Question to the HM Treasury:

To ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer, whether his Department considered a) using AI and b) developing sovereign capability as part of its development of its Enterprise Customer Relationship Management Programme (ECRM): Summary Business Case.

I would refer the Honourable member to the published summary business case and Accounting Officer Assessment for the Enterprise Customer Relationship Management programme. These set out the options considered and the recommended option for a flexible, scalable and future AI-enabled solution.

Sovereignty was built into the ECRM procurement requirements from the outset, alongside robust requirements for security, resilience, data protection and control of HMRC data, ensuring the solution meets HMRC’s requirements for protecting sensitive taxpayer information and maintaining appropriate operational control.