ToryDems stoke ID card 'bonfire'
Terminate ID commssioner and temps
What you need to know about cloud backup
Home Secretary Theresa May outlined the mechanics of scrapping the ID register yesterday as the bill to scrap the programme moved through the Commons.
Speaking at the second reading of the Bill to scrap the scheme, May said the scheme "represents the worst of government. It is intrusive and bullying, ineffective and expensive. It is an assault on individual liberty which does not promise a greater good.
"We have no hesitation in making the national identity card scheme an unfortunate footnote in history. There it should remain - a reminder of a less happy time when the Government allowed hubris to trump civil liberties."
For added spice she said that one month after Royal Assent, individuals will not be able to use their cards to prove their ID.
Asked by David Blunkett if this meant it would be illegal to use the cards, she said "I did not use the word 'illegal', except in relation to those who possess equipment for falsifying documents. I trust that, as a former Home Secretary, the right hon. gentleman is not intending to hold equipment for the falsification of documents."
More tangibly, she said scrapping the plan would save £86m over the next four years, and £800m over the next decade. The "net cost" of the bill will be £5m this year covering termination of contracts, contacting card holders, and laying off staff that can't redeployed.
"The post of Identity Commissioner will be abolished," she said. "The public panels and experts groups that were established by the Identity and Passport Service have already been disbanded, and 60 temporary staff in Durham have already been released early."
All information in the National Identity Register will be destroyed within two months of Royal Assent.
"Photographs and fingerprint biometrics will be securely destroyed. This will not be a literal bonfire of the last Government's vanities, but it will none the less be deeply satisfying. The national identity register will then cease to exist entirely."
Alan Johnson, the last Labour Home Secretary, described May's figures as "utter fantasy".
"By cancelling the scheme, the Government remove the income stream but leave the cancellation costs, which the taxpayer will be forced to pay, and let us not forget the continuing cost to the economy of fraud, abuse of the NHS, illegal immigration and unauthorised working," he said.
"The Government will make not a saving, but a substantial loss."
May also rejected any suggestion that the government was being inconsistent by keeping ID cards for foreign nationals, saying the previous government had only rolled that programme into the National ID scheme to bolster it. ®
COMMENTS
You malingering gobshite.
"By cancelling the scheme, the Government remove the income stream but leave the cancellation costs, which the taxpayer will be forced to pay"...
Alan, Alan, Alan. Please realise that it was your last-minute renegotiations of said contracts earlier in the year that force us to pay these cancellation fees - when you fling shit, you ignorant little chimp, be sure in which direction you're flinging it. Now......
...fuck off.
Alan Johnson: "By cancelling the scheme, the Government remove the income stream"
There's typical for a Labour guy; that "income stream" isn't a miraculous penalty-free revenue from heaven, it's the hard-earned readies of your actual citizens.
Readies which, if they aren't being spent on the upkeep of the all-seeing NIR, might find their way into some more useful part of the economy. "More useful than the NIR" being near enough anything else at all, of course.
Alan Johnson
talks a lot of nonsense on this and most other matters. The 'income stream' he talks about was going to come from us, the UK taxpayers, for a card which we didn't need or want. Just because it wasn't funded through the tax system, he thinks it would magically appear. In fact, the same people would have had to pay.
Thank goodness the clueless numpty was the last Labour Home Secretary to foist expensive white elephants like this upon us.
IT infrastructure monitoring strategies
Agentless Backup is Not a Myth
Steps to Take Before Choosing a Business Continuity Partner
Enabling efficient data center monitoring
Requirements Checklist for Choosing a Cloud Backup and Recovery Service Provider
