The government has scrapped a plan to require workers to sign up to a new digital ID system to prove their right to work in the UK.
Instead, Labour ministers say existing checks will go completely online by 2029, using documents such as biometric passports.
The reversal is the latest in a series of U-turns in recent weeks, including on inheritance tax for agricultural land and business rates for pubs.
Conservative leader Kemi Badenoch said it showed Sir Keir Starmer was “clueless” and showing “no sense of direction”.
Speaking at Prime Minister’s Questions, the Tory leader welcomed the government’s collapse, labelling the initial digital ID plan a “nonsense policy.”
However, he asserted that the shift in strategy demonstrated Sir Keir’s unsteadiness, forecasting that Labour would soon reverse its contentious plans. reduce jury trials.
The prime minister hit back, pointing to policy reversals and ministerial churn under the previous government, and accused the Conservatives of “collapsing the economy” during their time in office.
He said, “I will make it harder for people to work illegally in this country, so there will be mandatory digital checks.”
When the government first announced the policy plan,
It argued that mandatory digital IDs for workers would make it easier to crack down on immigrants working illegally.
It is understood that the plan will now deal less narrowly with immigration and the government will instead place more emphasis on the argument that digital IDs can be a useful tool for the public when accessing public services.
Transport Secretary Heidi Alexander told BBC Radio 4’s Today program that the government was still “fully committed” to mandatory digital right-to-work checks, including biometric passports, and said digitalising the system would help crack down on illegal work.
“Digital ID can be a way that you can prove your eligibility to work through a digital right to work check,” he said.
“At the moment we have a paper-based system – there are no proper records maintained.
“This makes it very difficult to sensibly target enforcement action against businesses that employ illegal workers.”
Former Home Secretary Lord David Blunkett, who supported ID cards while in government, said in the same program that the government had not explained why the policy mattered or how it would work, so it was “not surprising” to see another U-turn.
“There was no narrative or supporting statement or any kind of strategic planning after the original statement, including other ministers and people who are really committed to making this case,” he said.
“As a result, people who were opposed to the plan for all sorts of nefarious and very different reasons, some of which were vague, were able to mobilise public opinion and protest it online.”
Polling showed that public support for digital ID dropped after Sir Keir’s announcement, falling from half the population’s support just after his speech in June to less than a third.
Nearly three million people have signed a parliamentary petition opposing the introduction of digital IDs.
There is also trepidation among some Labour MPs over the mandatory aspect of the original proposal.
Whatever they think of this specific policy change, Labour MPs are growing increasingly frustrated with the government’s U-turn.
Some were already wary of defending controversial government policies in front of their voters because they feared the policy would inevitably be overturned.
A furious Labour MP told the BBC last night that the latest U-turn was “an absolute car crash”, adding, “The boys in Number 10 jumped into it without a second thought; they drove the PLP over the hill and bottled it up, took all the pain on themselves and took no credit.”
The Liberal Democrats said the policy was “doomed to failure” from the start and called for the “billions of pounds earmarked for their mandatory digital ID scheme” to be spent “on the NHS and frontline policing”.
The party’s Cabinet Office spokeswoman, Lisa Smart, said, “No 10 should be ordering motion sickness tablets in bulk at this rate to deal with all their U-turns.”
Nigel Farage, leader of Reform UK, said in a post on Twitter: “This is a victory for individual freedoms against a terrible, authoritarian government. Reform UK will absolutely destroy this.”
Green Party leader Zac Polanski welcomed the news on Twitter, saying, “The government has done a U-turn on ID cards. Good.”
A government spokesperson said, “We are committed to investigating the essential digital right to work.
“Right to work checks currently involve a hodgepodge of paper-based systems with no record of a check ever taking place. This is open to fraud and abuse.
“Digital ID will make everyday life easier for people, ensuring that public services are more personalised, joined up and effective, as well as inclusive.”
Employers must check in advance whether the person they want to hire has the right to work in the UK.
From 2022, employers will be able to verify passport-holding British and Irish citizens using government-certified digital verification services.
There is also a Home Office online scheme which verifies the status of certain non-British or Irish citizens whose immigration status is kept electronically.
Details of how the digital ID will work have not yet been determined, but it is expected to be based on two government-built systems: Gov.uk One Login and Gov.uk Wallet.
More than 12 million people are currently signed up to One Login, which can be used for services like applying for a veteran’s card, cancelling a lost passport or managing a lasting power of attorney.
The Gov.uk Wallet has not yet launched, but it will allow people to store their digital ID on their smartphones.
The digital ID will include name, date of birth, nationality, state of residence and a photo.
