Tories unveil border police plans


The BBC reports:

The Conservatives have appointed the former Metropolitan Police Commissioner Lord Stevens to lead a working group on creating a border police force.

They would use money saved from scrapping planned identity cards, as well as savings in the Home Office budget, to fund the plans.

Mr Cameron said: “The government’s big idea to try to deal with these problems is ID cards but this demonstrates that their priorities are completely wrong.

“They would waste up to £20 billion without performing one of the most basic tasks of all – securing our borders. In short, ID cards are a bad idea.”

Mr Cameron made his remarks in a visit to a police station in east London.


0 thoughts on “Tories unveil border police plans

  • David Moss

    “They would use money saved from scrapping planned identity cards …”. What money?

    I hope I am wrong about this but I understand that the government’s plan is to fund the ID cards scheme through the £93 fees individuals pay to acquire them. If the scheme is scrapped and we’re not paying for ID cards, then there is no money saved by the Exchequer to pay for border control.

    I only discovered that we don’t have border controls any more when that 21/7 would-be bomber, Hussain Osman, escaped by catching a train at Waterloo. I remember the Home Office trying to blame the French at the time, claiming it was their job to stop our terrorists from leaving our country.

    I am still staggered. What are we paying all this tax for? I am quite prepared to believe that there is a fortune to be saved by cutting waste out of other programmes. Some of that money could fund border controls.

    ID cards and biometric passports are two schemes joined at the hip. What are the Conservatives’ intentions with respect to the biometric passports scheme:
    1. Will there still be a National Identity Register?
    2. Will there still be registration centres?
    3. Will they abide by the Home Office’s unilateral decision to add fingerprints to ePassports?