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STUDENTS WILL BE BRIBED TO ACCEPT THE FIRST ID CARDS

Students first for ID Cards

Thursday January 24,2008

By Tom Whitehead

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STUDENTS are to be “blackmailed” into having ID cards, the Tories warned yesterday.

Without them they would be unable to open bank accounts or access loans, it was claimed.

Leaked Home Office documents show young people will be among the first Britons to be targeted in the Government’s offensive to roll out the controversial scheme.

It raises the prospect of youngsters or their parents being forced to pay for an ID card or risk not accessing their student loans.

The memo also revealed that airport workers might have to have the cards from next year.

It comes a day after leaked papers showed plans to force Britons to have a card when they renew or receive a passport have been delayed by two years.

The Government have seen their ID cards proposals stagger from shambles to shambles

Shadow Immigration Minister Damian Green

On the targeting of young people, Shadow Immigration Minister Damian Green said: “This is an outrageous plan.

“The Government have seen their ID cards proposals stagger from shambles to shambles.

“They are clearly trying to introduce them by stealth by making them necessary if you want to work for the Government, take out a student loan or open a student bank account. This is straightforward blackmail, a desperate attempt to bolster a failing policy.”

The leaked Home Office strategy document showed that young people would be targeted from 2010 – the date originally set for the extension of the scheme to anyone renewing a passport.

The “first priority” would be to issue cards from next year to those in “positions of trust”, the report said, with airport workers singled out.

“Alongside this we should issue ID cards to young people to assist them as they open their first bank account, take out a student loan etc,” it said.

There are more than two million students in higher education, such as universities, in England and Wales, and hundreds of thousands more in further education colleges.

The Daily Express told yesterday how plans to “issue significant volumes of ID cards alongside British passports by 2010” had been binned. Instead leaked papers suggested that would not begin until 2012, well after the next election.

The leaks have reignited claims that the Government was preparing a U-turn or to water down the scheme, while Conservatives have said the programme was in “intensive care”. Tory leader David Cameron this month accused Gordon Brown of dithering and demanded to know if the controversial project would be abandoned.

He seized on comments by Mr Brown suggesting a possible U-turn that would result in a voluntary ID scheme.

Although it refused to comment directly on the leaked report, the Identity and Passport Service insisted: “We have always said that the scheme will be rolled out incrementally. We will make further announcements about the roll-out in due course.”