Asked by: Mary Creagh (Labour - Wakefield)
Question to the Department for International Trade:
To ask the Secretary of State for International Trade, how many meetings the Export Guarantees Advisory Council has had since December 2017; and when she plans to publish the minutes of those meetings.
Answered by Conor Burns
The Export Guarantees Advisory Council has formally met 6 times since December 2017. Minutes of the meetings held in 2018 have been published on its website (https://www.gov.uk/government/organisations/export-guarantees-advisory-council/about/our-governance#minutes). Minutes of meetings held in 2019 will be published in the next calendar year.
UK Export Finance’s (UKEF) Annual Report and Accounts includes a report from the Council which lists the number of meetings it has held and a summary of the issues that the Council considered. These Annual Report and Accounts are presented to Parliament and published on UKEF’s website (https://www.gov.uk/government/collections/uk-export-finance-annual-reports-and-accounts).
Asked by: Mary Creagh (Labour - Wakefield)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, if he will publish the Memorandum of Understanding sent by the Cabinet Office to his Department on the sharing of GOV.UK user data with the Government Digital Service.
Answered by Victoria Atkins - Secretary of State for Health and Social Care
The Home Office does not currently routinely publish its memorandum of understanding with other government departments and will therefore not be publishing this agreement.
Asked by: Mary Creagh (Labour - Wakefield)
Question to the Ministry of Justice:
To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, if he will publish the Memorandum of Understanding sent by the Cabinet Office to his Department on the sharing of GOV.UK user data with the Government Digital Service.
Answered by Chris Philp - Minister of State (Home Office)
The Government Digital Service (GDS) is implementing end-to-end performance monitoring so that GOV.UK can be designed to ensure that people can access the information and services they need as easily as possible. Departments are enabling GDS to centrally collect data on site usage across the GOV.UK estate, to provide an end to end, anonymised view of how people interact with government online. In developing this project, both GDS and departments have taken into account both the data protection regime and other guidance like the Government’s Data Ethics Framework.
Clear and robust Memorandums of Understanding set out the terms of the project. The MOUs outline the responsibilities of both the GDS and departments in a number of areas, including handling the relevant data to ensure there is no unauthorised access, loss, misuse, modification or disclosure.
The MoUs will be regularly updated in line with the government’s commitment to continuous improvement in digital services and best practice in data and privacy standards. It is a long standing government policy to operate in the spirit of full transparency, and GDS plan to publish the document in due course.
Asked by: Mary Creagh (Labour - Wakefield)
Question to the Cabinet Office:
To ask the Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster and Minister for the Cabinet Office, pursuant to the Answer of 1 October 2019 to Question 291346 on the Get ready for Brexit campaign, if he will publish (a) the details of all contracts over £10,000 awarded by Manning Gottlieb OMD on behalf of the Government and (b) a list of where and when all Get ready for Brexit campaign events have been held.
Answered by Kevin Foster
The Cabinet Office has undertaken to publish information relating to ongoing expenditure as part of the department’s monthly data transparency releases. The published information will be available on a regular basis on GOV.UK here: (https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/cabinet-office-spend-data)
“Get Ready for Brexit” is a public information campaign that provides the facts citizens and businesses need to know about the preparations they need to take to be ready for when the UK leaves the EU. The campaign has many direct and local elements including business roundtables, public meetings, ministerial visits and local authority events. A full list of the events that have taken place since the campaign launched on 1 September can be found at Annex A.
Asked by: Mary Creagh (Labour - Wakefield)
Question to the Cabinet Office:
To ask the Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster and Minister for the Cabinet Office, what steps he has taken to ensure that the Get Ready for Brexit campaign complies with the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR); and whether a data protection impact assessment has been produced in accordance with Article 35 and 36 of the GDPR.
Answered by Michael Gove - Minister for Intergovernmental Relations
We take the protection and privacy of personal data very seriously. The Government Communication Service adopts the highest professional standards, including complying with data protection legislation. We have GDPR clauses in our contract with our media buying agency to help ensure compliance.
A Data Protection Impact Assessment is only required when the processing of personal data is likely to result in a high risk to individuals. For the Get Ready for Brexit campaign, we did not use personal data to target advertising, and only bought media space using contextual placements (for example, buying media space in the travel or business sections of papers or websites).
We are regularly engaging with the ICO to ensure that our campaign activity continues to meet best practice and is fully compliant with the data protection standards.
Asked by: Mary Creagh (Labour - Wakefield)
Question to the Ministry of Defence:
To ask the Secretary of State for Defence, how many armed forces personnel reside in (a) Wakefield District and (b) Wakefield constituency.
Answered by Johnny Mercer - Minister of State (Cabinet Office) (Minister for Veterans' Affairs)
As at 2 October 2019, a total of 460 Regular and Reserve Armed Forces personnel were recorded on our Joint Personnel Administration system as having a primary address with a postal code in the Wakefield District. We do not record the constituency in which a primary address for our Service personnel falls.
Asked by: Mary Creagh (Labour - Wakefield)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, with reference to the oral contribution of the hon. Member for Walthamstow of 25 September 2019, Official report, column 786, for what reasons schools received images on their digital noticeboards on the Prime Minister and Brexit; and what steps he is taking to prevent money from the public purse being spent on such material.
Answered by Nick Gibb
The images in question originated from a private company that supplies digital services to schools. They were not funded by the Government or part of any Government campaign.
Asked by: Mary Creagh (Labour - Wakefield)
Question to the Cabinet Office:
To ask the Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster and Minister for the Cabinet Office, pursuant to the Answer of 1 October 2019 to Question 291339 on Cabinet Office: Data Protection, (a) who the decision-maker was and (b) when the decision was made to create a separate account to hold centralised data collected from GOV.UK services; and was that decision reviewed by the Information Commissioners Office.
Answered by Simon Hart - Parliamentary Secretary to the Treasury (Chief Whip)
The work to create a centralised anonymised analytics account is part of the Government Digital Service’s wider strategy for GOV.UK. It has been GDS’ intention to move towards this model for a while. This is standard practice for industry, and is how a modern government should operate.
The GDS takes the privacy of citizens’ data extremely seriously. In developing this project, GDS have taken into account both the data protection regime and other guidance like the Government’s Data Ethics Framework. Holding the anonymised cross-domain data in a separate account is just one of a range of technical, privacy and information assurance measures put in place before the start of the project.
Asked by: Mary Creagh (Labour - Wakefield)
Question to the Cabinet Office:
To ask the Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster and Minister for the Cabinet Office, pursuant to Answer of 1 October 2019 to Question 291339 on Cabinet Office: Data Protection, how many (a) Ministers, (b) civil servants and (c) special advisers have access to that data.
Answered by Simon Hart - Parliamentary Secretary to the Treasury (Chief Whip)
No ministers or special advisers have access to the Google Analytics account containing the data referred to in the Answer of 1 October 2019 to Question 291339. To date, 24 security cleared staff working on the project have access to the data. Access is granted on a case-by-case basis as required by business need to further ensure that only appropriate people have access to the data.
Asked by: Mary Creagh (Labour - Wakefield)
Question to the Department for Digital, Culture, Media & Sport:
To ask the Secretary of State for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport, if she will publish the accounts of the data ethics and compliance issues that her Department produced for the cross data tracking of Gov.uk users.
Answered by Matt Warman
The Government Digital Service (GDS), based in the Cabinet Office, is implementing end-to-end performance monitoring so that GOV.UK can be designed to ensure that people can access the information and services they need as easily as possible. Government departments are enabling GDS to centrally collect data on site usage across the GOV.UK estate, to provide an end to end, anonymised view of how people interact with government online. The data being analysed does not include any Personally Identifiable Information (PII), and GDS have put and technical and procedural controls in place to prevent personally identifiable information from being included by accident or malicious intent.
The Department for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport (DCMS) have been working with colleagues in the Government Digital Service (GDS) to ensure that any legal and ethical issues are considered and addressed. In developing the project, GDS have taken into account both the data protection regime and the Data Ethics Framework published by DCMS last year.