ID cards

12.02.00am BST (GMT +0100) Mon 6th Aug 2007

Dear Khalid Mahmood MP,

As you maybe aware an investigation by BBC 'File On 4' has shown up substantial problems with the national ID cards scheme.

Sixteen months after passing the legislation, James Hall, head of the ID cards programme, admitted that despite spending over £72 million to date the scheme is still not ready for tender. Mr Hall's department does not even know "the precise details of how we deliver this".

Mr Hall also suggested that the final price tag will be much higher than the government's current estimate of £5.5 billion. Professor John Daugman of Cambridge University said during broadcast that that the system, billed by ministers as infallible, will have errors as high as 1 in 1000 by the time just 10% of the UK population are enrolled, meaning there will be thousands of false matches. "For the scheme as a whole it means that it can no longer deliver the goal of one citizen, one identity" Professor John Daugman of Cambridge University said in the show.

The government's identity card scheme will be expensive and ineffective therefore I would urge you to encourage the Prime Minister Rt Hon Gordon Brown MP and the Secretary of State for the Home Department Rt Hon Jacqui Smith MP to scrap the government's identity card scheme and use the savings to put more police on the streets.

Yours sincerely,

Adam Nazir Ahmed Teladia