Two Labour candidates in the north-east have accused their Liberal Democrat opponents of wanting to sacrifice local jobs to win votes.
Dave Anderson said that hundreds of jobs at a passport making plant in Blaydon, near Gateshead, would be at risk if the Lib Dem policy on scrapping fingerprint passports were to be implemented. The Labour candidate said Lib Dem proposals were "coming back to haunt" its candidate Neil Bradbury.
The Lib Dem manifesto revealed that the party would scrap both identity cards and the next generation of biometric passports, which will add fingerprints to the photos already stored on chips and government databases.
"Scrapping these passports is part of the price Clegg demands to fund his gimmick give-away of raising tax thresholds, which would only disproportionately benefit well-off people. The trouble is that sacrificing biometric passports, which are part of improving our security, could mean the loss of 160 good quality jobs in Blaydon," said Anderson.
"I am asking the Lib Dem candidate to clarify this Lib Dem muddle on biometric passports and tell local people where he stands on the issue. Is he happy that his party wants to axe jobs to win votes?" he added.
De La Rue Systems has a 10-year contract with the government to make UK biometric passports. The company announced in June last year that it could take on 80 extra employees in Blaydon after securing the £400m contract.
Separately, Labour candidate for the City of Durham constituency Roberta Blackman-Woods has said jobs could also be at risk at a passport office in the city if the Lib Dems won. She has called on her Lib Dem opponent Carol Woods to oppose her party's policy on ID cards and biometric passports in order to save jobs.
"The voluntary ID cards scheme is administered here in Durham. Their policy is to stop people from being able to get a card even if they want one. They now also want to scrap biometric passports which would be disastrous for Durham jobs as staff here would likely be responsible for their administration in this area," said Blackman-Woods in a letter to the Lib Dem candidate.
Liberal Democrat shadow home secretary Chris Huhne told GC News: "ID cards are a colossal waste of money at a time when we cannot afford waste. It is far better to put limited resources into green jobs, energy saving, internships for young people and police on the beat."
Talkback
I'm not really sure that I agree with an argument that seems to be along the lines of 'you can't stop something evil if it costs jobs' to be honest. Everyone and his auntie appears to be pretty much agreed that the National ID Card Scheme is a bad thing and has to be scrapped, apart from the usual 'if you've done nothing wrong you've got nothing to worry about' Big Brother apologists that is.
If this really is the best that Labour can do to try and hang on to votes on May 6th then it should save some shoe leather and spare the volunteers all that doorstep grief and give them the next week off.
Dave Anderson is scaremongering, and his figures are bonkers. Where did he magic those 160 *new* jobs from? Even De La Rue, who got the £400 million, claim half that. Dropping plans for adding a second biometric (i.e. fingerprints) to passports won't mean scrapping passports altogether, so people already working on the current 'biometric' passports have no reason to fear for their jobs. Maybe Mr Anderson's been taking maths lessons from the Home Office...
Labour might have a point ! Once the rollout is under way, if they get back in, the plan, as I understand it is to gradually shift to a position where ID cards are mandatory and eventually, carrying them mandatory as well. Once we get to this exalted position, we will be able to create hundreds and hundreds of new jobs all over the country; after all, someone has to man the ID check booths on street corners and the entrances to shopping centres and the like. That could be hundreds of jobs *per*square*mile in built up areas. Then we've got the armed bands of roving ID inspectors, or "Terrorist Patrols", who will have the power to grab you off the street if you don't have a card on you, or you fail the check, and drag you off to the non-person detention centres pending covert ejection to a random foreign country.
So in total, scrapping the ID scheme could in the end cost thousands and thousands of jobs.
[For the irony challenged, the above is intended to be humorous ;-) I agree with the previous two respondents on every point ]