ID card project gets new boss

Job goes to London MP

The national ID card project has a new boss following a reshuffle of Home Office ministers.

Meg Hillier is the new Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Identity, with responsibilities that include the identity card project, Freedom of Information requests and criminal records.

Hillier is the MP for Hackney South and Shoreditch and has represented Hackney, Islington and Waltham Forest in the London Assembly in the past.

Recently a government tribunal ruled the status of the ID card programme will be made public after calls for a Gateway Review by information commissioner Richard Thomas.

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The Office of Government Commerce, which oversees the Gateway Reviews, has appealed the ruling and is now taking the matter to the High Court. No date for a hearing has been set.

The scheme has been called "out of control" by researchers at the London School of Economics, who suggest recent changes - such as dropping the iris biometrics - have not significantly reduced costs.

The government has succeeded with other ID programmes such as the ePassport scheme, which it claims has blocked 4,000 ineligible visa applications.