Just how many hard drives and other bits of kit did the Government waste our money on for their stupid, ill-conceived and now abandoned ID cards scheme? "The government destroyed the final 500 hard drives that contained the national identity register…"

In total about 500 hard drives and 100 back-up tapes that contained the details of around 15,000 holders of the ID cards were magnetically wiped and shredded.

Even if they were going to store a buttload of data on each individual, 500 hard drives for 15,000 people? Seriously?

I’d hate to know how much taxpayer money they wasted in total on this hare-brained scheme.

The taxpayer copped a £400,000 bill for contractors to delete the data collected during the scheme, which was brought in by the previous Labour government.

Part of the cost included the Identity and Passport Service writing to those few people with an ID card to tell them that it was no longer worth the plastic it was printed on.

How much does it send 15,000 letters? I’m sure it shouldn’t cost much to safely destroy hard drives (or, better and less wastefully, securely wipe them then donate them to some computing charity or auction them off…).