Select committee: Home Affairs Committee
Conclusion 1
8th Report - Mandatory to manageable: the government’s plans for digital ID
Published 20 May 2026
Addressed to Home Office
Home Affairs Committee Harnessing the potential of new digital forms of identification All items in this report Report on parliament.uk ↗ Inquiry on parliament.uk ↗
Conclusion (the committee's words)
The Prime Minister’s initial announcement of mandatory digital ID was rushed, poorly thought through and failed to make a convincing case for the introduction of mandatory digital ID. While digital ID was being discussed by Westminster think tanks and politicians, for the general public the proposal came out of the blue. The announcement and subsequent communications were completely inadequate given the impact that mandatory digital ID would have had on our society. As a result, the announcement undermined what existing public support there was for digital ID. Subsequent developments, including the innovative use of deliberative methods as part of the public consultation and improved engagement with key stakeholders, are positive but should have been announced at the outset not as an afterthought. The government’s decision to abandon the mandatory element of the programme and limit its ambition is welcome; but it has also served to reveal the incoherence of its policy- making process and damage the confidence of key stakeholders and the public. (Conclusion, Paragraph 13)
From: Home Affairs Committee, 8th Report - Mandatory to manageable: the government’s plans for digital ID (HC 986), 20 May 2026
Government response
The government responded to the whole report on 18 September 2026 (deadline 20 July 2026).
Summary written by Accountability Index from the government's response. It is not the government's own words.The government says it has cancelled the national Digital ID programme the Committee examined, and will not proceed with it, but will take the Committee's findings into account "where relevant" in its other digital identity work.
- On digital right to work checks, the government says it "will not move to require all right to work checks, carried out by employers, to be conducted digitally".
- From 1 October 2026, an employer who chooses to use a digital verification service for a prescribed digital right to work check will need to use a certified service on the statutory register to obtain a statutory excuse. This "does not require an employer to choose the digital route".
- On intelligence sharing, the government agrees that intelligence from right to work checks should support enforcement "where it can be shared lawfully and securely", and says the Home Office "will continue to work with" OfDIA and providers to "consider" how it can be reported and acted upon.
- On eVisas, the government says the system will continue, and the proposal to transfer eVisas into the national programme "no longer arises" because that programme has been cancelled.