- Kable, Wednesday 16 December 2009 11.29 GMT
The scheme, which has been open to those living or working in Greater Manchester from 30 November, will be available to those in Cheshire, Merseyside, Lancashire and Cumbria from 4 January 2010 – although applicants must also have a valid or recently expired passport.
The Identity and Passport Service (IPS) will take applications through its offices in Blackburn and Liverpool from February. This follows Liverpool City Council passing a motion on 10 December refusing to allow IPS to promote identity cards on council premises or through its communications channels, unless required to do so by law.
Meanwhile, chancellor Alistair Darling has talked down the need for identity cards ever to become compulsory. "Most of the expenditure is on biometric passports which you and I are going to require shortly to get into the US," he told the Fabian Review. "Do we need to go further than that? Well, probably not."
Shadow home secretary Chris Grayling said that Darling's comments mean that the Home Office encouraging people to apply for the card represents "blatant misselling". The Conservative Party plans to scrap the identity card and the National Identity Register if it wins the forthcoming general election, due by June 2010.
The Treasury said that the chancellor was simply restating the government's position. It has committed not to introduce compulsory identity cards during the next parliament, although forcing applicants for passports to enrol with the scheme would still mean most Britons eventually joining.
