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Bradford council leader Kris Hopkins
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The leader of Bradford Council has urged the Government to abort plans to introduce national identity cards and instead divert a significant share of the funding towards improving Yorkshire's transport network.
Kris Hopkins said he believed ID cards would prove to be "an enormous waste of money, particularly given the lack of evidence to suggest they will assist in the fight against terrorism or illegal working".
He said: "The Home Office has already admitted the scheme will cost at least £5.4bn to set up and administer over the next ten years.
"Even more alarmingly, the London School of Economics has suggested the final figure could be closer to £20bn.
"In a period of increasingly scarce resources and with the Comprehensive Spending Review due next year, I believe a proportion of this money would be much better spent on improving our region's transport system which is hugely underfunded in comparison to London and the South East.
"Our roads are approaching gridlock, our trains are massively overcrowded and still the Government remains unwilling to come forward with the levels of funding that we need to get Yorkshire moving again.
"Ignoring the problem is simply not an option - we need action and we need cash. The alternative for commuters and businesses in this region is complete chaos, a situation we are already approaching rapidly."
Copyright Press Association 2006.
