Further opposition to the identity card scheme came yesterday with leaked Whitehall emails revealing that the government is planning to introduce a scaled-down version so that it can meet a 2008 deadline.

Emails published in the Sunday Times showed that officials were concerned the interim version of the scheme may not be "even remotely feasible".

One of the civil servants involved warned that a botched introduction could delay ID cards for a generation. He added: "This has all the inauspicious signs of a project continuing to be driven by an arbitrary end date, rather than reality."