Question to the Cabinet Office:

To ask His Majesty's Government what assessment they have made of whether individuals whose parents were middle class when the applicant was aged 14 seeking to apply to the Civil Service Summer Internship Scheme in 2026 will self-certify as working class to sidestep the new working-class requirements; and whether there will be any audit of self-certified declarations of the socio-economic background of summer interns to verify whether applicants are falsely claiming to be working class.

The Cabinet Office uses self-certification for the socio-economic data of applicants and we expect the highest levels of integrity from all Civil Servants. This is the same approach taken under the programme's predecessor - the Summer Diversity Internship Programme - from 2010 to 2023.

Any candidate who is found to have misrepresented their circumstances in their application will face a disciplinary investigation.

We will be assessing the impact of our changes at the end of this year's programme as part of our test and learn approach.