Government departments are reportedly scrabbling to find savings – or cuts, if you prefer – from their budgets in order to fund Labour’s deeply unpopular mandatory Digital ID plan.
The Office for Budget Responsibility (OBR) has estimated that the digital ID rollout will cost a whopping £1.8bn. It called the plan a “major spending risk”, and pointed out that Labour hadn’t come up with a way to pay for it.
However, chancellor Rachel Reeves didn’t devote any funding to the plan back in the Autumn budget.
As such, Labour was faced with a dilemma. Either they could abandon an expensive and deeply unpopular scheme, or pilfer the money from other, more worthy causes. So, of course, they chose the greater of two evils… wait, make that ‘one evil and one sensible thing to do’.
Darren Jones: find the money for Digital ID
Bloomberg reported that, back in December, the PM’s chief secretary – Darren Jones – told ministers to find savings in their departments in order to pay for compulsory Digital ID. Jones apparently set a January deadline for this monolithic and thankless task.
For its part, the government has previously disputed the OBR’s £1.8bn estimate. However, it did admit to pushing for departmental savings to fund the digital ID plans. A cabinet spokesperson stated that:
Digital ID will support public services to be more personal, joined-up and effective and help make Government more efficient. More broadly, analysis shows £45 billion in potential savings from the digitisation of public services.
As the public would expect, departments were asked to identify funding from non-essential programmes with similar objectives to this work to deliver the programme efficiently, whilst continuing to prioritise funding for frontline services.
‘As the public would expect’ is a bit of a bloody stretch – it seems to have taken even the opposition parties by surprise. Regarding the unpopular savings push, Lib Dem spokesperson Lisa Smart stated:
Rather than making cuts elsewhere so they can spend £1.8 billion on digital ID, they should be focusing on getting down GP waiting times and helping to cut people’s energy bills.
Sub-zero support
Back in September, when Starmer officially announced the Digital ID scheme, the government put out an explainer arguing for nebulous benefits:
The roll-out will in time make it easier to apply for government and private sector services, such as helping renters to quickly prove their identity to landlords, improving access to welfare and other benefits, and making it easier for parents to apply for free childcare.
It will also be required for right to work checks to stop those with no right to be in the country from finding work. This is to send a clear message that if you come here illegally, you will not be able to work, deterring people from making dangerous journeys.
However, immediately after the announcement, the net support for compulsory Digital ID plummeted from a weak 35% to a dismal -14%. Likewise, campaigners for digitally marginalised groups like elder-advocacy group Silver Voices have also voiced their opposition to the plans. Director Dennis Reed stated:
The failure of the Government to even think about the digitally excluded before announcing its compulsory digital ID plans shows utter contempt for the most vulnerable sections of the community.
So, to recap: the compulsory Digital ID scheme will cost a huge amount of money, and the government is desperately looking for savings (cuts) in existing departmental budgets to fund it. Meanwhile, the vast majority of the public hate the idea, and its impact on the digitally marginalised is unaccounted for.
Why exactly Starmer, Jones and the rest of the Labour Party think that ploughing ahead with this dire idea is a good call is anybody’s guess.
Actually, just this once: Labour can have a free U-turn. They love U-turns. We won’t even make fun of them for it – promise.
Featured image via the Canary
This post was originally published on Canary.