Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:

To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, what recent assessment she has made of the adequacy of the timeframe for fixing problems with GOV.UK Verify in respect of universal credit claims.

Design and delivery of the GOV.UK Verify platform is the responsibility of the Government Digital Service (GDS) and its partners. The Department for Work and Pensions, along with other government departments is a user of this service, and provides feedback to GDS about its operation, recognising that people wanting to claim Universal Credit, or check their State Pension, can choose to use it to confirm their identity. The Department has no access to this information and claimants have direct contact with identity providers (also called ‘certified companies’).

The Department will continue to consider options to provide the easiest and most secure digital services for our claimants.

There are various ways in which a claimant can verify their identity for Universal Credit purposes: in person using primary and secondary ID verification or; by using biographical questions, for those who do not have identity documents.