The controversial ID card has been scrapped by the new coalition government.

The new UK coalition government has announced plans to scrap identity cards within 100 days, saving the British taxpayer £86 million over the next four years.

However, more than 15,000 British citizens who have spent £450,000 buying new identity cards (£30) will not get their money back.

The National Identity Register, the database which contains the biographic and biometric fingerprint data of card holders, would also be destroyed by the first piece of legislation introduced to Parliament by the Con-Lib coalition government.

Yesterday (27 May 2010) Home Secretary Theresa May said: “This bill is a first step of many that this government is taking to reduce the control of the state over decent, law-abiding people and hand power back to them.

“With swift Parliamentary approval, we aim to consign identity cards and the intrusive ID card scheme to history within 100 days.”

Deputy Prime Minister Nick Clegg said: “The wasteful, bureaucratic and intrusive ID card scheme represents everything that has been wrong with government in recent years.

“Cancelling the scheme and abolishing the National Identity Register is a major step in dismantling the surveillance state - but ID cards are just the tip of the iceberg. Today marks the start of a series of radical reforms to restore hard-won British freedoms.”

The Identity Documents Bill is part of a first wave of priority legislation set out in the Queen’s Speech on 25 May. The Bill invalidates the identity card, meaning that holders will no longer be able to use them to prove their identity or as a travel document in Europe.

The government aims to have the Bill pass through Parliament and enacted by the Parliamentary recess in August, in a move that will save the taxpayer around £86m over the next four years once all cancellation costs are taken into account. It would also avoid around £800m of ongoing costs over the next ten years which were to be recovered through fees.

However, the proposed savings are somewhat disappointing after the Conservatives said previously that cancelling the £4.5 billion scheme would help reduce government debt.

Alongside the saving of £86m through scrapping ID cards, a further £134m will be saved by abandoning second-generation biometric passports – which would have carried fingerprint information.

The Passport and Identity Service is now locked in talks over break-clause payments with the main contractors on the projects, IBM, CSC and Thales.

A £18m Thales contract to supply the trial ID card system has been cancelled. A £385m, 10-year contract with CSC to build the database and enrolment system will be scaled back, though elements will be kept to support standard passports. A £265m seven-year deal with IBM to capture and keep biometric details will be downgraded to include only facial recognition.

A scheme under which identity cards are issued to foreign nationals resident in Britain will go ahead.

The Identity and Passport Service will inform customers, overseas governments, borders and airports of the change in law as soon as the Bill gains Royal Assent.

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