GovCoin

Baroness Lister of Burtersett Excerpts

Monday 27th March 2017 Lords Chamber

[Lord Henley]

My Lords, I would not want to speak for the rest of government, although obviously I answer on behalf of Her Majesty’s Government on this occasion. Certainly, we want to look carefully at this particular trial. It was a very small trial, involving only some 20 to 30 people. It was more what I think is termed a proof of concept rather than a trial, but it produced encouraging results and we want to look at those in due course.

[Baroness Lister of Burtersett (Lab)]

My Lords, concerns have been raised, including as I understand it by members of the Government Digital Service, that this technology could be used in future to monitor or even control how social security claimants spend their benefits. Could the Minister give a categorical assurance that this will not happen, in the interests of claimants’ privacy and freedom of choice?

[Lord Henley]

My Lords, I give the noble Baroness that categorical assurance. The Department for Work and Pensions has absolutely no access to any such claimant information and will have no access to it in any further trials we look at. We want to keep it like that. Obviously, information will be able to Disc—which is GovCoin, referred to in the Question—but that will be protected by data protection principles. I reiterate what I said to the noble Baroness: the department and the Government will have no access to that information.