Digital ID

Martin Wrigley Excerpts

Monday 8th December 2025 Westminster Hall

[Melanie Onn (Great Grimsby and Cleethorpes) (Lab)]

Thank you, Sir Edward. I will not take up much time.

Over 6,500 of my constituents signed the petition. Clearly, there is a great deal of angst and concern around the proposals, and it is imperative that the Minister address the concerns that have been laid out. While I welcome initiatives to stop illegal working and workforce exploitation, I share some of those legitimate concerns, particularly around the cost of roll-out, the necessity of the legislation, and data security. However, I recognise that we are living in a digital age in which we all give up our personal data to corporations, both domestic and international, with barely a second thought, and without knowing what those who sit behind the corporations will do with our data or likeness.

Can the Minister please offer reassurances that any proposal would present value for money? The total cost of rolling out a national system would be significant, and it is right that we understand how this compares with strengthening the forms of identification that we already have, because they are plentiful.

[Martin Wrigley (Newton Abbot) (LD)]

Will the hon. Member give way?

[Melanie Onn]

I will not give way—I am sorry.

There is also real interest in how personal data would be protected. Trust is very fragile when it comes to digital systems, so can the Minister give clarity that any digital ID would come with the strongest safeguards, transparent oversight and guarantees that data cannot be misused or accessed without consent?

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[Samantha Niblett (South Derbyshire) (Lab)]

I am pleased that through this Westminster Hall debate we are giving much-needed attention to the question of digital ID. Many of my constituents in South Derbyshire contacted me to share their views ahead of the debate. That includes well over 400 comments on a Facebook post in which I asked people for their views on digital ID —good, bad and perceived bad. Although there is a wide variety of opinion, many of my constituents have expressed concerns and it is my responsibility to communicate these here today.

Let me start by recognising that about a third of South Derbyshire constituents who have been in touch on digital ID were supportive, which is almost unique—people rarely contact me to tell me that they are pleased with what I am doing. There are some significant practical advantages: the ability to prove identity quickly for work; the potential to bring together passport, driving licence and national insurance details in a single secure format so that people would not need to faff around with a utility bill to prove their address anymore; and the benefits for people who currently lack traditional forms of ID. As things stand, digital ID would be mandatory only for those accessing work, although I recognise that many constituents have concerns over mission creep, which I will come back to.

[Martin Wrigley]

Will the hon. Member give way?

[Samantha Niblett]

I will not, I am afraid. I want to rattle through my speech.

Estonia, Denmark, Belgium, Germany and the Netherlands already operate digital ID systems that make everyday tasks simpler and more efficient. For some, digital ID is a natural progression for a modern, digital economy. One constituent told me:

“We already use our phones and banking apps—this would simply streamline it”.

If done well and offered for free, digital ID could make employment checks and even voting more accessible, but it is equally important to reflect that roughly two thirds of responses from my constituents expressed serious concerns. That has unfortunately been intensified by fearmongering, some of which have heard today from certain parliamentary colleagues, but my constituents’ message was clear: we need trust, privacy and inclusion to come first—

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[Peter Prinsley (Bury St Edmunds and Stowmarket) (Lab)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairship, Sir Edward. I think I am the first person to speak today who is a supporter of digital ID. However, I agree with many of the objections raised by some colleagues; they are reasonable arguments and echo what many of my constituents have told me. Simon from Stowmarket wrote to say that he is worried about the state using digital ID to micromanage people’s lives, John from Bury St Edmunds said that digital ID could exclude those without smartphones or a fixed address, and there are many more who are concerned about the security of their data.

[Martin Wrigley]

Will the hon. Gentleman give way?

[Peter Prinsley]

I will not just now.

I agree with all those arguments, but why do I support digital ID? Because I believe that those arguments are about the practicalities of how we implement digital ID, as opposed to the principle of whether we should have digital ID in the first place.

It should be entirely possible for a great country like ours to modernise the way in which its citizens interact with the state while preserving civil liberties and privacy. That is entirely the Government’s intention. No one will be stopped in the street and asked for digital ID, data will be stored on personal devices, and it will the individual’s decision to share it or not. There will be alternative routes for those who cannot use smartphones.

Nevertheless, I know some Members will think this is a slippery slope, but that, again, is a practical argument. It is up to us, as legislators and as a Government, to ensure that digital ID is implemented with safeguards against bureaucratic creep. But we should not forgo the incredible benefits of digital ID because of the hypothetical chance that something we are against, and that we can prevent, might happen.

The benefits would be incredible. Before entering this place, I was a surgeon for many years, and the biggest problem I faced on a daily basis was accessing basic information about patients, which is stored in piecemeal fashion across myriad organisations. We could use digital ID to create a unified record and give control of it to the patients. That would revolutionise the national health service, and that is just one potential use—I have not mentioned the benefits for other public services and in reducing illegal working. People say that this is hugely expensive; I say that digital ID would pay for itself through reduced fraud. Privacy, inclusivity, civil liberties and a modern, streamlined state—I believe in all those things.

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[Tony Vaughan (Folkestone and Hythe) (Lab)]

It is a privilege to serve under your chairship, Sir Edward. I thank the petitioner, Mr Sutcliff, and I thank the hon. Member for Keighley and Ilkley (Robbie Moore) for opening the debate.

The issue of digital identification has certainly added to my postbag in recent months. Many of my constituents’ concerns are real, legitimate and understandable. They include data security, the cost of the scheme, the potential for infringements of the right to liberty, the creation of a “papers, please” society, the chance of ID theft and fraud, and concerns about accessibility for all, as about 1.5 million people in this country are digitally excluded.

[Martin Wrigley]

Will the hon. Member give way?

[Tony Vaughan]

Not at the moment.

Six per cent of the population do not have access to smartphones. Pensioners, the disabled and the homeless could be particularly affected. I believe it is vital that the Minister and the Government listen carefully to those concerns and that they be heard during the public consultation, which will begin in the new year. I will be making my representations; I urge my constituents to do so too.

I want to make two points about why, in principle, I support the idea of digital identification. First, I believe that a digital credential has the potential to make an individual citizen’s day-to-day life easier and more convenient. In a world where we already pay, bank and travel digitally, book and manage GP appointments digitally, file our tax returns digitally and access many public services digitally, the argument for secure, universal digital credentials to replace multiple forms of verification is highly appealing. It would be more secure than many citizens’ existing password systems. My dad would remember his early attempts at passwords, such as “password123”, later improved to “Sausages123” —with a capital S for added security.

The most important point is that I believe that digital ID will strengthen right-to-work checks. One reason why that is important is to fight back against the epidemic of organised crime across our country. I was in one high street in my constituency a couple of weeks ago where three vape and tobacco shops have sprung up over the last few months selling £5 packs of cigarettes, which are obviously illegal. I was told that it takes His Majesty’s Revenue and Customs, trading standards and the police to shut one of them down, and that even when they do, it reopens in a few hours.

We should be making it easier for the state immediately to verify a person’s right to work. If the police need to probe someone’s right to work, they have no ability to do so on the spot. We need to make it easier for the state to check someone’s right to work.

[Tony Vaughan]

If it is possible for the police to verify, in that moment, whether a person has a right to work, that will assist. The details are not there, but I am making the point that it is open to consultation. I am not here to defend the position of the Government; I am here to say that, in principle, the position has not been set out, because they are consulting on it.

Let me come back to the point, because it is really important, and the Conservative party is not engaging with it at all. If the police do not have access to right-to-work data in the moment, it makes it harder to close down these entities. No one is explaining that there is a power, because there simply is not.

[Martin Wrigley]

Is the hon. Member proposing that the police should have the right to demand access to the digital ID to prove right to work on the spot? [Interruption.]

[Sir Edward Leigh (in the Chair)]

Order. The Doorkeeper must remove that person from the Public Gallery immediately. [Interruption.] Don’t just stand there!

[Martin Wrigley]

Perhaps I misunderstood, but I think that the hon. and learned Member for Folkestone and Hythe (Tony Vaughan) has just asked for the police to have the right to demand digital ID on the spot—therefore, “Papers, please.”

[Tony Vaughan]

I am afraid that that is not the scenario I was setting out. I was trying to be helpful by identifying the fact that, if a vape shop is selling £5 cigarettes, they are obviously unlawful, so there is reason to probe further, but the police do not have the ability to verify right to work. Obviously the state should, in that scenario, where there is already a basis to look further—but I am not trying to say that this scheme is entirely fine.

I started my speech by identifying the legitimate concerns of my constituents and many other people. It is vital that we look at the details of everything that is proposed and ultimately have a consultation that listens to the concerns expressed, so that the policy ends up reflecting the positive benefits that I think we can get from such a system—if we get the details right.

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[Saqib Bhatti]

Let me address that point. The problem that the hon. Gentleman poses will not be solved by digital ID—I fundamentally disagree with him about that—because HMRC already has the powers to investigate people selling illegal cigarettes, as do the police. That is why the Government have lauded the fact that there were raids just a few months ago, and closures of some of these shops. He is creating a straw-man argument that is not solved by digital ID.

Let us be under no illusion about this proposal. It opens the door to tyranny, whether it is tyranny today or tyranny tomorrow. The Minister cannot confirm that a future Government—a future Labour Government, perhaps, if that is even possible—will not take advantage of digital ID.

[Martin Wrigley]

Will the hon. Gentleman give way?

[Saqib Bhatti]

I am going to make some progress, if that is okay.

I and others have made the point that digital ID would fundamentally reframe the relationship between the individual and the state. It would turn us into a “papers, please” society. Responsibility for proving that someone was guilty would be shifted away from the state, and individuals would, in essence, be required to prove that they were innocent.

I visited Estonia when I was the Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Tech and the Digital Economy. I saw the system there, and I came away with a conclusion very different from the one that others have reached. The Estonians’ system works for them because they have the Russians on their border.

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[Dr Allison Gardner (Stoke-on-Trent South) (Lab)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairship, Ms Furniss. I am the chair of the all-party parliamentary group on digital identity, and in the past I have audited algorithms and processes that developed identification systems. With that in mind, I worry about a couple of issues. Before the Government announced their digital ID policy, 30% of people were in favour of digital identification, but that dropped, which is interesting. There has been an issue with scaremongering and arguing to extremes, particularly from the party that brought in voter ID when it was in government, which I find very interesting. I do, however, agree that it should not be mandatory, but we need to de-couple that argument from right-to-work checks in particular, as I remind Members that they are already mandatory.

For a digital ID scheme to work, we need to have trust in it; we need to have control, and we need to have choice. I therefore ask that the scheme not be mandatory. People should have the choice of whether to use it or not. I believe that a well-designed system would offer benefits; people will see that for themselves, and they may then make their own choices. I agree with other Members on that.

[Martin Wrigley]

Will the hon. Lady give way?

[Dr Gardner]

I will, as the hon. Gentleman has been trying to intervene for the whole debate.

[Martin Wrigley]

The hon. Lady is very kind. Is she aware that the Government papers also describe using digital ID for the right to rent as well as for the right to work?

[Dr Gardner]

The hon. Member makes an interesting point. I recently applied for a mortgage, and I received a link via email to a provider that requested that I upload my bank statements, my utility bills, and copies of my passport and driving licence—I am lucky enough to have those two pieces of photo ID. I trusted that it was a registered provider, but I did have a slight worry about scamming. When I applied for a car loan, I did so on paper, and I had to provide three bank statements, several utility bills, and copies of my driving licence and passport. It got so ridiculous that I asked whether the company wanted to know my bra size as well.

I was very concerned about ID theft in those processes, hence I am a proponent of secure digital ID and digital wallets, which would give me control over how I share my data. Having all my credentials, including Government-minted credentials such as my driving licence, in my digital wallet would allow me to send a one-time-only link to providers, which would allow them to view my data but prevent them from downloading it. There are ways of designing such a system, and I ask the Minister to think about how to integrate that level of choice in the platform that is developed. My hon. Friend the Member for Aylesbury (Laura Kyrke-Smith) outlined how citizens would be able to see who is asking for their data and would even be able to control who can access it. They would know what data has been asked for and why, and they can then give the thumbs up. How we implement the digital ID system is really important.

We already have the digital identity and attributes trust framework, which is delivered by 43 private providers, with 11,000 members of staff. We should not argue to these extremes, and we should not scaremonger. We should have a calm consultation and debate on how digital ID could improve people’s lives by making them safer and more secure. I look forward to hearing the Minister deal with all the issues that have been rightly raised.