Name: Government drops plans for mandatory digital ID to work in UK | BBC News
Uploaded: 2026-01-14T17:20:45.000Z
Duration: 3 min 17 s
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Here the Government has dropped plans to require people to sign up to its digital ID scheme in order to prove their right to work in the UK.

Past perfect

Nearly 3 million people had signed a petition to Parliament opposing the proposal to make the IDs mandatory.

The change of policy is the latest in a series of climb downs by the government.

The Chancellor, Rachel Reeves, was asked about the Government's Rollback on digital IDs on BBC Breakfast on the digital ID for starters.

I do think this story has been a bit overwritten.

We are saying that you will need mandatory digital ID to be able to work in the uk.

Now, the difference is whether that has to be a one piece of id, a digital ID card, or whether it could be an E visa or an E passport.

The Prime Minister wasn't very relaxed about it when he stood at a lectern only a few weeks ago and said, this is absolutely going to happen.

It's really important to have a digital ID that we're going to introduce.

We don't have digital passports today, as you know.

This will be about having digital checks that you have to verify that you can work in the uk.

And there's a reason for this because at the moment people are undercut by illegal cheap labour, which drives down wages and standards and conditions for people who do have a right to work in the uk.

And we're going to root that out with these digital checks.

Now, our chief political correspondent Henry Zefferman told us more about the reaction to this U turn.

I think there is no getting away from the fact that this is a significant change to the policy as first announced by Zakir Starmer just four months ago.

As a reminder of what the Prime Minister said back in September.

He said, you will not be able to work in the United Kingdom if you do not have digital id.

And what he meant by digital id there pretty clearly was this new digital ID system that the government is rolling out.

It turned out not to be as simple as that.

The government is still rolling out digital ID and they hope that many people will take it up, but

I think it's partly to do with the fact that this became an unpopular policy and the Government was anxious about that.

Detracting from what they still hope will be a pretty significant transformation to how public services work as a result of this digital id, even if that's pretty different.

To the rather narrow explanation that was originally given for digital id, which was to combat illegal immigration.

Specifically, in terms of the reaction to this, well, as you'd expect, the government's political opponents are pretty unimpressed.

Reform UK still saying this is a victory for individual liberty, the Liberal democrats saying number 10 must be bulk ordering motion sickness tablets to cope with all the U turns, and

the Conservatives questioning Keir Starmer's authority.

I have to say that is also what I'm hearing from a lot of Labour MPs today who are questioning why they bother going out to defend government policy against their constituents, who are maybe critical of it, when they can't be sure that before long the government won't just change their minds.

And that was our chief political correspondent Henry Zeffman.