|
ID
Cards won’t work, will waste money and will treat you like a criminal State plans to fingerprint
every citizen - and charge you for the privilege Mike Weatherley,
Conservative Prospective Parliamentary Candidate for Hove and Portslade
urged local residents across Hove and Portslade
to add their name to a new cross-party petition against Identity Cards
on the Downing Street website. This comes as Conservatives have launched a
new campaign against Labour’s plans for ID Cards; David Cameron has
pledged to scrap the £20 billion scheme. Under the Labour Government’s plans for ID cards: 1. Every citizen will fingerprinted and interviewed, and forced to travel at their own expense to a regional centre. The nearest centre to Hove and Portslade is in Bournemouth. 2. Each person will have to pay at least £93 for a combined ID card and passport package. 3. If the card is lost or stolen, the replacement fee will be at least £30. If you get married and change your name, you will have to pay for a new card as well. Mike remarked, “ID
cards are a bad idea. They will do nothing to improve the safety of our
citizens. They are not the answer to the threat of terrorism, to benefit
fraud, illegal immigration, human trafficking or to identity theft. They
are a waste of money, and a Conservative Government will abolish them. “The
Labour Government’s plans are to make ID Cards compulsory for everyone,
and force people to pay to be fingerprinted by the State. Instead of these
intrusive, expensive and ineffective ID Cards, the money should be spent
on more worthwhile projects to cut crime - such as a dedicated UK Border
Police, more prison spaces and increasing the number of residential drug
rehabilitation places.”
11 February 2007
Notes to Editors NEW
CAMPAIGN AGAINST ID CARDS Conservatives
have launched a new campaign against ID cards. http://www.conservatives.com/laboursbadidea High-resolution
artwork used in the campaign can be downloaded from: http://www.p-d.uk.com/conservativesidcampaign/
(copyright permission is given to reproduce). Conservatives are also encouraging people to tell the
Government directly to scrap the ID card scheme by signing a Downing
Street e-petition at: http://petitions.pm.gov.uk/IDcards/ THE
CASE AGAINST ID CARDS ID
cards won’t work ·
ID cards won’t prevent
terrorist attacks: The former Home Secretary, Charles Clarke, has admitted that ID cards
would not have prevented the 7 July 2005 bombings in London, saying: ‘I
doubt if it would have made a difference’. In Spain, ID cards are
compulsory, but they did not stop the Madrid bombings in March 2004. ·
ID cards won’t prevent
illegal immigration: Foreign visitors will not have to have an ID card, unless they plan to
stay in the UK for more than three months. ·
ID cards won’t prevent
identity fraud: Microsoft’s National Technology Officer, Jerry Fishenden, has said
that introducing ID cards could make identity fraud worse, warning that it
could ‘trigger massive identity fraud on a scale on a scale beyond
anything we have seen before’. ·
ID cards won’t prevent
human trafficking: ID cards are no substitute for a border police force and proper checks
on people entering and leaving the country. In 1998, the Government
abolished border controls, but its replacement, a computer-based e-borders
scheme will not be fully installed until 2014. ID cards are a waste of money ·
ID cards will cost each
person £93: According to Government estimates, you will pay at least £93 for a
combined ID card and passport package but, given this Government’s
appalling record of implementing IT projects, this figure is likely to go
up. Also, if your ID card is stolen, or your lose it, you’ll have to pay
£30 for a replacement. If you change your name when you get married,
you’ll have to pay for a new ID card. If one of your relatives dies and
you forget to return their ID card, you could be fined £1,000. ·
ID cards scheme will cost
up to £20 billion in total: While the Government claims that the scheme will
cost £5.4 billion of taxpayers’ money, the independent London School of
Economics estimates it will cost up to £20 billion. ·
ID cards could be another
Government disaster: This Government has a terrible record of large scale IT disasters. For
example, the botched introduction of the new Child Support Agency computer
system led to a backlog of 250,000 cases; clerical errors and problems
with the tax credits computer system led to millions of incorrect
payments; and an audit of the Police National Computer by the Met Police
found that 86 per cent of records were inaccurate. ID cards are an invasion of privacy ·
ID cards give the State
too much personal data in one place: Your ID card could hold almost 30 separate
pieces of personal information on you, including your name, date and place
of birth, gender, previous addresses, photograph, signature, fingerprints
and other biometric details. All this information will also be stored on a
massive Home Office ID cards database, called the National Identity
Register. ·
ID cards mean intrusive
interviews and fingerprinting: From 2009, unless you opt out, when you renew your
passport you will have to visit a Government ‘interview centre’ and
give the Government your fingerprints in order to get an ID card.
Fingerprints will also be required for the stand-alone ID cards. The
regional offices for the ID Cards will be located in: Aberdeen,
Aberystwyth, Andover, Armagh, Barnstaple, Belfast, Berwick-upon-Tweed,
Birmingham, Blackburn, Boston, Bournemouth, Bristol, Bury St. Edmunds,
Camborne, Carlisle, Chelmsford, Cheltenham, Coleraine, Crawley, Derby,
Dover, Durham, Dumfries, Dundee, Edinburgh, Exeter, Galashiels, Glasgow,
Hastings, Hull, Inverness, Ipswich, Kendal, Kilmarnock, Kings Lynn, Leeds,
Leicester, Lincoln, Liverpool, London, Luton, Maidstone, Manchester,
Middlesbrough, Newcastle, Newport, Newport (Isle of Wight), Northallerton,
Northampton, Norwich, Oban, Omagh, Oxford, Peterborough, Plymouth,
Portsmouth, Reading, Scarborough, Shrewsbury, Sheffield, St Austell,
Stirling, Stoke-on-Trent, Swansea, Swindon, Warwick, Wick, Wrexham, Yeovil
and York. Source:
Hansard, 15 Jan 2007, col. 782W. |