Foreign and Commonwealth Office
24 September 2003

Identity Cards

Summary

1. Reply to your minute of 17 September. Continued doubts. Request for further analysis to demonstrate ID card will achieve its aims. Need to take Foreign Office aspects into account.

Detail

2. Thank you for copying me your minute of 17 September to the Prime Minister. You asked for contributions to put together a comprehensive list of outstanding questions which need to be resolved. I have also seen the letters from Charles Clarke of 23 September and from Paul Murphy of 22 September.

3. This minute is my contribution but I should re-emphasise that I remain unconvinced by the overall policy. I believe the proposed plan is flawed, and that no tinkering with particular issues will be able to resolve what is a fundamental political matter. We remain as far apart as ever on the acceptability of charging. How will we get people to accept a fee when asylum seekers get the card free? What about the practicality of ensuring every citizen provides a biometric sample while no effective procedures are in place for those who refuse? The potential for a large-scale debacle which harms the Government is great, and any further decisions on the next steps must be made collectively. I will continue to urge strongly that this issue be shelved.

4. Let me offer you a view on the list of substantive issues you raised in your letter. All will need considerable thought. I would like to see more analysis of exactly how the scheme is to meet its stated objectives. Technical issues and public acceptance to one side, we must be clear we will never be able to require from all people the production of a card to access employment or services. There will be large numbers of people who will be entitled to both without a card, starting with EU nationals, who will be able to stay and work here for three months without any official documentation. Other groups both of UK citizens resident abroad and other categories of third country nationals will also need exceptions. This is an obvious loophole for illegals to exploit, given poor security of some EU documents. So it is hard to see how the scheme will effectively combat illegal working. I wonder whether we will be capable of resolving this issue effectively without error rates so high that they would undermine the scheme. I welcome your commitment to further clarification on achievability in the DA paper, which must be realistic about what will be achieved by the introduction of ID cards and be much clearer about how those objectives will be met.

5. My minutes of 24 July and 9 September covered the Foreign and Commonwealth Office's key interests that I would want resolved prior to a decision in principle. I have not seen evidence that these have been taken into account. You may find it helpful if I go through them below, and I am also enclosing a more detailed paper drawn up by my officials. As details of the scheme become clearer there may, of course, be other issues of interest to the FCO.

Biometrics: the effectiveness of ID cards with biometrics also depends on the introduction of equivalent security safeguards for UK passports and visas. Work is now beginning on the implications of requiring passport and visa applicants to undergo fingerprinting. The costs are likely to be very significant, particularly because the buildings from which we currently issue these documents would be unable to cope with the increased flow of callers. This could mean a funding requirement of several hundred million pounds which the Foreign Office does not have. The Home Office will need to bear in mind the need to meet the financial consequences of the application overseas of changes in policy for which the FCO is not funded.

EU law: I remain concerned that there are a number of pitfalls which could either lead to ECJ challenge or render the policy ineffective.

For example, will it be legally possible to issue ID cards to EU nationals which are not valid for travel within the EU? My preliminary legal advice is that Member States are required to accept an Identity Card as a travel document and it might be ineffective or illegal to issue EU nationals with an Identity Card designated as "Not valid for travel".

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