By Andy McCue, 3 October 2006 15:05
NEWS
Conservative Party leader David Cameron has pledged to scrap the government's ID cards scheme and undertake a full-scale review of the £12.4bn NHS IT project if the Tories win the next General Election.
In his speech at the Conservative Party conference in Bournemouth this week, Cameron slammed Prime Minister Tony Blair and the Labour Party for pushing on with the controversial ID cards scheme instead of "protecting our security by controlling our borders".
He told delegates: "These Labour ministers are pressing ahead with their vast white elephant, their plastic poll tax, 20 Millennium Domes rolled into one giant catastrophe in the making. ID cards are wrong, they're a waste of money, and we will abolish them."
Just last week UK government CIO John Suffolk hit back at critics of the ID cards scheme. Speaking at the silicon.com CIO Forum he said: "There is nothing new or cutting edge. I'm not sitting here worrying about the base technology."Cameron also hit out at the delayed NHS IT "shambles" and listed a litany of high-profile government IT failures during Blair's time in power - "a story of wasted billions - and disappointed millions" - including the e-Universities, Individual Learning Accounts and tax credits.
The Tories have already promised a full-scale review of the NHS IT programme - which suffered a blow last week after key supplier Accenture ditched its £2bn contracts and bailed out of the project - should they win the next election.
Comments
There are 13 comments. Join the discussion
1. Ken Hall
I think that Cameron's Conservatives just may have gained a new voter.
2. Richard
That's won my vote!
Far too much time, money and expertise have been squandered on this pointless but dangerous ID project.
How strange that none of this was reported by the (post Hutton) BBC.
Who writes their scripts?
3. Steve Watkins
Excellent! Great news! At last the Conservative party is acting like an opposition.
Cameron gets my vote. Keep it up and stick the boot into Bliar!
4. John Ray
Obviously it would be better to immediately stop wasting tax payers' money on the ID card project.
Pity the Tory leadership don't commit to withdrawal from the even bigger white elephant, the EU.
5. anonymous
Looks like I will be voting Conservative at the next election. The abolition of the ID card scheme must be in any manifesto that I vote for.
6. Ian Savell
Now Labour, knowing it will lose the next election, should stop spending our money on the project!
7. Alastair Warren
It's been mooted before on silicon.com that the contracts facilitating the ID Scheme cock up will be watertight and even if the Tories got elected they'd be unable to cancel the contracts.
I wrote to David Cameron, and my Tory MP asking if they would be able to break the contracts should they get elected. My MP said that he's like to know if I didn't get a satisfactory response, and Cameron's letter answerer said 'Thank you for your letter we'd like to consider any contracts should we get elected' - hardly conclusive that they could cancel the ID Card scheme contracts.
8. Mr I like my freedom
"read my lips...no new taxes"
"Iraq has weapons of mass destruction and will use them on us"
Please people, stop being so naive and believing what come out of a politicians mouth!
They say exactly what you want to here, when you want to here it.
Dont be a sheep.
9. Tim Jackson
Well, by the last count that should win him 80% of the IT industry votes. Hooray!
10. anonymous
At last, the Conservatives are reacting to the excesses & evils of so called 'New' Labour.
Although one can never personally agree with every facet of a party's policy. As I have always said regarding political parties. I vote for the potentially 'least worse', as I percieve each party affecting my family & myself. As usual, Blah, blah, Blair, Control freak Brown & the remainder of that motley crew have failed us & worse, on all counts.
So let us give David Cameron a chance, when the time comes to give our decisons at the ballot box, ASAP
11. galley slave#41
All politicians are tarred with the same brush so I'll belive it when I see it.
And I bet we can kiss goodbye to a refund!!!
12. Rob
Now Labour, knowing it will lose the next election, should stop spending our money on Fat Deputy Prime Ministers which could easily be mistaken for a large white elephant (but they won't, so stop hoping they'll cancel the ID project while they are still in power).
13. Steve Demmery
If you want to talk percentages, I'd like to think that only a tiny proportion of the IT community are short-sighted enough to consider an issue like this (whilst at the same time managing to ignore political history with one broad sweep of the arm) enough to vote for any political party. I also find it hard to understand (other than cost) why so many people are opposed to ID cards. Ignoring the standard debates (For example, that oft-trotted out "if you've got nothing to hide why do you oppose having one"), why does pretty much every other first world country have them? Can they all be wrong? Or has the scare-mongering Daily Mail got to you all? But agreed, project costs must be constantly reviewed and held in check.