“This reprioritisation of public resource shows a change in direction towards improving everyday life and strengthening local economies over expensive national government schemes.”
Plans for a digital ID scheme had initially been introduced by Sir Keir ahead of Labour’s conference last year.
At the time, he argued that mandatory digital ID for workers would make it easier to clamp down on immigrants working illegally and modernise the state.
As well as tackling illegal immigration, Sir Keir said a digital ID system would enable citizens to prove identity to access key services quickly instead of having to hunt for utility bills.
The Office for Budget Responsibility estimated last November that the programme would cost £1.8bn over three years, but Downing Street rejected this figure.
In January, after nearly three million people signed a parliamentary petition opposing the introduction of digital IDs, the government changed its approach.
Instead, ministers ditched the compulsory part of the scheme and relaunched it as voluntary, saying digital IDs could eventually allow people to do everything from managing their childcare to filling in tax returns on a “one stop” app.
Soon after, Home Affairs Committee Chair Dame Karen Bradley said the government was right to introduce digital ID but had botched the launch.
In a report setting out the committee’s investigation into the launch and subsequent changes to the policy, Dame Karen called attempts to set out the plans “nothing short of a fiasco” which “raised fears of government over-reach into people’s lives”.
Burnham will become prime minister after meeting with King Charles III on Monday, and his office said “one of the first things this government will do is put its focus where people need it right now”.
Scrapping digital ID, the spokesperson said, will mean “redirecting the resources earmarked for the scheme towards people’s everyday priorities”.
Speaking to Sunday with Laura Kuenssberg, deputy Labour leader and Burnham ally Lucy Powell said the money saved by scrapping the scheme was “not an insignificant amount” and would be “reprioritised and redistributed in different ways”.
“But it’s not just about the money – it’s actually about the attention and the focus, so that the whole of government machinery can work in service of the agenda and the vision that the Labour government is setting out under Andy Burnham,” she said.