Government Faces Growing Criticism Over Digital ID Plans as Tories Question the Point of Public Consultation
The government’s digital ID scheme is under fresh fire this week, with Conservative MPs and peers openly questioning whether the ongoing public consultation is even worth the paper it is written on. Critics argue that ministers already know what they want to build, and that asking the public for their views is little more than political theatre designed to give an unpopular policy a veneer of democratic legitimacy.
The row centres on a consultation launched by the Cabinet Office on 10 March 2026, which the government billed as the centrepiece of its efforts to design a national digital identity system built around the public’s wishes. Chief Secretary to the Prime Minister Darren Jones framed it as launching a “national conversation,” going further than any other consultation the government has done before. Institute for Government But that framing has not gone down well with everyone in Westminster, and the criticism has been sharp.
In the House of Lords, one Conservative peer put the question bluntly. Speaking during a debate on the consultation, the peer asked: “Why do the Government feel it is necessary at all to have a consultation, given the visceral public reaction to the proposal to introduce digital ID in the first place? That in itself seems like a pretty convincing consultation.” Parallel Parliament It is hard to argue with the logic. Nearly three million people signed a parliamentary petition opposing the introduction of digital IDs, Lewis Silkin and the government had already been forced into a significant retreat before the consultation even opened.
To understand how things reached this point, you have to go back to September 2025, when Keir Starmer announced the scheme as a way to tackle illegal working. Public support fell rapidly after that initial announcement, and the government was forced to substantially reframe its vision. Institute for Government The original plan had included making digital ID mandatory for right-to-work checks by the end of this Parliament. By January 2026, ministers had dropped the compulsory element entirely, with individuals able to use alternative forms of digital documentation such as biometric passports or e-visas instead. Thinkdigitalpartners
Conservative leader Kemi Badenoch described the retreat as a “humiliating U-turn,” accusing the government of lacking direction and competence. Thinkdigitalpartners Labour MPs were left defending a policy that had changed shape twice in under five months, and the whole episode left the impression of a government that had not thought the policy through before announcing it. That impression has not faded since.
The consultation itself runs until 5 May 2026. The digital ID will be free to access for those who want it, with no legal obligation for people to have it, and access to public services will not be made dependent on having it. Lewis Silkin The government says the scheme will be built around three principles: it must be useful, inclusive, and trusted. Following the online consultation, a People’s Panel for Digital ID made up of around 100 randomly selected members of the public will consider the issues raised and produce a set of recommendations, with the full process concluding on 21 June 2026. Institute for Government
That all sounds reasonable enough on the surface. But the fundamental question critics keep returning to is this: if the government already knows the scheme will be voluntary, already knows it will be built in-house, and already knows the core principles it will follow, then what exactly is the consultation deciding? The change in direction on mandating has defused some of the concerns opposition parties had, but it has led others to question what the value of the proposal is at all. Institute for Government
The cost question is where the government looks most exposed. The government has not said how much the scheme will cost, arguing that this will depend on design choices made following the consultation. It has rejected a cost estimate from the Office for Budget Responsibility of £1.8 billion. House of Commons Library Ministers have declined to give a figure of their own, saying costs will be confirmed once design choices are made. That position is becoming increasingly difficult to maintain in Parliament.
Conservative MPs pressed the minister directly in the Commons, asking whether the government disputed the £1.8 billion figure from the OBR and, if so, what the correct figure was. The minister did not provide an overall ballpark figure. UK Parliament One Conservative MP was scathing in response, telling the chamber that the minister had been consistent only in his “defence of the indefensible” and accused him of “hiding behind” the consultation rather than answering basic questions about public expenditure.
In the Commons debate on 10 March, the Conservative benches described the estimated £1.8 billion cost as “more than the cost of building and operating a new Type 45 destroyer,” arguing that Britain had managed perfectly well for centuries without a peacetime national identity system. UK Parliament It is a vivid comparison, and it is landing with sections of the public who are already sceptical about the whole project.
Those sceptics have plenty of historical ammunition. The government’s previous attempt at digital identity verification, GOV.UK Verify, was introduced in 2013 as a flagship project and quietly buried as a significant failure with around £220 million spent and little to show for it. Computer Weekly Critics believe history is repeating itself. Conservative MP Sarah Bool told Parliament her constituents were concerned about the cost being “prohibitive,” adding that it was difficult to trust a government that had struggled to manage simpler administrative systems to now build a secure national identity infrastructure. Computer Weekly
The privacy and security concerns are equally serious and are not coming only from the Conservative benches. In the Lords debate, peers pressed ministers to explain why GOV.UK One Login, the umbrella infrastructure underpinning the proposed digital ID system, reportedly satisfied only 21 out of 39 security outcomes required by the National Cyber Security Centre, and how the government could justify building a national identity solution on a platform that fails to meet nearly half of the NCSC’s mandatory security outcomes. Parallel Parliament That is not a fringe technical objection. If the security architecture is not sound, then the entire project rests on shaky foundations, and every piece of personal data entered into the system is potentially at risk.
There is also the question of democratic legitimacy. Multiple MPs across parties noted that the digital ID scheme did not appear in Labour’s 2024 general election manifesto, meaning the government does not have a clear electoral mandate for it. Substack The Conservatives point this out with considerable relish, given that their own 2010 manifesto explicitly promised to scrap the last Labour government’s ID card scheme and called it intrusive, ineffective and enormously expensive. The charge of inconsistency cuts in multiple directions here.
The government’s response to all of this has followed a familiar pattern. Ministers argue that the scheme is about making public services work better for ordinary people, that it will be completely voluntary, and that the consultation will genuinely shape the final design. Responding in the Lords, the government minister argued that the scheme would give people more control over what data they share, and that the state needed to catch up with how the private sector already uses data to deliver services. Parallel Parliament It is a coherent argument in theory. In practice, the government’s credibility on this issue has taken a battering.
A local survey conducted by one MP found that over two-thirds of their constituents opposed the scheme, with people saying they did not trust the government to keep their data safe or to prevent the scheme from expanding in scope over time. Substack That last concern, what campaigners call “mission creep,” is perhaps the most politically potent. People are not necessarily opposed to digital public services in principle. What they are wary of is a government building infrastructure today that a future government could choose to make mandatory or link to entirely different systems tomorrow.
The consultation closes on 5 May. After that, a panel of 100 randomly selected members of the public will work through the issues before delivering recommendations in June. Whether the government will be in a stronger political position by then is another question entirely. Right now, it is facing criticism from the left over civil liberties, from the right over cost and mandate, and from its own side over the sheer number of reversals the policy has already undergone.
What is clear is that the Conservatives have found a line of attack that works. Asking ministers to explain the purpose of a consultation that was only called because of a public backlash against a policy that was not in the manifesto is not a complicated argument to make. It is, however, a genuinely difficult one to answer.
The government wanted digital ID to be a symbol of a modern, efficient Britain. At the moment it looks more like a symbol of a government that announced first and thought second. Whether the consultation can change that, or whether it simply delays the reckoning, remains to be seen.