Question to the Ministry of Justice:

To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, with reference to the meeting held between the former Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Justice and Member for Llanelli on November 20th 2018, what progress his Department has made in developing an electronic card, by which a person can demonstrate they have power of attorney.

My department continues to work on modernising how lasting powers of attorney (LPA) are created and used by members of the public. Since the meeting in 2018, the Office of the Public Guardian (OPG) has launched its “Use a lasting power of attorney” service. This allows third parties such as banks and hospitals to check the details of an LPA digitally including who can legally act under the LPA. This removes the need for any physical LPA to be provided. Additionally, in July last year we published a consultation on modernising how LPAs are created and registered with the OPG. The consultation outlined proposals for how an LPA could be created digitally in the future. This work includes research with the people who make and use LPAs to understand what format they would want an LPA to exist in, in the future.