Burnham will drop the £1.8 billion programme after nearly three million people sign a petition against it
Andy Burnham will scrap plans for a government-issued digital ID for all British adults as one of his first acts as prime minister on Monday.
Burnham was elected unopposed as Labour leader on 17 July. He will be formally appointed prime minister after meeting King Charles III on Monday, [BBC News] reported.
His spokesperson said the ’time and resource that was going to be spent on a national ID scheme will go instead to where it’s most needed, such as helping with the cost of living'.
Sir Keir Starmer announced the scheme in September 2025, making digital ID compulsory for proving the right to work. He said it would help tackle illegal working and let people prove their identity without hunting for utility bills, according to [BBC News].
The Office for Budget Responsibility, the publicly funded fiscal watchdog, [estimated in November] that the programme would cost £1.8 billion over three years. [Downing Street rejected the figure] but never produced an alternative. BBC News reported the OBR estimate in its original coverage but did not note that the government offered no figure of its own.
In January, after [nearly three million people signed a parliamentary petition] against digital ID, ministers dropped the compulsory element. The scheme was relaunched as voluntary, with a ‘one stop’ app for managing childcare, filling in tax returns, and accessing other services.
The cross-party Home Affairs Committee said in May that the launch was ’nothing short of a fiasco’. Its chair, Dame Karen Bradley, said the plans ‘raised fears of government over-reach into people’s lives’.
Deputy Labour leader Lucy Powell told Sunday with Laura Kuenssberg that the money saved was ’not an insignificant amount’ and would be ‘reprioritised and redistributed in different ways’.
People will be hugely relieved to know they are no longer set to be forced to hand over their data just to go about their daily lives
Shadow technology secretary Julia Lopez accused Burnham of ’trying to pretend he’s riding to the rescue’ after Labour ‘wasted millions of pounds on this project’. She said mandatory ID was already off the table and Burnham should explain ‘whether he is simply claiming credit for a decision that had already been taken’.
Liberal Democrat MP Lisa Smart said people would be ‘hugely relieved to know they are no longer set to be forced to hand over their data just to go about their daily lives’. She called the sums earmarked for the scheme ‘obscene’.
Burnham is also expected to announce [plans for new oil and gas drilling in the North Sea] after taking office. Labour’s 2024 manifesto pledged no new licences but promised to honour existing ones, many of which remain largely undeveloped in a declining basin. Years of government meddling in energy, through bans, mandates, and levies, have pushed up bills for ordinary households. Powell called the move ‘a change of emphasis’, not a change of policy.
Conservative leader Kemi Badenoch said Burnham’s plans for government are ‘airy fairy’ and the country needs a leader ready to ’take tough decisions’.
Burnham takes office on Monday. The North Sea announcement is expected shortly after.
