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Whitehall rejects £1.8B digital ID price tag – but won't say what it will cost. Officials insist OBR relied on 'early estimate' and real figure won't emerge until next year. The head of the department delivering the UK government's digital identity scheme has rejected the £1.8 billion cost forecast by the Office for Budget Responsibility (OBR), but is not willing to provide an alternative until after a delayed consultation on the plans. The OBR, which provides independent analysis of government spending, made the estimate in its Budget analysis documents published at the end of last month. But on December 3, the Department for Science, Innovation and Technology's permanent secretary, Emran Mian, told a House of Commons select committee that the cost will depend on the outcome of a consultation that has been pushed back to the new year. Mian informed a meeting of the Science, Innovation and Technology Committee that the consultation will cover what a digital identity will contain, how citizens will access it, and what range of uses it will have. "Only once we have consulted will we be really clear on what it is that we have to build and in what order. It is only at that point that we will have a good estimate of what the cost is," he said. Of the OBR forecast, Mian said: "That figure must have been taken from a very early estimate of the cost. It is not a figure that we recognize in terms of the further work that we have been able to do." On October 24, the government said a consultation on digital ID, which it plans to make compulsory for anyone starting a new job by the end of this Parliament, "will launch by the end of the year." However, in a parliamentary written answer responding to a question from Liberal Democrat MP Martin Wrigley on November 11, Cabinet Office junior minister Josh Simons MP said that it would "begin in the new year." Responding to other written questions from Wrigley, Simons said the government is considering "a digitally enabled physical alternative for those without access to technology," suggesting the government could issue physical ID cards as part of the scheme. He also said the scheme's data will be held "in secure cloud environments hosted in the United Kingdom." In response to a written question from independent MP Neil Duncan-Jordan, Simons revealed the government plans to consult on issuing digital IDs to teenagers as young as 13. "Extending the national digital credential scheme to include 13 to 16-year-olds could streamline administrative processes involved in employing young people," he said. "Inclusion of this age group could also support children's online safety by supporting age verification for online services in line with the Online Safety Act 2023."