The UK’s three major political parties have published their manifestos ahead of next month’s general election, with each outlining their plans for ID cards and biometrics.

The ruling Labour party, placed by pollsters Populus in second place with 33%, has renewed its commitment to the country’s ID scheme. Its manifesto, launched earlier this week, says: “The new biometric ID scheme, which already covers foreign nationals will be offered to an increasing number of British citizens, but will not be compulsory for them. It will help fight the growing threat of identity theft and fraud, as well as crime, illegal immigration and terrorism....In the next Parliament ID cards and the ID scheme will be self-financing. The price of the passport and ID cards together with savings from reduced fraud across the public services will fully cover the costs of the scheme.”

It also claims the UK’s borders are stronger than ever. “A new Border Agency has police-level powers and thousands more immigration officers, 100% of visas are now biometric, and new electronic border controls will be counting people in and out by the end of the year.

Elsewhere in its manifesto, the party has also said it will introduce a Veterans ID card to give veterans access to benefits and will be free to service leavers.

The Conservatives, which are leading the polls by a margin of 7% says in its manifesto: “Labour’s approach to our personal privacy is the worst of all worlds – intrusive, ineffective and enormously expensive. We will scrap ID cards, the National Identity Register and the Contactpoint database.

The Liberal Democrats, which pollsters Populus say could get 21% of votes, have pledged to scrap ID cards and the next generation of biometric passports, which it describes as ‘unnecessary’. It claims that by ‘scrapping pointless ID cards, it could pay for more police on the beat.

It claims that by scrapping ID cards and biometric passports it could achieve the following savings:

£million (in predicted nominal terms)