ID cards will not be needed to access devolved services in Scotland.
The Minister for Finance and Public Service Reform Tom McCabe reassured members in the Scottish Parliament today.
He took the opportunity to clarify some of the "unhelpful confusion" around the issue of ID cards.
Mr McCabe said:
"I welcome this opportunity to update the Parliament on the identity card scheme being proposed at Westminster. It is helpful at this time, not long after the Bill has been re-introduced, to set out how the proposals will affect Scotland, and what our position is.
"First I must make it clear once again that the proposals for an identity card scheme confine themselves to reserved policy areas only. Our role, if Westminster seeks to legislate in ways which might affect areas of policy devolved to this Parliament, is to make sure that the devolution settlement is respected and maintained.
"I repeat that we are satisfied that its provisions and the powers it would create are for reserved purposes only. In terms of our position on the use of ID cards in Scotland, we have been very clear that we do not wish to link them to the provision of devolved services. Any change in this position would require an Act of the Scottish Parliament. There can be no more solid assurance about our approach to the scheme.
"I hope that we can now put behind us the unhelpful confusion which has been generated around this issue. ID cards are the responsibility of the UK Government and this legislation will not affect how Scots decide about devolved matters.
"By contrast, I would like to take this opportunity to draw your attention to the work we are doing to make a positive difference to the people of Scotland through making public services more efficient. We will use technology to introduce smartcards which enable citizens to enjoy easier, better access to the public services they want to use."
The Executive, through its Customer First Strategy, is working with all 32 local authorities to develop a national entitlement card scheme. This is funded by the third round of the Modernising Government Fund (MGF) and builds on the work of the consortium of 11 local authorities, who develop a framework for entitlement cards and piloted applications including cashless catering, school registration proof of age, Young Scot discount package and access to library and leisure facilities in the second round of the Modernising Government Fund.
The priority application for the MGF third round is concessionary fares with the challenging target of issuing entitlement cards to over one million citizens who are entitled to concessionary fares by April 2006.
The Scottish Executive provided £5.8 million in the second round of MGF which funded software development, card management infrastructure, application and system testing, smartcards and the framework for all entitlement card applications. £3.6 million has been set aside as part of the Customer First programme to roll out the smartcards to over one million citizens for concessionary fares and to extend the existing applications piloted in the MGF second round.
