Andy Burnham will scrap the national digital ID scheme introduced under his predecessor, Keir Starmer, and put the money toward the cost of living, in the first substantial policy commitment he has made before taking office as British prime minister.
Burnham announced the decision on Saturday evening, ahead of taking office on Monday, LBC reported. "That means all the time and resources 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," he said.
The Office for Budget Responsibility had estimated the programme would cost £1.8 billion over three years.
What the scheme was
Starmer announced the digital ID plan last year, presenting it as a way to tighten checks on the right to work and to curb irregular migration. Under the proposal, people would hold a government-issued digital credential on their phones, used to verify identity for employment and for some government services.
The scheme was initially to be mandatory. After public opposition, the government revised it so that it would be voluntary for working-age people. It did not involve collecting fingerprints or iris scans; the credential was intended to confirm facts such as name and age rather than to store biometric data.
Cross-party opposition
The programme drew objections from several directions at once, which is part of why it became difficult to defend politically.
The Conservatives opposed it on grounds of cost and privacy. Reform UK argued it would not achieve its stated aim on immigration. Civil liberties groups, including Liberty, argued that tying a digital credential to the right to work would create a compulsory identity system in practice even if participation was formally voluntary, and warned about the system's use expanding over time beyond its original purpose.
Critics also raised the position of people who lack smartphones or reliable digital access, who would face additional obstacles in proving their identity to an employer or a government department.
A minister who once made the opposite case
Burnham's own record on the question has moved considerably. As a Home Office minister in 2005 and 2006, under Tony Blair, he promoted the previous Labour government's national identity card scheme, telling the BBC at the time that mandatory ID cards would be "a major breakthrough" against identity fraud, The Register reported. That scheme was never fully implemented and was abandoned after 2010.
By September 2025 his position had changed. He warned that the digital ID policy risked absorbing a great deal of government time without delivering a result, citing the earlier attempt as the reason for his skepticism.
What replaces it
Burnham has not said what will take the place of digital ID for right-to-work checks, nor has he specified how the redirected money will be spent. Employers currently verify the right to work through existing document checks and online services, and those arrangements would continue by default.
Burnham was declared Labour leader on Friday, following Starmer's resignation last month. The announcement sets an early marker for a government that has said it will put living costs at the center of its programme, and it removes a policy that had become a persistent source of friction for his predecessor. Whether the saving is material against the scale of cost-of-living pressures is a separate question, and one the new government has not yet addressed in detail.
