New Labour’s proposed national identity scheme is losing momentum as the start of the voluntary ID card trial has been postponed fuelling speculation that the government’s plans are in disarray.

Home Secretary Alan Johnson was to promote the pilot scheme in Manchester, but instead had to settle for showing off the final design for the new ID cards while promising the scheme would go national in 2011 or 2012.

The government has already spent £214 million on the system with the total estimated cost reaching a staggering £1.3bn for identity cards, more than triple the original estimate, and £3.6bn for biometric passports.

Significantly the £500m contract for the manufacture of the cards will not now be awarded before the next general election, with Tories committed to scrapping the scheme if they get into power.

Since coming to power New Labour has been obsessed with monitoring its citizens. Britain now has the world’s largest DNA database with nearly five million profiles, more than the USA. There are an estimated 4.2 million CCTV cameras in operation and documents reveal there were 504,073 new cases of state-sanctioned surveillance last year, a rise of 44%, the equivalent of one adult in 78 being monitored by the state. When the Regulation of Investigatory Powers Act was passed a decade ago, only nine bodies – mainly police and intelligence agencies – could use it to spy on people, now 795 authorities can.

Some 50,000 ID cards have already been issued to foreign workers.