"I always thought it was bizarre that the government cancelled the ID card system"
It wasn't bizarre, it was a simple fact that they needed to get a significant amount of people to sign up to the voluntary scheme or else it would not work. As soon as the majority are signed up then you can make it difficult for non-IDers to access services. However it was heading for a disaster, colossal amounts of money for a system that in trials very few people were subscribing to and there was a significant public and media backlash.
An national ID scheme needed to either be made compulsory, have started a long time ago when people weren't interested in privacy so much, be linked with a decent incentive or be a slow burner where children get to sign up when they are 16/18 as the de-facto age verification/NI card etc.
Biting the hand that feeds IT
