Brown: ID cards needed to tackle immigration

Gordon Brown

Gordon Brown has claimed Labour's plans for ID cards and biometric passports are the key to dealing with immigration in the UK.

During the second leaders' debate held on Sky last night, Brown claimed the measures would keep control on the levels of immigrants coming into the country.

"Next year everybody coming into the country... will have to have an ID card," he said.

"Biometric passports mean we can stop [them] at airports... and we are tightening up on that."

However, during the section of the debate regarding immigration, Liberal Democrat leader Nick Clegg defended his party's policy to scrap the ID card scheme, after reiterating his stance in the last debate.

"[Immigration] has been run chaotically by both parties for a long time," he said.

Conservative leader David Cameron was mostly sidelined from the discussion while Brown and Clegg continued a more heated exchange.

Brown added: "It would be more helpful if you supported identity cards than [dismissed] them Nick... Immigration is falling."

There is one more debate, set to focus on the economy, left in the series before the election on 6 May.

Jennifer Scott

Jennifer Scott is a former freelance journalist and currently political reporter for Sky News. She has a varied writing history, having started her career at Dennis Publishing, working in various roles across its business technology titles, including ITPro. Jennifer has specialised in a number of areas over the years and has produced a wealth of content for ITPro, focusing largely on data storage, networking, cloud computing, and telecommunications.

Most recently Jennifer has turned her skills to the political sphere and broadcast journalism, where she has worked for the BBC as a political reporter, before moving to Sky News.