Digital ID Scheme

Mr Speaker—[Hon. Members: “Bring back Chris.”] Sorry to disappoint!

Over the past few months, I have begun to stand up a high-calibre team, working at pace to develop proposals for a free new digital credential for all UK citizens. This credential will be inclusive, secure and useful, learning from the best schemes around the world, and in the new year we will invite the public to have their say through a major public consultation. I will be travelling up and down the country, engaging in new ways as we develop this vital new public good for our country.

Britain has a proud track record of providing refuge for people fleeing persecution and war, but when tens of thousands of people are travelling across many safe countries to get here, it is clear that the criminal gangs’ sales pitch—that Britain is an easy place to find illegal work—is working. Can my hon. Friend tell me how digital ID will help us smash those criminal gangs and tackle the scourge of illegal work?

Around the world and across Europe, countries use digital checks to evaluate whether someone has a legal right to work, but we do not. While we have brilliant digital verification tools, millions of checks use unreliable paper-based systems based on passports, birth certificates and other forms of evidence. This leaves too much room for fraud and, crucially, creates the perception that our country has weaker regimes for combating illegal working. Digitising checks will enable digital auditing of employers and more enforcement, bringing our illegal working regime in line with international peers and helping to deliver on one of our top priorities: reducing illegal migration.

I call the shadow Minister.

In October, the Prime Minister called a Downing Street press conference rather than come to this House so that he could tell the nation that digital ID will not be mandatory; it is just that people will not be able to get a job without one. What else will they not be able to do without this apparently voluntary digital ID? If people will not be allowed to get a job without digital ID, can the Minister confirm that they will also be unable to receive any benefits without it?

Building a new digital credential for UK systems is a major public good that we need to do carefully and take our time over. That is why, as I said, we will launch a major public consultation in the new year. That consultation will include a whole series of questions about the use cases for digital ID. I look forward to working with the shadow Minister and Members across this House on what the new digital credential should do for our citizens.

The Minister’s answer makes it clear that this announcement was not a policy—it was a late party conference stunt. The Government obviously have not thought it through; it is clear that the Prime Minister lacks the backbone to push back against officials who have taken this awful idea off the shelf once again. The truth is that this is a £1.8 billion solution in search of a problem. The Minister talks about illegal migration, but there is already a legal responsibility to carry out these checks, and the Home Office offers a reliable service. Can he tell us how many people who have passed the Home Office right-to-work check are later found to not have the right to work?

To be very clear about right-to-work checks: the current system is not fit for purpose. The United Kingdom is out of whack with international peers, and that creates the perception that we have a weak, illegal labour market regime. I am sure that the shadow Minister would not be against toughening up enforcement against illegal working. On the broader benefits of digital ID, in the future economy and state that we need to build, a free digital credential to which every citizen has access is a vital foundational public good for everything that we want our Government and our state to do in the 15 to 20 years ahead. I am proud that this Government are taking on the task of building it.