UK digital ID scheme to have limited use before next general election, minister says
Britain’s £1.8bn digital ID scheme will only be available for a handful of uses by the next election, including paying vehicle tax and right-to-work checks, the minister in charge of the project has said.Darren Jones, the prime minister’s chief secretary, said on Tuesday he eventually wanted the app to be used for everything from claiming benefits to proving the right to vote, but that most of this would not happen until the next parliament.Launching the government’s consultation on the project, Jones admitted its initial use would be relatively limited despite costing as much annually as the Cabinet Office’s entire budget last year.He said: “There will be some simple things that will come forward by the end of the parliament: maybe tax disc payments; some administrative tasks; the right-to-work check will be available if you want to use it from 2029.
“But the big prize – when you’re looking at things like the childcare system or your pension statement or HMRC data – that’s really a prize for the next parliament, because we’re going to have to take some time to get it up and running in the first place,”Jones said on Tuesday the government would spend the next eight weeks consulting the public on what they would use a digital ID for and what concerns they had about its use,When he announced the project last year, Keir Starmer initially said it would be used as a mandatory right-to-work document to prevent migrants working in the country illegally,Since then, however, it has changed scope considerably, with ministers dropping the idea of making the ID mandatory and instead stressing its use for improving public services,Jones said on Tuesday it would help end the unfairness of “pushy” people being able to access certain services because they had the patience and energy to wade through government bureaucracy.
He said: “At the moment, people who have the time, or the means, or the capability to just keep on, often end up getting to the front of the queue, because they end up being a bit annoying to the person on the other end of the phone.“The whole point with this is that it should be easy, simple and accessible to everybody.”Part of the government’s consultation will involve a “people’s panel” of 100 people selected at random from across the country, who will have a chance to vote on the scheme at the end of the process.Ministers say they have taken inspiration from countries such as Estonia, where people use a single digital ID to access health records, sign documents online, claim benefits and make tax payments.For now, the UK’s rollout will be much more limited, with ministers concerned about pushback from voters.
Polls show 40% of people oppose the idea, compared with 32% who back it.Jones said that if future governments wanted to expand its application beyond what is developed by the time of the next election, they would have to return to parliament to secure the support.He said: “I expect to build in a mechanism that means that government and any future government will have to be back to parliament for a check and balance and approval for each service that comes onto the app in the future.”
Middle East crisis could push UK inflation back up to 3%, says OBR
UK inflation could end the year higher than previously expected at 3% because of the US-Israel war in Iran, the government’s economics watchdog has said.David Miles, a senior figure at the Office for Budget Responsibility (OBR), said inflation could end the year a percentage point higher than expected before the war, because of the energy price shock triggered by the crisis in the Middle East.The oil price fell on Tuesday after rising above $100 a barrel on Sunday, but it is still significantly higher than before the US and Israel began bombing Iran just under a fortnight ago. A barrel of Brent crude was trading at $85 on Tuesday evening.Miles told the Commons Treasury committee that if current energy prices were sustained, the UK would face a “material, significant” increase in inflation, delivering a noticeable and unwelcome increase in living costs for British households
Pipeline of new drugs to fight superbugs is ‘worryingly thin’, experts warn
The pipeline of new drugs to fight superbugs remains “worryingly thin” and has shrunk by 35% in the last five years, experts have said, predicting the annual number of deaths linked to drug-resistant infections globally will double to 8 million by 2050.The number of antimicrobial projects from large pharma companies has shrunk by 35% over the past five years, from 92 to 60 medicines in development, according to a report from the Access to Medicine Foundation (AMF), a Netherlands-based non-profit group, backed by the Wellcome Trust. Only five medicines are in development for children under five, who are more vulnerable to infections.“Overall, the research and development pipeline remains worryingly thin, and industry investment has lost momentum,” said Jayasree K Iyer, the foundation’s chief executive. She described drug resistance as the biggest single threat to healthcare worldwide
Datacenters are becoming a target in warfare for the first time
Hello, and welcome to TechScape. I’m your host, Blake Montgomery. If you enjoy reading this newsletter, please forward it to someone you think would as well.Iran is bombing datacenters in the Persian Gulf to blow up symbols of the Gulf states’ technological alliance with the United States. Added bonus: they will be extremely costly to rebuild, being among the most expensive buildings in history
‘I wish I could push ChatGPT off a cliff’: professors scramble to save critical thinking in an age of AI
Lea Pao, a professor of literature at Stanford University, has been experimenting with ways to get her students to learn offline. She has them memorize poems, perform at recitation events, look at art in the real world.It’s an effort to reconnect them to the bodily experience of learning, she said, and to keep them from turning to artificial intelligence to do the work for them. “There’s no AI-proof anything,” Pao said. “Rather than policing it, I hope that their overall experiences in this class will show them that there’s a way out
Cheltenham festival 2026: Lossiemouth leaves rivals in wake to win Champion Hurdle – as it happened
Here’s Greg Wood’s report on day one, thanks for following today’s action and please join us tomorrow. We go again.No sooner had Lossiemouth lifted the roof off Cheltenham with a staggeringly dominant Champion Hurdle victory than the skies around Prestbury Park also began to brighten too. The buildup to the festival had been dominated by talk of civil war, of feuding and internecine conflict. But this was a reminder of the sport’s simple pleasures
Former Super Bowl champion asked ChatGPT about injuries before girlfriend’s death, court hears
Former New York Jets linebacker Darron Lee appeared in a Tennessee courtroom on Tuesday as prosecutors outlined evidence they say ties him to the killing of his girlfriend, including messages where he asked ChatGPT questions about injuries and how to handle an unresponsive person, according to Chattanooga’s CBS affiliate WDEF.Lee, 30, is charged with first-degree murder in the death of Gabriella Perpétuo at the couple’s home in Ooltewah, about 20 miles northeast of Chattanooga. Deputies were called to the residence last month for a reported medical emergency and found Perpétuo unconscious on the living room floor. The medics were unable to save her and WTVC NewsChannel 9 reported she had suffered a suspected stab wound in addition to other injuries.During a preliminary hearing in Hamilton County court, prosecutors introduced body-camera footage from deputies who responded to the scene
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