Government loses 24,000 ID passes

"These figures are worrying in these days of heightened concern about security. The Ministry of Defence in particular - but other departments as well - should be concerned that so many official documents allowing entry to sensitive sites are lost or stolen" - SIMON HUGHES, LIBDEMS

Story in full MORE than 24,500 government security passes giving access to military sites and sensitive Whitehall offices have gone missing in the past three years, fuelling fears about the British state's vulnerability to terrorism.

The startling number of government identity documents unaccounted for has been revealed in a series of internal audits conducted by Whitehall departments and seen by The Scotsman.

Since last week's foiling of an alleged UK terrorist plot to bomb US-bound airliners, all government facilities have been placed at a high state of alert, and opposition MPs said the loss of so many security passes was deeply troubling.

The majority of the missing security passes were issued by the Ministry of Defence to members of the armed forces. In all, the MoD has lost track of 22,731 forces passes since the start of 2004. More than 4,600 military passes have gone missing since the start of this year alone.

The MoD's civilian staff are also understood to have lost hundreds of identity passes, but the ministry has admitted it does not keep a count of how many of its civilian ID cards have been lost.

Official figures show that staff at several other major Whitehall departments have also mislaid identity passes.

The passes have the legal status of official government documents and anyone finding them is obliged to hand them to the police, but many never are.

The Cabinet Office, which houses several intelligence-related bodies and adjoins No 10, mislaid more than 50 passes in a single year. In all, the department's staff lost 20 passes during 2004 while another 31 were reported stolen.

In less than three years, staff at Gordon Brown's Treasury headquarters have lost 62 passes. Another four have been stolen from officials on the Chancellor's staff.

Among the other government departments that have mislaid passes according to official internal counts:

• The Department of the Environment, Food Rural Affairs has lost 382 passes. Another 37 have been stolen.

• The Department of Trade and Industry reported losses and thefts of 582.

• The Department for Constitutional Affairs - lost 713, stolen 52.

• The Department for International Development - lost 105, stolen five.

The ministries were forced to tally and disclose their lost passes by Simon Hughes, the Liberal Democrat president, in a string of parliamentary requests.

Illustrating the sensitivity of the figures, several of the departments chose to issue their answers to Mr Hughes' questions in the last days of the parliamentary session last month, when ministries traditionally try to slip out potentially embarrassing information.

The MoD waited until parliament had actually begun its 76-day summer break before publishing its figures, meaning even MPs would have little access to the data until October.

Patrick Mercer, the Tory homeland security spokesman, said: "Identity passes are a vital security tool and their loss is likely to compromise the efforts of the police and others to safeguard British national security."

In a written statement, Tom Watson, a defence minister, downplayed the risk. "Identity cards carry a photograph of the holder and other features that inhibit their fraudulent replication," he said.