IDENTITY cards will be issued within four years after ministers yesterday made them the centrepiece of their programme for the run-up to the general election.

A fierce battle over the issue became certain when Tony Blair backed compulsory ID cards as essential to the fight against terrorism, illegal immigration and organised crime.

From 2008 people applying for passports will have to accept an ID card. Eventually people will need them to obtain public services, such as healthcare. Mr Blair admitted that it would be a “big change” for Britain but added they were “long overdue”. The aim is for everyone to have cards by 2010-12.

The measure has been put at the top of the Government’s legislative queue so that ministers can challenge the main opposition parties to help them to rush it through before an election if and when Mr Blair names May 5 as the date.

He is likely to call the election at the end of March, or the beginning of April and will use the ID cards Bill to try to outflank his opponents over crime. Labour has been buoyed by internal polls suggesting that eight out of ten people back ID cards. The combined passport-ID card will cost £85.

After overriding opposition from within the Cabinet, Mr Blair and David Blunkett have ensured that the Identity Cards Bill, one of several law-and- order measures in yesterday’s Queen’s Speech, is given prior-ity, with a Commons second reading shortly and the Bill reaching the Lords early next year.

The Liberal Democrats will oppose the Bill and the Conservatives said last night that there were serious tests to be passed — on cost, civil liberties, privacy and technology — before they could back the plan. If the Bill fails to get through before the election it will be reintroduced immediately if Labour wins.

Applicants for the new passports and ID cards will have to go to a special centre to provide biometric details, such as a fingerprint, or to have their face or iris scanned and converted into a machine-readable chip. The cards will then be linked to a national register. People will not be required to carry them all the time, but they would have to possess one.

As the Bill and other anti-crime measures were highlighted, Mr Blair and other ministers were fighting to counter accusations that they were deliberately creating a “climate of fear” for electoral reasons.

Among 37 Bills in the programme, eight were from the Home Office as Mr Blunkett promised a new FBI- style organised crime agency, an attack on drug dealers and measures against terrorism, including possibly no-jury trials.

Peter Hain, the Commons Leader, denied that the Government had been responsible for reports yesterday that an al-Qaeda plot to fly hijacked aircraft into skyscrapers at Canary Wharf had been foiled. The Times has established that such an attempt was thwarted more than two years ago.

Mr Hain said he rejected the idea the Government was “pandering to fear”. The Prime Minister insisted to the Commons that he was not “scaremongering.” The terrorist threats were real.

But Liam Fox, the Conservative co-chairman, accused the Government of trying to raise fears of terrorism. “I think that is quite despicable, but it is a desperate government.” Matthew Taylor, the Lib Dem parliamentary chairman, added: “The Government is focusing on fear, whereas the Liberal Democrats offer hope.”

Mr Hain said surveys had shown that more than eight out of ten people wanted ID cards and saw them as a “commonsense security measure”. He dismissed fears that the proposed new measures could infringe civil liberties.

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