Tories pledge to abolish ID cards

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.

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...

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.