I knocked on enough doors as the Labour candidate in Central Suffolk and North Ipswich during last year’s general election to know what topics come up in conversation with voters unprompted. Whether the professional political class like it or not, voters care deeply about immigration and security. Rightly or wrongly, they see our borders as porous and easily exploited by those wishing to enter the country illegally.
Another concern that matters on the doorstep is the huge inefficiencies in public services. The frustrating time wasted proving identities to GP surgeries, schools and HMRC, let alone banks, landlords and employers all feeds the “Britain is broken” narrative that Number 10 desperately wants to shift before the next general election rolls around.
There is a simple innovation that would enable the prime minister and his team to tackle both of these issues head on. The introduction of a modern digital ID can both protect our borders and reduce the friction between state and citizen.
The politics are slowly but surely moving to meet that realisation. Ministers have discussed digital identity at cabinet level in recent days, with strong signals of support across the most senior levels of government. Pat McFadden, the chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster, has been in Estonia assessing a digital ID model that works at scale, where citizens use a secure digital credential for everything from tax to healthcare.
Of course, talk of ID may sound all too familiar to readers of a certain vintage. We tried a different approach twenty years ago. The Blair-era ID card was a physical token linked to a central register. That model ran into cost, capability and civil liberties objections and was repealed in 2010 under intense political scrutiny. Yet, it is irrefutable that the world has changed since then.
Unlike then, we are now familiar with accessing public services online via Gov.uk, and the success of the NHS app was one of the few positives to come out of the COVID-19 pandemic.
On civil liberties, it is somewhat ironic that vocal opponents of digital ID on the grounds of intrusion of privacy and overreach are voicing their concerns on social media platforms, where users voluntarily surrender far more personal data to multinational companies than the state would ever seek through a digital ID.
When it comes to illegal immigration, a digital ID would close off the main pull factor that makes Britain such an attractive destination – illegal work in the shadow economy. If employers and landlords can instantly check right to work and right to rent against an authoritative digital credential, the incentive for smugglers to sell Britain diminishes. Of course, the policy cannot substitute for enforcement or cooperation with France and our European allies, but it removes a key weakness that organised labour exploitation relies on. Digital ID really can be the weapon that “smashes the gangs” once and for all.
Digital ID can also be a vital tool in halting the “broken Britain” narrative felt throughout the country. McFadden will have seen in Estonia how a single secure identity cuts the time citizens spend repeating themselves across multiple government agencies. For Britain, the gains are quantifiable in much-needed fiscal terms. The Tony Blair Institute’s analysis puts setup costs at about £1 billion, with around £100 million a year to run. The same analysis estimates annual exchequer benefits of roughly £2 billion once rolled out, driven by reduced benefit fraud, a narrower tax gap and better targeting of support in crises, plus around £350 million a year in private sector fraud reduction. The logic behind such a move is compelling and hard to argue against.
As the founder of a business that employs more than 80 people and works with hundreds of clients, I know that businesses feel the administrative drag every day. Hiring is burdensome and full of red tape that gums up the jobs market. “Know your customer” and client onboarding in the finance sector is slow and expensive, especially for smaller firms. A trusted digital verification layer would let firms reduce manual checks and complete tasks that usually take days in minutes.
Of course, scepticism is healthy. But let’s not pretend the debate around digital ID is a choice between identity and a rights-respecting society. It isn’t. It’s a choice between fragmented, manual identity checks that reward fraudsters, or a coherent system that serves the law-abiding quickly and roots out criminals and exploiters.
From what I heard on the doorstep in Central Suffolk and North Ipswich, the country is ahead of Westminster on this particular issue. Voters want control of the borders and competence in the delivery of public services. A carefully designed digital ID is a straightforward way for Labour to deliver both.
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