David Chadwick has urged the UK Government to scrap its plans for mandatory digital IDs, warning that the scheme risks draining billions from the public purse while failing to address the issues ministers claim it will solve.

The Brecon, Radnor and Cwm Tawe MP raised the concerns during a Westminster Hall debate this week, where he said his constituents had “overwhelming concerns” about the introduction of compulsory digital identification.

The debate on Monday, December 8 was triggered after more than three million people across the UK signed a petition calling for the proposal to be abandoned. Government plans for a nationwide digital ID have proved divisive since being announced by the Prime Minister earlier this year.

According to parliamentary figures, 4,587 people in Brecon, Radnor and Cwm Tawe have signed the petition, alongside more than 154,919 across Wales.

Speaking in the debate, Mr Chadwick drew on the history of Liberal opposition to identity cards, recalling the case of Harry Willcock, a party activist in the 1950s who refused to show his ID to police and was later prosecuted. “I am a Liberal and I am against this sort of thing,” Willcock famously declared at the time.

Mr Chadwick told MPs: “As Liberals we believe that the state exists to empower its citizens rather than endlessly monitor them.

“What we have before us today is yet another example of this Labour Government announcing a grand, attention-grabbing idea without really having a plan for how to do it.”

He argued that the predicted cost of the scheme - at least £1.8 billion - was “astonishing” at a time when public services across Wales and the UK were under pressure. If past experience of large-scale IT projects was any indication, he said, the true cost was likely to rise further.

“The reality is that this digital ID proposal risks becoming an enormously expensive distraction, absorbing money, time and political energy that should instead be directed towards the things that people actually rely on - police on our streets, timely NHS care, functioning local services and funding border security,” he told the debate.

Mr Chadwick pointed to practical concerns, including what the system would mean for people who are digitally excluded.

He also stated that the scheme will not tackle illegal immigration, noting that if ID schemes were effective at tackling the issue, the need to have a National Insurance number and ID checks during workplace applications already would have solved the issue.

Following the debate, Mr Chadwick said the strength of opposition could not be ignored.

“The fact that so many in Brecon, Radnor and Cwm Tawe have signed this petition shows how people in my constituency have overwhelming and legitimate concerns about mandatory digital IDs, yet the Government is turning a blind eye to them,” he said.

“The Government must recognise this scheme for what it is: an expensive distraction with little real benefit. It should be scrapped immediately, and the funding redirected to the real priorities of the people we represent.”