We had them after WWII until sometime in the 50's when they were removed due to abuse by the authorities. Hence there is still a distrust of them. The scheme recently introduced and then scrapped could have had some interesting consequences.
This is part of why we have such "fun" with the free movement provisions, in that we do not have a population register. Nor a requirement to keep the authorities notified of where we live.
Hence unlike the other EU countries, we can not enforce the 90 day limit on EU folks being here without means to support themselves.