Liz Kendall defended the introduction of the digital ID scheme (Alamy)
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Liz Kendall has told MPs that there has been “a lot of misinformation” and “scaremongering” spread about digital ID as the government tries to sell the policy to MPs and the public.
Speaking in the House of Commons on Monday night, the Secretary of State for Science, Innovation and Technology sought to emphasise the positive impact that the scheme could have across the public sector, describing it as a “digital key that unlocks better, more joined-up and effective public services”.
Last month, Prime Minister Keir Starmer announced that the government would bring in mandatory digital ID before the next general election, arguing that it would help tackle illegal migration and modernise core functions of the state.
While many Labour MPs support the idea, some have criticised the government for not doing enough to sell the plan to voters.
A More in Common poll published earlier this month found that net public support for digital ID had fallen from 35 per cent in June to -14 per cent in the weekend after the PM’s announcement.
PoliticsHome recently reported concern among Labour MPs that the government was doing little to combat the spread of conspiracy theories and fake claims about the plans online.
The BBC was forced to apologise this month after its comedy show Have I Got News For You repeated the false claim that a company owned by Euan Blair, son of former prime minister Tony, had been awarded a government contract to develop digital ID. The BBC edited the episode to remove the claim after it was spotted by PoliticsHome.
The government has since confirmed that the development of the digital ID scheme will be conducted in-house.
Speaking in the House of Commons, Kendall said: “There’s a lot of misinformation out there about this. This isn’t about surveillance, it’s not about a police state.”
Kendall was responding to Independent MP Adnan Hussain’s claim that the new digital ID system would “create an infrastructure for surveillance and control”.
Elsewhere in the debate, she said: “There’s a lot of misinformation out there about what this does and doesn’t do.”
More than 2.8m people have signed a petition against the plans to introduce digital ID cards, claiming the scheme would be a step “towards mass surveillance and digital control”.
Today was the first opportunity for MPs to debate the introduction of such a scheme, as it was announced by Starmer during the recent parliamentary recess.
Kendall told the Commons that in the “many other countries where this has been used, it has been about making the government and the state more effective and efficient, and giving you greater control over your data”.
Since the scheme was announced, the government has made the case for the introduction of digital ID cards partly by pointing to other countries like Estonia and India, where it says the move has been successful.
However, Starmer admitted last week that the government needed to emphasise the benefits of the system following criticism of how the policy had been sold to the public.
Kendall said tonight that one of the advantages of introducing digital ID after other countries is that the UK “can learn from their experience when things have gone wrong, how they’ve improved their security, and that’s what we intend to do”.
In response to questions about whether constituents’ data will be safe and if she could give assurances that digital ID would never be used to track their use of services, Kendall said: “There is some scaremongering over this. When you look across other countries and what they’re doing, it really has made government fit around people, rather than make people fit into government and its different services.”
Asked by Labour MP for South Derbyshire Samantha Niblett what assurances could be given to ensure her constituents did not feel like this scheme was being “done to them”, Kendall said: “I believe that if you can show people that government is changing, it is working around them, meeting their needs and concerns, that is one of the ways in which we build trust, and that’s what we’re determined to do.”
Kendall was asked repeatedly by MPs to set out how much the introduction of a digital ID scheme would cost, but could not give a concrete answer, telling the chamber that “the eventual cost of this will depend on the design and build, which is what we’re consulting on”.
Chi Onwurah, the chair of the Science Innovation and Technology committee also raised concerns about the scheme in the Commons telling Kendall that while the government is “absolutely right to champion access to a consistent, trusted digital ID”, making the scheme “mandatory for everyone seeking work is poking a stick in the eye of all those with security, privacy and or government capacity concerns”.
