Peers demand total ID card cost

The Home Office says a stand alone card will cost £30

Plans for identity cards have come under attack in the House of Lords as a Home Office minister said she could not reveal the total cost of the scheme.

Baroness Scotland said the cards would cost the Home Office £584m a year.

But despite criticism from Tory and Lib Dem peers, she said she could not give estimates of how much the plans would cost other government departments.

The Home Office says there are no figures available as each department will decide how to use the cards.

The costs for each department would be examined on a case-by-case basis as the scheme came into effect, said a Home Office spokeswoman.

The House of Lords is continuing its detailed scrutiny of the Identity Cards Bill.

Negotiating problems?

The government suffered a defeat on Wednesday, as peers backed a Conservative amendment to ensure that only those who reasonably require proof should be entitled to ask for verification of identity.

Voting was 141 to 127, a majority of 14.

Home Secretary Charles Clarke has already said it will cost people £30 to have a stand-alone identity card.

But it is expected most people will want a combined passport and ID card, which will cost an estimated £93 to produce.

From 2008, anybody applying for a new passport will also need to have an identity card. Critics of the scheme say it will be too expensive - and they have accused the government of underestimating the costs.

Lady Scotland came under pressure to reveal the costs of the scheme other departments during the first day of the committee stage of the bill.

She said Parliament's debates would determine the final shape of the scheme and affect the process of awarding contracts for the work.

"We cannot whilst those negotiations are going on release data which would put us as a government in an unnecessary difficulties in relation to the tendering process," she said.

'Crackers'

Conservative former Home Secretary Lord Waddington was not impressed.

"Surely Parliament is entitled to know the total cost, which of course includes the cost to other departments who are going to use the scheme," he said.

He said it would be "crackers" to ask people to pay £200 or £300 for the cards - figures disputed by the government.

Liberal Democrat spokesman Lord Thomas of Gresford said the costs of putting scanners in every benefit office, police station and even police car needed to be known.

Lady Scotland said ID cards could save the government between £310m and £575m in preventing fraud; between £30 million and £40 million in immigration control; and between £45m and £85m in reducing the cost of crime.