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Blair defends identity card plan Blair defends identity card plan
(about 1 hour later)
Tony Blair has said he will push on with the ID card scheme - and said all non-EU nationals will need them to work or access public services from 2008.Tony Blair has said he will push on with the ID card scheme - and said all non-EU nationals will need them to work or access public services from 2008.
The cards will enable the government "for the first time to check accurately those coming into the country", he has written in the Daily Telegraph. He told his monthly news briefing they would allow the UK "to check accurately those coming in" for the first time.
Mr Blair is expected to begin his monthly media conference, at noon, with a defence of the identity card plans. But, he said, as with CCTV and DNA, the issue with ID cards was more one about "modernity" than about civil liberties.
He is also expected to face questions over Saddam Hussein's death sentence. Mr Blair also backed Iraq's right to sentence Saddam Hussein to death.
'On schedule''On schedule'
Mr Blair will give a presentation, at the start of the monthly grilling, on crime and security, in which it is thought he will deal with criticisms that ID cards - opposed by the Conservatives and Lib Dems - will be too expensive, ineffective and damage civil liberties. Mr Blair challenged criticisms that ID cards - opposed by the Conservatives and Lib Dems - would be too expensive, ineffective and damage civil liberties.
He will insist the project is on budget and on schedule and should be running by 2008. He insisted the project was on budget and on schedule and should be running by 2008. He said biometric passports had to be introduced anyway and, they made up 70% of the cost of ID cards.
ID cards will become compulsory for non-EU overseas residents who come to Britain for more than three months, Mr Blair has written. ID cards will become compulsory for non-EU overseas residents who come to Britain for more than three months, Mr Blair said.
They were not a "complete solution" to problems such as benefit fraud, illegal immigration and terrorism, he added.They were not a "complete solution" to problems such as benefit fraud, illegal immigration and terrorism, he added.
But the accompanying National Identity Register would "help improve protection for the vulnerable, enabling more effective and quicker checks on those seeking to work".But the accompanying National Identity Register would "help improve protection for the vulnerable, enabling more effective and quicker checks on those seeking to work".
Cash for honoursCash for honours
"It should make it much more difficult, as has happened tragically in the past, for people to slip between the cracks", he writes. Identity cards are not due to be compulsory for Britons until 2010. Both the Conservatives and the Lib Dems say they would scrap them if they won the next General Election.
Identity cards are not due to be compulsory for Britons until 2010. Mr Blair said the issue of ID cards and other issues such as anti-social behaviour, CCTV cameras and the DNA database were often portrayed as civil liberties issues.
The issue of Iraq, given greater urgency by Tuesday's US mid-term elections, is expected to be raised at the Downing Street press conference. But, he said, he believed that it was more an issue of "modernity" - the need to use new technology to tackle the new types of crime.
The government has said it does not approve of the death penalty to which Saddam Hussein was sentenced on Sunday, but that the decision was one for Iraq to make. He said there needed to be a wide debate on the issue, adding that he wanted to get across to people the point that ID cards would allow people to protect their own identity.
Other topics that could arise at the press conference include the cash-for-honours affair, in the wake of revelations that the Attorney General could be closely involved in giving the go-ahead for any charges. Mr Blair, who was asked many times about the death penalty to which Saddam Hussein was sentenced on Sunday, said he opposed the death penalty in general, but said it was a decision for Iraq to make.
Lord Goldsmith has thus far not ruled out playing a part in decisions over government colleagues, despite opposition complaints that his impartiality is "questionable".
The declining take-up of school meals in some areas following government initiatives to make food more healthy may also feature.