Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, whether Ministers in his Department forwarded official documents from their Government emails to their personal email addresses from 24 July 2019 to 25 October 2022.

Departmental Ministers are aware of Cabinet Office guidance on the use of personal emails and private communication channels and Government business is conducted in line with this guidance. The Information Commissioner’s Office report of July 2022 into the Department’s use of private communications channels found no evidence of unlawful behaviour by Departmental Ministers or officials between March 2020 and July 2021. The Information Commissioner also concluded that the use of private channels secured operational benefits at a time in which the United Kingdom faced exceptional pressures throughout the COVID-19 pandemic.