Labour will look carefully at the introduction of ID cards – Stephen Kinnock
WELSH Labour MP Stephen Kinnock has said that the Labour Party will “look carefully” at the introduction of ID cards.
The Aberavon MP is his party’s spokesman on immigration.
Speaking to Matt Chorley on Times Radio, the MP for Aberavon said that they would be useful for understanding the population in the UK.
He said: “I think they should certainly be on the table. It needs to be properly reviewed and discussed. It was something that I think a previous Labour government got very close to introducing but for various reasons it didn’t come off.”
Under Tony Blair Labour attempted to introduce ID cards but this became extremely controversial.
The cards were linked to state entitlements and this, along with wider civil liberty concerns, led to significant opposition.
Legislation for compulsory ID cards was passed in 2006, but in 2009 Alan Johnson (home secretary) announced they would not be compulsory for UK citizens. The plans were binned in 2010 by the coalition.
Mr Kinnock said that the current system is not sustainable.
He told Times Radio: “I thought it was extraordinary in the wake of Brexit, that everybody said, oh, there are three million EU citizens in the UK, it turned out there were five million.
“You know, it’s just simply extraordinary that we had two million more people in our country than we thought we did.
“That is just not sustainable and a registration process and system needs to be looked at very, very carefully indeed.
“And that is certainly something that Labour is reviewing and we’ll be looking at very carefully.”