Britannia Radio

This is a constitutional outrage.  The Tories should give notice NOW 
that no fiurther payments or  compensation will be paid from the date 
that they take power.  The companies will only have themselves to 
blame.  A short one-clause bill should clinch any argument.

Apart from the constitutional position that no parliament may bind 
its successors this is a monstrously unpopular scheme which should be 
scrapped at once for economic and financial reasons.

xxxxxxxxxxx cs
===================
INDEPENDENT     9.1.09
Compensation clause in ID card contracts angers Tories

    By Nigel Morris

Taxpayers face paying tens of millions of pounds in compensation to 
private companies involved in the national identity card scheme if 
their contracts are torn up by an incoming Conservative government.

The disclosure of the repayment clause in the contracts, which the 
Government is negotiating, provoked fury among Tories, who are 
committed to scrapping the cards. The secrecy surrounding the 
agreements has raised the threat of an investigation by the 
information watchdog.

The Home Office is offering contracts worth more than £1bn to run the 
world's largest identity scheme. Just one small deal has so far been 
signed, but most are expected to be awarded this year in preparation 
for a planned roll-out of the cards in 2011.

The Government has confirmed compensation for costs will be paid to 
companies whose contracts are scrapped and they will also be entitled 
to claim for lost profits if they receive less than a year's notice, 
but the Government will not reveal the exact amounts that would have 
to be paid.

Dominic Grieve, the shadow Home Secretary, said: "Especially at times 
of economic hardship, the public will be dismayed that the Government 
is prepared to waste so much money. We put the Government and 
industry on notice two years ago that we would abandon this project. 
The Government must disclose what steps it has taken to protect the 
taxpayer from liability."

The first contract, worth £18m, has been awarded to a French company, 
Thales SA, to help run an early pilot of the cards; they will be 
issued to some airport workers at the end of this year. The contract 
includes a compensation agreement but the details have not been 
published on the grounds they are commercially confidential. Such 
deals for other ID card contracts will be negotiated by the Home 
Office. The compensation arrangements look certain to run into tens 
of millions of pounds given the size of the contracts.

Thales and four other IT companies – Computer Sciences Corporation, 
EDS, Fujitsu and IBM – are negotiating with the Home Office.

Estimates of the cost of the card scheme over its first 10 years vary 
from £5bn, quoted by the Home Office, to £19bn, calculated by 
academics at the London School of Economics. The Home Office stresses 
that a large part of the bill would be recouped from the public as 
they renewed their passports and were automatically added to the 
register underpinning the scheme.

Last night, Mr Grieve wrote to the Information Commissioner, Richard 
Thomas, appealing for an urgent investigation into the contract with 
Thales and with any other companies.

Phil Booth, the national co-ordinator of the No2ID lobby group, 
called on ministers to "come clean" about the "sweeteners" being 
offered to bidders. "Leading a future administration into that sort 
of debt is not only irresponsible – it's almost criminal," he said.

Chris Huhne, the Liberal Democrat home affairs spokesman, said: "If 
these contracts are signed and then cancelled, it would represent a 
spectacular waste of taxpayers' money on literally nothing."  [That’s 
a good politician’s statement!  it can mean exactly what you want it 
to mean! -cs]

But a Home Office spokesman said: "It is normal and fully within 
government guidelines to include break clauses in contracts of this 
kind, but such contracts are always commercially confidential and it 
would be inappropriate to release details.
"Regardless of the government of the day, it would be inappropriate 
to operate based on opposition policy because it would unreasonably 
constrain our work."  [In plain Engflish that means “We have a right 
to rule and democracy is a waste of time” -cs]