We believe that a progressive government does not have to choose between dealing with these injustices. It must tackle them all head on.' They said the introduction of a digital ID for all citizens was 'progressive because it gives our residents and citizens the cast-iron guarantees they have not previously had. This is your country. You have a right to be here. This will make your life easier. It is at the heart of the social contract.' Morgan Wild, Labour Together's chief policy adviser, said: 'The state makes everyone, whether they are a British citizen or not, prove their right to work or rent. 'But we don't give everyone with the right to be here the ability to prove it. That leads to discrimination, unjust deportation and, as happened in the worst Windrush cases, dying in a country that is not your own. Through a national effort to provide everyone with proof of their right to be here, BritCard can stop that from ever happening again.' The Home Office has already committed in its immigration white paper to rolling out a digital identity for all overseas citizens through eVisas and new systems for checking visa compliance, replacing the former residence permit cards. The paper argues that landlords are rarely fined for failing any checks on migration status and that proving status can be very difficult for people without a passport or recent bills, especially young people. Sign up to Headlines UK Get the day's headlines and highlights emailed direct to you every morning after newsletter promotion It argued that employers faced high costs and complex right-to-work rules, which varied for British nationals and different categories and migrants – and said this would give employers a simple way to confirm migration status and speed up hiring. The report's author and the thinktank's director of technology, Kirsty Innes, said: 'A progressive society can only work if we have meaningful borders. BritCard would make it far harder to flout the illegal work and illegal rent rules, and far easier to identify and punish exploitative illegal employers and landlords.' Polling for the report found that more than 70% of Britons and supporters of each political party backed the digital ID concept. The Windrush scandal meant that thousands of people who were living legally in the UK were mistakenly classified as immigration offenders, with many losing their jobs, homes and access to healthcare and benefits as a result; a smaller number were arrested, detained and deported to countries they had left as children. But immigration experts were uncertain about whether the scandal would have been averted by an ID card system, pointing out that many of those affected had asked the Home Office to give them documentation. Mihnea Cuibus, researcher with the Migration Observatory at the University of Oxford, said the challenge would be working out how to 'onboard' people who were currently outside the immigration system. 'A fully functioning and up-to-speed system could work well in avoiding Windrush-type situations. The question is how would we get there in practice?' He was uncertain whether a BritCard would have a practical impact on reducing illegal immigration. Employers and landlords are required to check the immigration status of new tenants and employees, and face large fines if they rent or employ people without the right to be in the UK. However, there is very little enforcement action. Cuibus said the size of the underground economy in France, where ID cards were mandatory, was not very different from in Britain.
Daily Mail
6 days ago
- General
- Daily Mail
When Yvette Cooper speaks it all feels so formulaic, it conveys nothing: QUENTIN LETTS
Biggest vote turner at present? Small boats. That explains the rise of Nigel Farage 's Reform. Yesterday Yvette Cooper arrived at the home affairs select committee for what was expected to be a showdown. She was set to be interrogated about 'the work of the Home Office '. MPs were bound to go big on the small boats crisis. Weren't they? Not this lot. It was an hour and a half before the matter was raised and it received just ten minutes. Questions during that low-energy period were reserved for Starmerites. Owing to the result of the General Election, select committees are heavily dominated by Labour. The MP given most of the questions was Chris Murray (Lab, Edinburgh East & Musselburgh). In addition to being as damp as a frogman's jockstrap he happens to be the son of Margaret Curran, a sometime Labour MP who is now minister for Net Zero in the House of Lords. You will not be amazed to learn that wee Murray displayed all the feral aggression of a Portobello tea-shop waitress. He marvelled at Ms Cooper's command of the crisis. She could not have been handling it better, Mr Murray plainly felt. 'And will ye be taking another pink dainty cake, madam?' he did not quite ask the Home Secretary. Yvette Cooper arrives in Downing Street to attend the weekly Cabinet meeting in London on June 3 Mr Murray's cosy family connections were trumped by those of another Labour MP. Jake Richards (Rother Valley) disclosed that his sister is Ms Cooper's chief of staff. Their father is Steve Richards, a Blairite columnist and BBC type. Nor does it stop there. Jake's sister is married to another Labour MP, the implausibly tanned Gregor Poynton (Livingston), who himself was previously married to an ex-Labour MP, Gemma Doyle. The People's Party outdoes the Borgias for nepotism. It makes the Pakenhams look grindingly meritocratic. All this helped Ms Cooper. She could jabber away without significant interruption, wobbling her head and affecting artful concern about the Liverpool parade crash, youth terrorism and other matters. Sitting some three yards to her left, at shoulder level, one was offered an unusual angle of the Home Secretary. Watching her side-on, I could see a stillness in her pupils and sense the cogs of her brain engaging before screeds of policy exposition were squirted past two primly drawn lips. She is an efficient, prating machine. The brow corrugates. The hands chop and push imaginary obstacles on the desk in front of her. The larynx aims for a low, almost masculine note. There are many emphatic nods. It all feels so formulaic that it conveys... nothing. No novelty or spontaneity. No flashes of humanity. Just a programmed product. Although in some ways impressive, it has a bleakness to it. Watching her side-on, I could see a stillness in her pupils and sense the cogs of her brain engaging before screeds of policy exposition were squirted past two primly drawn lips She wore no wristwatch. Two of her tiny fingertips were smudged by ink. Beside her sat her new permanent secretary, Dame Antonia Romeo. In previous positions, Dame Antonia has been a flashy customer, all Jackie O glasses and shaken tresses, bringing a whiff of ocean air and Roger et Gallet scent to any room. Now that she is working for Ms Cooper, Dame Antonia has gone conventual. She has abjured glamour. Said not a single word. She just gazed at her ministerial mistress with ostensible interest. Can the unquenchable Romeo really have been tamed? Shaun Davies (Lab, Telford), a blowy sort, apologetically asked if we might have more success in discouraging small-boat arrivals if we diluted European human-rights conventions. Ms Cooper shrugged that one off without effort. We did not want to upset the French and Germans. The committee's chairman, Dame Karen Bradley (Con, Staffordshire Moorlands) caught a few midges in her sagging jaw. Robbie Moore (Con, Keighley & Ilkley) scored a few runs by pestering Ms Cooper about grooming gangs. Paul Kohler (Lib Dem, Wimbledon) blew his nose in a vast red hanky and admired his long fingers. Peculiar. And in the Commons chamber there was discussion about drinking water being tainted by sewage, and one of the questions came from an MP called Mr Swallow.
The Independent
16-05-2025
- Business
- The Independent
Fact check: Unemployment figures row and NHS appointments error
This roundup of claims has been compiled by Full Fact, the UK's largest fact checking charity working to find, expose and counter the harms of bad information. Unemployment figures row At Prime Minister's Questions on Wednesday, we heard conflicting claims about how unemployment figures have changed since Labour came into government. Conservative leader Kemi Badenoch claimed that 'unemployment is up 10% since the election', but was later challenged by Labour MP Jake Richards, who raised a point of order and claimed that this figure was 'completely and utterly incorrect'. There are several different sources of unemployment data, and the exact change in unemployment figures since the election depends on the source and precise time period considered. According to a Conservative Party post on X (formerly Twitter), Mrs Badenoch's claim that unemployment is up 10% was based on data from the Labour Force Survey (LFS) on the number of people who are unemployed. In the period April-June 2024 (the last full period before the general election on 4 July 2024) an estimated 1,467,000 people were unemployed, according to the survey. As of January-March 2025 (the latest data available) this figure stood at 1,614,000, a 10% increase. However the headline unemployment rate (the number of unemployed people divided by the economically active population) increased over this period from 4.2% to 4.5%, an increase of around 7%, or 0.3 percentage points. Mr Richards confirmed to Full Fact it was the unemployment rate which he was referring to in his point of order, when he described Mrs Badenoch's claim as 'incorrect', he told us that he believed unemployment relative to employment was 'the only useful metric'. It's worth noting that both sets of statistics are published as three-month averages, and the picture they give of how unemployment has changed varies significantly depending on the exact starting point used. When we asked the Office for National Statistics (ONS) about this, it told us that if a particular month is of interest, it would usually choose a period where that month is the midpoint. Comparing June-August 2024 (the midpoint of which is July 2024, when the general election was held) with the most recent data, for instance, shows a 12% increase in the number of unemployed people and a 10% increase in the unemployment rate. Comparing July-September 2024 with the most recent data, as some have suggested, shows a 7% increase in the number of unemployed people and a 5% increase in the unemployment rate, though Labour was already in office for the vast majority of this baseline period. Importantly, all comparisons based on LFS data over this period come with a health warning. The ONS currently says that due to increased volatility in LFS data, 'estimates of change should be treated with additional caution'. The ONS advises that people 'make use of a wide range of data sources to inform their views on the labour market, balancing the information provided across survey and administrative data sources as well as data on relevant concepts like earnings and vacancies'. An alternative measure of unemployment to LFS-based data, also published by the ONS, is the claimant count, which measures the number of people receiving benefits for the principal reason of being unemployed. The provisional claimant count in April 2025 was 1.726 million. This is roughly 5% up on June 2024 (the last full month of the Conservative government), but about 2% down on July 2024 (when Labour took office). NHS appointments error NHS England has corrected a mistake in its calculation of the number of extra hospital appointments delivered so far by the Labour government, after Full Fact challenged the error. NHS England initially claimed the new data, which is an official statistic, showed a 3.3 million rise in the appointments counted towards the government's manifesto commitment, when it was first published on Thursday morning. The figure was used in an NHS England press release, and cited in a comment by the health secretary, Wes Streeting, that was quoted in the media. But this figure comes from data that has been standardised to take account of the different number of working days in the periods being compared. And NHS England's calculation mistakenly assumed there were 20 working days in February 2024. In fact, 2024 was a leap year, and there were no public holidays that February, so that month had 21 working days. As a result, the correct figure for the increase in appointments seen between July 2024 and February 2025, compared to the same period the previous year, is about 3.6 million. NHS England republished the data to include this figure after we told it about the problem, and released a correction to its statement. The new statement said: 'There was a calculation error in the file covering the number of additional appointments delivered since July. This has been updated from 3.3 million to 3.6 million.' However at the time of writing the incorrect figure continues to appear in some news reports. Before the 2024 general election, Labour promised to deliver an extra two million hospital appointments each year, although the party was not clear exactly what this meant. Then in February, NHS England began to publish data on the specific types of appointments being counted towards the pledge. At the same time, the Government announced that it had been achieved. We have been monitoring this pledge on our Government Tracker. And finally… this week Full Fact published its annual report reviewing how the UK handles misinformation – and the verdict is not good. We've taken a deep-dive into some of the fact checking themes we've seen this year and have concluded that almost every dimension of misinformation policy needs urgent action, from legislation through to online platform policies. Our analysis of cases, including claims from the UK summer riots, footage from conflict zones and examples of health misinformation, as well as our recommendations for getting to grips with this out-of-control landscape, are available to read here.
