Tories don black cap for ID cards

Tories want to be elected

I don't know why they are saying scrap the ID card scheme, they have surely already won the next general election. They are going to look silly when they don't scrap the ID cards and people will be even more annoyed than they are already.

I thought they invented the cancellation clause ploy

where, if you want to stuff the next government with one of your policies, you sign a contract so that the contractor gets paid even if the project is pulled.

In fact some NHS IT contracts seem to have clauses that actually prevent projects being completed - they're just there to pay party donors!

The danger is...

... that this will just encourage them to have tougher penalty clauses in the contracts.

Although it would be interesting to know if they could be enforced if they have already been warned of the circumstances under which they would be cancelled.

Payback

"He warned IT firms not to sign long-term contracts for a project likely to be abandoned by any Tory government."

A contract is a contract, and if the government (of whatever hue) wants to break it, they have to compensate the other party, so I suspect this is for the Tories' benefit, not ours!

I'd welcome the job - money if you do it and money if you don't!

Nice words from the Tories

With comments like that they are beginning to sound electable ...

(untitled)

Just seems to me that if a company enters into a contract with the foreknowledge that there is an intent for it to be cancelled at a later date, then they ought not to be able to claim any form of compensation; regardless of what the contract tries to achieve. After all it is hardly something sprung unfairly on them; it ought not be the case that one can enter into contracts expecting to make a packet on "compensation" claims. Projects should require a "buy in" by a sizable majority of our representatives, not a simple one that is likely to be overturned.

Smash the rich

Well it ent the Tories that'll be paying to break these contracts - it'll be the Treasury, i.e. the taxpayer, i.e. us.

So, James, you've got it completely back to front.

Wayland - perhaps they're saying they're going to scrap em because, er, well, maybe they are actually going to scrap them ! Gumpf !

They've said this fairly consistently over the last few years, so it seems unlikely that they are really in favour of them. Contrast that with their reticence to go into much detail over other policies...

Cameron's behaviour is unacceptable

His job is the opposition. He should not be taking such liberties and behaving as if he is currently in power, or assuming that power will be his in a short period.

I'm not exactly enamoured with Labour, but if this is a sign of things to come, this is a serious alarm bell warning of what is likely to be the conservative attitude should they come to power.

Cameron - you do not impress me. Battling in the house or publically announcing the conervatives intentions is one thing. Making public bullying announcements is a nasty, unpleasent tactic.

Why against ID cards, per say?

I'm against the large, ever increasing, amount of cash that is being thrown at the UK's ID card scheme. However I am not against ID cards per say, just the way in which systems are linked. I suppose as techies we realise that it's pretty easy to start linking databases containing fingerprint hashes to the various police databases in the future, which is surely where the protests against ID cards is.

I think immigrants would get less of a hard time if we had ID cards, as it would perhaps reduce the number of illegal immigrants. In saying that, being 'underground' in society is hard, but possible, so perhaps it would not reduce the number of illegal immigrants who don't try to get in with false papers, but get around the border patrols we have.

I really feel the tories are going to stupidly massively reduce immigration which is the real reason for them scrapping ID cards, when the English inevitably all flock from being pro-labour to pro-conservatives.

On that point, how do the majority of the English seem ok with flocking from psuedo-right to left wing in a few years? Those of you that do this, don't you realise it not only undermines democracy, but means you don't stick with the whole underpinning of voting? Hence why we Scots voted in SNP finally, get the underdog in.

Go for lib dems this time is the only reasonable assertion I can provide, they seem more labour (from 6 years ago) without the nonsense racism that the tories are doing a good job of cloaking currently. Also, you're not voting for a person (Mr.Cameron,) but the ethos of a party.

Plenty of companies...

....and not much money for new government projects.

Perhaps we can beat the contractors with the "if you stiff us over this your company will not win a major govt contract whilst we are in power" stick.

It's about time someone tried to bring companies that rip taxpayers off into line. I say tried because no doubt these companies will have better legal departments than the government if recent history is anything to go by.

Responsibility of politicians

Here if ever the case was the need for legislation (and an outside body controlling it) which places a duty on ministers not to indulge in contracts which, in the view of the courts, contains clauses tantamount to poison pills. If a minister willingly signs a contract which unreasonably constrains a later change of government, they should be legally responsible for that with severe criminal penalties.

Job done.

Careful now

Good plans from the boys in blue there. I hope their tone of "when" we get elected rather than "if" is just a case of semantics rather than over-confidence. It would be a bit of a disaster if they snatched defeat from the jaws of victory.

This is where the US wins..

They simply cancel the contracts and tell the companies to get stuffed, none of this mucking around with sticking to terms that a previous administration signed.

Simply put, the Tories (should they win), should cancel the contracts, void the terms in the contract that means they pay a fortune for sod all and just pay out for sensible costs for the companies involved so they don't go under as a result.

HMG should not break a contract.

If there are penalty clauses, then the gov should pay them. Billions if required.

Then wind-fall tax the b******s the same amount + 50%

Time to play hardball

The Tories should state they will introduce legislation cancelling the ID contracts and any "poison pill" clauses to boot.

Retrospective legislation is not unheard of. Just remove the ambiguity and get on with it.

ID cards

"techies we realise that it's pretty easy to start linking databases containing fingerprint hashes to the various police databases in the future, which is surely where the protests against ID cards is."

It's the linking of the huge surveillance network this government has built, at great expense, against public wishes, to the individual.

"I think immigrants would get less of a hard time if we had ID cards, as it would perhaps reduce the number of illegal immigrants."

So your plan is to check the papers of everyone who looks like an immigrant at every opportunity and that will make their lives better? Illegal immigrants don't cross borders, so unless you plan on mass checks inside the country, you won't get to see their ID card. How would you tell Brits from Immigrants? You can't, you have to check their papers too at every opportunity.

"I really feel the tories are going to stupidly massively reduce immigration which is the real reason for them scrapping ID cards, when the English inevitably all flock from being pro-labour to pro-conservatives."

All immigrants already have IDs, their passports! We already accept that ID as valid, because we let them in the country on their passport. So why are we duplicating that ID at great expense?

The only way this can work as they suggest is if the card is issued to every British person, if it is checked at every opportunity, to catch illegal immigrants. Well the ones from outside the EU, because all the EU ones can legally stay.

And you can't sell this to British people, because they're already sick of the surveillance and endless little pen pushing hitlers dictating their every move. So it has to be sold as 'protecting against illegal immigrants'.

Breach of Fiduciary Duty

My personal opionion is that if any MP were to sign a contract that includes onerous cancellation clauses in the full knowledge that their successor is going to cancel the project, they would be commiting a breach of trust / fiduciary duty. This could potentially expose the minister to personal liability. It would probably be costly to litigate and there would be no certainty of legal success but I would want my MP to push this line nonetheless. We should make it clear that so far as is possible, the costs for cancelling this hated project will be nailed to the Labour party and the ministers involved.

@Nomen Publicus

"It's not like anybody is going to be too bothered if Standard&Poor down rates the UK credit rating :-)"

Wrong. All UK taxpayers *ought* to care dearly about that, because if our government makes a habit shafting its business partners, those partners will increase their prices to make up the difference. Guess who ends up out of pocket?

There *is* a constitutional convention that no government can bind its successors, but that only applies to laws, not financial commitments. It would clearly be absurd for an incoming administration to turn round to the government's many creditors and say "You aren't getting a penny. We're different people from the last lot.".

This Tory ploy will simply encourage vendors to insert poison pills, which our present government will then be stupid enough to sign for. But let's be clear. The blame lies with the ministers who sign, not with the companies who are simply taking the free money they've been offered.

Local government officers who behaved in such a reckless fashion could be (and have been) landed (personally) with (part of) the bill. Perhaps it is time to consider treating ministers the same way as any other public servant.

This is what concerns me...

"The Tory Party has written to firms involved in bidding for ID card contracts and told them to think long and hard before signing anything."

The Tory party hasn't got any right to write to anyone concerning this deal. They have the right to vent in public and make merry in the commons .. .but this oversteps the boundary and makes a deliberate attempt to directly interfere with the business of Government.

What next ... a soldier with gun aimed at the enemy ... the government says, "Shoot." Is the opposition to be allowed to stand alongside and say, "Don't shot, or else we'll have you court martialled when we get in to power."

This is very dangerous ground and Cameron should be disciplined immediately.

@7mark7 Windfall Tax

Exactly. And cut them out of the bidding for any future government contracts if they complain. They'll soon back down.

@Why against ID cards, per say?

Simple - It is not the place of the Government to license the existence of the electorate. It is the place of the electorate to license the existence of the Government.

Learn from Anderson Consulting

They pissed off the Conservatives by not noticing Delorean was run by a crook and taking loads of government cash for nothing, They didn't get another UK Gov contract until Blair came to power.

"There were discrepancies in the procurement process"

If the new government finds that the procurement process was in some way flawed, then I guess there will be provision to cancel in this event. Or they might find that the chosen contractors are in breach of data protection law or have not complied with national security measures, etc.

Of course, companies that decided to try and extract penalties might find themselves missing from preferred suppliers lists for later contracts.

Second Jobs

Next month the list of second jobs for MPs comes out who wants a bet that some of these MPs may have avested intrest in companies the goverment has awarded contracts to.

Contractors way of thinking

Sign contract now - get some immediate cash. If it's scrapped, claim under the cancellation clause. What's to lose?

(untitled)

"I imagine very few people are against the idea of an ID card as such."

Not saying that the databases behind the cards are not a primary concern, but I would hope that most anti card folk are against the cards as such. How dare the authorities try to put me into a position where I have to have a card or else I am not a legitimate citizen? As a citizen I should not have to prove myself to the State, it's the authorities that should have to prove their worth to the citizens.

Bad PR?

OK, so big corporate sues HMG after cancelling the contract. HMG protest the country cannot afford it and taxes will have to go up. Big corporate pursues it through the courts, appeal after appeal.

Who will look worse here? HMG for trying to save tax payers money, or big corporate chasing profit using a contract clause put in by a previous government to force the hand of a future government.

Bring it on I say.

The lawyers should do well out of it though.

It's not complex

Cancel the cards, which is what the electorate want (and to those of you who want the ID card scheme, please do some reading - if you're for it, you don't understand it)

Tell all the companies that you will pay any get-out fees, but that they will be considered as write-offs against any further contracts. Ok, the companies can still "win" by walking away with the cash, but they won't be able to work for us again until they've paid it back in free work.

On a separate "poison pill" note...

If the government are so keen to see this happen what about all the other mega contracts... Defense training, Aircraft carriers, NHS database... all of which might benefit from cancellation & re-consoderation. Hmmm, do I see and FoI request before me...?

@Breach of Fiduciary Duty

I think it's probably a lot simpler, Cameron has made it clear they shouldn't agree to penalty clauses. When he gets in he cancels it, refuses liability under Sovereign Immunity.

If they take UK.gov to court, he reminds the court that the penalty clause was written in to override the wishes of an expected future government and the companies involved entered into that contract fully aware that the penalty clause would not be honoured by the incoming government.

Then he should remind the court that the last leadership was not elected and the onerous contract terms were clearly for political purposes and hence against the public interest.

Imagine if contracts could be used to force future policy on governments, which is essentially what is being done here. NuLabour are frightened that voters won't like their mass surveillance database and eject them from power, and they want to ensure that the next government has to do it anyway by making a private contract with the contractors intended to force the next government to do it anyway.

I don't think a court would back that.

Tory smokescreen

This is just a smokesceen from the Tories. Unless the Pirate Party win the next election in the UK these companies will still get paid large sums to create a huge new biometric database and biometric passports, writing new applications to run it all, replacing the current ancient kit and apps. The ID card itself is an optional add-on which in theory could be put on hold and implemented when we have the next terrorist scare. The main thing is a new biometric passport and database which all the major parties support and is coming to us soon

Binding future parliaments

"Imagine if contracts could be used to force future policy on governments, which is essentially what is being done here."

There's no restraint on policy here. The contracts are for the delivery of goods and services. The government of the day is free to choose not to use any of the kit once it arrives.

Contracts should be honoured. (We have enough trouble as it is in this country with politicians thinking they are above the law.) If a future government were free to break off the deal, then all that would happen would be that our government would be unable to start any project with a delivery date beyond the next election.

Like it or Not

This country hasn't a pot to piss in!

Old Gordo has overspent for way too long, the money needs to be saved

Or simply corporate responsibility

Just propose a new law with jail time for directors of companies that lose sensitive data.

In fact you don't even need a new law - just classify the data and prosecute under the official

secrets act.

the suits have it

Its not the politicians so much as the senior civil servants and "aides" that are pushing ID cards - ministers and others are just parrotting what they've been told to say.

Not, of course, that any such person would gain personal benefit from these contracts, but the current crop do seem to be wedded to the need for central control of, well, everything - except when it comes to taking responsibility when events unroll, at which point it turns out their main expertise is in avoiding blame.

These people will still be in place whenever the government changes, so dont expect any major U-turns whatever the parties promise.

"of course we could do that minister, but sadly you will have to explain it to the press next time there is a terrorist attack this system would have prevented".

That is very odd.

Warning companies that dealing with the Government could be very bad ... for the Government?

Clear

IANAL, but it seems quite clear to me. You can put anything you like in a contract but that doesn't make it LEGALLY binding. iirc, this goes right back to Dunlop v New Garage (1915): if a party breaks the terms of a contract the other party may be entitled to commensurate compensation. But that party cannot impose a financial penalty on the offending party which is out of all proportion to the losses which the agrieved party has incurred.

This is why the banks are in trouble for insisting that it somehow costs twenty quid or more in administration charges to refuse a direct debit. So I think all the talk of poison pills is probably a little exaggerated ... although I stand to be corrected (why else would I make a posting on this site :-)

GARAGE & MOTOR CO LTD [1915].

Cmon people, read the last paragraph..

>>Whilst we do not intend to scrap the programme introducing biometric passports, I wanted to make it clear that we will take an extremely sceptical view of any future contractual arrangements on ID cards that appear to have been put in place simply to tie the hands of a future Government.

That is a threat. They are warning companies, that when the project is cancelled, if any cancellation charges are too generous, it will be remembered.

So any contractor who is expecting double bubble from a cancellation, it will be their end of their Govt work for the foreseeable future.

IIRC The Tories have history with KPMG and DeLorean? KPMG got denied all Govt work until Labour got in, from the way that they behaved over the DeLorean accounts in the 70s.