Question to the Cabinet Office:

To ask the Minister for the Cabinet Office, whether official information is considered to be held by the Crown when a Crown Servant leaves Crown service and retains such information on (a) personal devices and (b) non-government communication channel.

Official information, wherever stored, is considered to be held by the Crown.

I refer the Member for Kingswinford and South Staffordshire to the Government’s 2023 ‘Guidance on Using Non-Corporate Communication Channels for Government Business’ for further detail.