Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:

To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, whether the Government has received advice from the Information Commissioner on whether implicit consent in universal credit would violate data protection laws.

DWP has been in correspondence with the Information Commissioner to clarify our approach to consent within Universal Credit. This does not amount to formal advice on the narrower point of whether implicit consent in Universal Credit would violate the Data Protection Act, but the Department continues to review its policy on consent and how it interacts with data protection laws.

The DWP policy to require explicit consent in most cases is to give an extra layer of security and protect claimants from people seeking to impersonate genuine advisers. We have agreed to explore options for improving the process of explicit consent in collaboration with the Social Security Advisory Committee to consider how current processes could be enhanced and publish a report on our joint conclusions.