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UK digital ID plan gets a price tag at last – £1.8B. OBR says the scheme will cost £600M a year with no identified savings. The UK government has finally put a £1.8 billion price tag on its digital ID plans – days after the minister responsible refused to name a figure. Last week, Ian Murray defended the government's decision not to publish the budgeted costs of its proposal to build digital IDs for every citizen. He told MPs the cost "would be determined by what the system looks like, and that can only really be measured after the consultation has been closed and analyzed." On Wednesday, the Office for Budget Responsibility (OBR) published its economic and fiscal outlook for the UK government. In the document, it noted that the summer's Spending Review had seen departmental spending "revised up by an average of around £6 billion per year across the period [2026/27-2029/30 including capital investment], before accounting for policy, to reflect risks and pressures, most notably on the NHS, asylum, and the cost of digital ID cards, for which no specific funding has been identified." It later said there would be "unfunded cost of digital ID cards at a provisional annual cost of £0.6 billion over the Spending Review period." The OBR said the money for the digital ID scheme would come from existing departmental expenditure limits (DEL), split across capital spending (CDEL) and resources (RDEL). "The implementation of digital ID cards is provisionally forecast to cost £1.8 billion in total over the next three years, split across £0.5 billion RDEL and £1.3 billion CDEL. The Government has announced its intention to meet the costs of this through existing DEL budgets, however no specific savings have yet been identified," it said. In September, the government announced plans to issue all legal residents a digital identity by August 2029, which, in the first instance, is set to be used to prove eligibility to work. Prime Minister Keir Starmer said they would also "offer ordinary citizens countless benefits, like being able to prove your identity to access key services swiftly." Speaking to the House of Commons' Science, Innovation and Technology Committee, Murray said the digital ID scheme was "the prime ministerial priority, and therefore Government Digital Service, in terms of digital ID, will build the system under the monitoring and policy development of the Cabinet Office." Kit Malthouse, Conservative MP and committee member, said funding for the digital ID scheme might come down to departmental priorities, and could be sacrificed for other, more pressing obligations. "The delivery of it will be down, effectively, to negotiation with departments." Murray said: "That's not the policy of government." "No, but that's how government works," retorted Malthouse, a former minister.