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Lord Collins of Highbury (Lab)

Speaking in the House of Lords on 18 March 2026

Debate

Digital ID: Public Consultation

Contribution

The noble Lord knows that I cannot possibly answer on his latter point, but I certainly will ensure that he gets a response about it. It is interesting that he was, I think, making the case for what we are proposing. The problem is that different government departments have different portals, different IDs, different ways of getting in and different ways of controlling the data. We want a much more secure digital ID that people will have confidence in. This is not about collecting new data, and it is not a big idea that we will have this central database of everything; this is about how people access public services. At the moment, if you want to get in through Companies House, the noble Lord described something that digital ID may resolve. But other departments have different schemes. Everyone has a story about being locked out of these services because they do not have the right identification or ID, and this is a solution that will help the public. That is what we should be talking about, rather than seeing this as being about big government. It is about delivering public services and not about big government.

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