Britain is NOT heading towards 'papers please' culture with digital ID scheme, insists Darren Jones

Instead, he said the voluntary scheme could be used so people can prove their age in the pub or their identity at the polling station.

It can even remind people which bins to put out when it is time for collections.

Mr Jones insisted there would be a legal lock on making the scheme compulsory and police officers would be allowed to demand people produce their IDs as part of a "papers please" culture.

Mr Jones told GB News' Chopper's Political Podcast: "We're not going down that route.

"And they will not be allowed to do that.

"That will be on the front of the Bill in Parliament to make it clear that that will not be a legal obligation on anyone."

Asked if a future Government could make them compulsory, he added: "They'd have to come to Parliament and change the law if they want to do that."

Mr Jones said the new ID cards would be "the foundation of modern public services".

He said: "Most people know that for the majority of people, they're happy to use their mobile phone.

"You need an app and you need a login that can prove who you are... and then you're off to the races.

"And if you can make all of that quick, simple and easy for people, it's also cheaper for the taxpayer.

"That means they'll either be more money available for frontline services like the NHS, or indeed giving money back to taxpayers in the long run."

Mr Jones also hit back against reports of opposition by the likes of Health Secretary Wes Streeting and Education Secretary Bridget Phillipson.

He said: "Bridget's totally happy.

"There's no problems with us working with the Department for Education on these things.

"She's already talking to us about how we can make some of those processes easier for people.

"And on the Department for Health, I was very clear from the start that the NHS app should be separate to the gov.uk app, primarily because we've already spent loads of money building it.

"People have gotten used to using it after Covid.

"It works really well... It's probably the best app we have in government and people rightly want their health data held separately to their other data.

"So I didn't want to slow down the development of the NHS app by attaching it to a new project like this one.

"And so I was very clear from the beginning, and Wes agrees with this that they should be very separate."

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