The coalition government will dismantle the entire ID card system, the home secretary has said.
The Identity Documents Bill received its second reading in the House of Commons yesterday.
Theresa May said the ID card scheme and national identity register that the Bill seeks to abolish represents the worst of government and called it "intrusive and bullying, ineffective and expensive."
She said that the assertions that were made by the Labor government that the scheme would provide greater protection for British people was wrong.
"The imposition of an enormously expensive system, which will be a target for computer hackers, might result in greater identity fraud and would not make us safer cannot be justified."
She commented that the all information on the register would be destroyed within two months of the Bill receiving Royal assent. She said,
"A new design with improved physical security features will be issued from 5 October, and we are considering ways to strengthen further the electronic security features."
Alan Johnson, shadow home secretary, said that it was "absolutely wrong" to cancel the national identity register and stated that it would be unfair to existing identity card holders.
"We believe that the 15,000 cards already in use should continue to be a legitimate form of identity, and that those citizens who have purchased them should not be treated in the unfair and arrogant way that the Home Secretary proposed."
He also said that Labour would not agree with halting the roll out of second generation biometric passports that the coalition government are committeed to but said that both issues would be brought up in the committee stage of the Bill.
David Davis (Con, Haltemprice and Howden) supported the Bill but said that the clauses related to false documentation in the Bill needed to be strengthened.
"we need much more than penalties for false documents if we are to win the fight against identity fraud and illegal immigration. "
David Blunkett (Sheffield, Brightside and Hillsborough) said:
"The issue of second generation biometric passports will not go away because the rest of the world is moving around us, and because they are a more authentic and therefore verifiable way of securing our identities."
Siobhain McDonagh (Lab, Mitcham and Morden) said she supported ID cards as a good choice for identity protection.
"It is, in my view, wrong to talk about wanting to tighten up the immigration system so that we know who is in this country unless we have an ID system. Nobody has been able to explain to me how we will be able to tell who is here without such a system."
David T. C. Davies (Con, Monmouth) said:
"In sum, ID cards are intrusive, ineffective and ludicrously expensive. This is Labour's great white elephant of a project that has been left lumbering around Whitehall, and Britain can well do without it."
Meg Hillier, shadow home office minister, said that the Bill was "ill-thought out and mean spirited".
"Current cardholders will lose out, and it is mean-spirited of this Government not to compensate them" she said.
Immirgation minister Damien Green said that the Bill was, "mainly about stopping the state snooping into the lives of innocent people".
"The bigger the capacity to collect and share information, the greater the danger to privacy and therefore freedom."
The question was put and agreed to.
The Bill was accordingly read a second time.
