§ The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Department for Culture, Media and Sport (Lord McIntosh of Haringey)My right honourable friend the Chief Secretary to the Treasury (Paul Boateng) has made the following Written Ministerial Statement.
On 6 January (Official Report, col. 7WS), I announced that the Registrar General for England and Wales would lead on the next stage of development work for a UK population register. This work is being conducted by a project team based within the Office for National Statistics (ONS) and is known as the citizen information project (CIP). It is concerned with whether the use of a population register would improve the quality of basic data held by government, generate efficiency savings across government and support improved public services. I am now able to update the House on progress and on the programme of work over the rest of this stage of development.
46WSThe work has confirmed the feasibility study findings that a UK population register has the potential to generate efficiency benefits and service improvements across government. The CIP team has investigated the costs and benefits of a range of potential options for delivering a population register. It has recommended that proposals for a national identity register (NIR), as part of the Government's proposals for ID cards, mean that if ID cards were to become compulsory then it may be more cost-effective to deliver these benefits through the NIR, rather than develop a separate register. The Government have accepted this recommendation.
The ONS is now in the second stage of project definition and will report to Ministers by June 2005. This includes examining in more detail how the NIR could function as a population register and exploring opportunities for adding value to existing database developments that could be cost-effective ahead of the NIR reaching maturity. The ONS is also exploring how efficiency and analytical requirements that cover the whole population, rather than just adults, can be met.