Alan Johnson signalled a significant reversal over the Government’s identity card policy yesterday when he ruled out making them compulsory for British citizens.

The Home Secretary also abandoned plans for trials at two airports that would have required some staff and pilots to carry the cards and longer-term plans to make them compulsory for some railway station workers.

The announcement means that the only people for whom it will be compulsory to have an identity card will be foreign citizens. However, the Government is to press ahead with creating a national identity register that, from 2011-12, will include the details of everyone who applies for a passport.

Legislation to be debated next week will make it an offence punishable by a fine of up to £1,000 not to inform the Government of a name or change of address as it appears on the register.

Mr Johnson said: “Holding an identity card should be a personal choice for British citizens — just as it is now to obtain a passport. Accordingly, I want the introduction of identity cards for all British citizens to be voluntary and I have therefore decided that identity cards issued to airside workers should also be voluntary.” He said that he still believed that the cards would help to improve security at airports.

The Government’s climbdown on one of its most controversial policies comes 24 hours after Gordon Brown announced a fresh legislative programme. The Tories have vowed that if elected they would abolish ID cards — at an estimated saving of £2 billion — while many Labour backbenchers are sympathetic to the arguments about the cost to civil liberties, as well to the Exchequer.

One of Mr Johnson’s first acts on becoming Home Secretary last month was to announce a fundamental rethink of the identity card scheme.

The Government had previously said that once about 80 per cent of the population had the card, it would bring forward legislation to require every citizen to have one. Asked whether that was still government policy, Mr Johnson said yesterday: “It is not the position now.”

He added that British citizens would never be forced to have a card and admitted that the Government had allowed the perception to grow that the cards would be a “panacea” that would stop terrorism. Legislation to require some workers at Manchester and London City airports to have an identity card will be withdrawn, less than two months after it was put before Parliament. The schemes for new workers wishing to go airside at the airports will now be voluntary.

Rather than being a “panacea” that would stop terrorism, the Home Office is now presenting identity cards as a way of tackling identity theft, trafficking and illegal working, and as providing a universal proof of identity.

The Home Secretary added yesterday that he was an “instinctive” supporter of ID cards and that he wanted to “accelerate” their delivery. Mr Johnson also announced plans to extend the voluntary ID card scheme that is due to start in Greater Manchester this year.

Residents in other locations in the North West will be able to apply from early 2010, while the Government’s intention is to introduce the scheme in London in the same year — 12 months early. About 3,500 British citizens have already applied for the cards.

Jim McAuslan, the general secretary of the British Airline Pilots’ Association (Balpa), said: “This is a sensible change of approach and one that we welcome. Balpa has always had aviation security high on its agenda and has a number of ideas on how we can improve airport security which we will be pursuing with the Secretary of State for Transport.”

Chris Grayling, the Shadow Home Secretary, said: “This decision is symbolic of a government in chaos. They have spent millions on the scheme so far — the Home Secretary thinks it has been a waste and wants to scrap it, but the Prime Minister won’t let him. So we end up with an absurd fudge instead. This is no way to run the country.”

Identity crisis

2001 David Blunkett proposes ID cards to combat terrorism, immigration and identity fraud

2004 Richard Thomas, Information Commissioner, tells The Times he fears the country is “sleepwalking into a surveillance society” 2005 MPs pass legislation. House of Lords warn that it “fundamentally alters the relationship between the citizen and the State”

2008 ID cards for foreign citizens become compulsory

2009 Alan Johnson drops compulsory element and says trial schemes for Manchester and London City airports will be voluntary

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