Asked by: Lord Alton of Liverpool (Crossbench - Life peer)
Question to the Foreign, Commonwealth & Development Office:
To ask His Majesty's Government what assessment they have made of the current situation in Darfur, Sudan, including reports of (1) ethnic cleansing, and (2) identity-based attacks, on Massaleit people by Arab militia (Janjaweed).
Answered by Lord Goldsmith of Richmond Park
The UK strongly condemns the attacks on civilians in Darfur, including the killing of the West Darfur Governor, Khamis Abaker. This message was delivered publicly by the Minister for Development and Africa on 16 June. The violence must end, humanitarian access must be granted, and those responsible must be held to account. We will continue to condemn human rights violations taking place in Sudan in international fora such as the UN Human Rights Council, and the UK continues to fund and provide support to the Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights in Sudan (OHCHR), a UN body that provides a crucial role in monitoring and reporting on human rights violations. We are liaising with them as they now set up and run their remote monitoring mechanisms. The UK has released funding to organisations who are working with local partners to collect, verify and preserve digital content from the conflict, including incidents of significant abuses.
Asked by: Lord Clement-Jones (Liberal Democrat - Life peer)
Question to the Cabinet Office:
To ask His Majesty's Government, further to the Written Answer by Baroness Neville-Rolfe on 2 March (HL5901), and the Written Statement by Baroness Neville-Rolfe on 23 May (HLWS788), whether the sharing of identity information in bulk would be lawful under the text of the statutory instrument as consulted on; and whether, and if so where, the published consultation response confirms whether changes have been made to prohibit bulk sharing following the consultation.
Answered by Baroness Neville-Rolfe - Minister of State (Cabinet Office)
The statutory instrument, as consulted on, is an enabling instrument that will make it easier for people to prove who they are when accessing government services online. The draft regulations only allow specified public bodies to share data when an individual chooses to prove their identity online in order to access public services digitally.
As a specified objective under section 35 of the Digital Economy Act 2017 (the Act), the data sharing power would sit within the tightly constrained data sharing framework of the Act. Data sharing must be carried out with regard to the Act’s Code of Practice (the Code), which has been approved by Parliament. Any public body sharing information under Chapters 1, 3 and 4 of Part 5 of the Digital Economy Act 2017 is required to have regard to this Code when doing so.
Under the Code's data sharing principles, public bodies sharing information under the powers are required to minimise the amount of data shared, and ensure this is the minimum required for the purpose of achieving the specified objective, using methods which avoid unnecessarily sharing or copying of large amounts of personal information. Failure to have regard to the Code can result in a public authority or organisation losing the ability to disclose, receive and use information under the powers.
Due to the carefully defined data sharing power set out in the statutory instrument, and the rigorous data protection safeguards in place under the Act and Code, no changes have been made to the draft statutory instrument regarding “bulk sharing”.
Asked by: Lyn Brown (Labour - West Ham)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, how many (a) passports and (b) other identity documents submitted to the Khartoum Visa Application Centre before 15 April 2023 (i) remain in the Khartoum Visa Application Centre, (ii) are being held by the Nairobi Visa Application Centre, (iii) are being held in countries neighbouring Sudan, (iv) otherwise remain in UK Government custody and (v) have been returned to applicants.
Answered by Robert Jenrick
Where our records confirm that a customer’s passport is being held in the Visa Application Centre (VAC) in Khartoum, UK Visas and Immigration have contacted all those customers that have been issued or refused visa applications in our VAC in Khartoum and offered them a letter confirming that their passport is securely stored and attaching a digital copy of their passport, that may help support their travel out of Sudan and into a third country.
Where our records show that the passport is held in Nairobi or Pretoria and a named individual (either the applicant or a designated 3rd party) is identified to return the passport to outside of Sudan, the passport can be sent (to the named individual) by courier or for collection from another visa application centre. UK Visas and Immigration have contacted all those customers. For customers that have been able to exit Sudan, processes are in place to re-direct printing of their visa and endorsement on a Form for affixing a visa (FAV) to another VAC location of their choice for collection.
Asked by: Deidre Brock (Scottish National Party - Edinburgh North and Leith)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, what guidance her Department has provided to passport applicants who do not know anyone who meets the criteria for photograph counter-signatories.
Answered by Robert Jenrick
His Majesty’s Passport Office engages with customers on a case by case basis where they tell us they do not know anyone who meets the criteria for acting as an acceptable counter-signatory. Published HM Passport Office guidance provides advice to passport examiners in considering exercising discretion in these cases. Confirming ID: referees - GOV.UK (www.gov.uk)
Customers can call the Passport Adviceline if they have questions about a passport application.
Asked by: Alex Sobel (Labour (Co-op) - Leeds North West)
Question to the Cabinet Office:
To ask the Minister for the Cabinet Office, if his Department will make an assessment of the potential merits of recognising the disabled person's bus pass as an official form of identification across Government services.
Answered by Alex Burghart - Parliamentary Secretary (Cabinet Office)
Each individual government service decides what constitutes acceptable forms of identification, based on the requirements of the service.
In Cabinet Office, Government Digital Service, in collaboration with other government departments, is developing a single sign-on and identity verification service, named GOV.UK One Login. One Login will allow people to create and reuse a digital identity to access public services.
One Login’s secure and robust identity checking process currently accepts two forms of photographic documentation: passports and driving licences.
We recognise that not everyone has a passport or driving licence and therefore, over time, we will implement other ways for users to verify their identity when using GOV.UK One Login. This is to ensure as many people as possible can access the services they need online.
This will involve reviewing options to use the disabled persons bus pass in due course.
Asked by: Stephen Timms (Labour - East Ham)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, what steps she is taking with Cabinet colleagues to allow businesses to share data for the purpose of tackling fraud.
Answered by Tom Tugendhat - Minister of State (Home Office) (Security)
The Government is working with industry to close the vulnerabilities in systems, processes and businesses that are exploited by fraudsters and ensure they have the necessary tools to protect themselves from fraudsters. This is why the Home Office will shortly be publishing a new strategy to address the threat of fraud.
Reforms in the Economic Crime and Corporate Transparency Bill will also enable businesses to share information more easily for the purposes of preventing, investigating or detecting economic crime by disapplying civil liability for breaches of confidentiality for firms who share information to combat economic crime. This includes for the prevention of fraud. In parallel, reforms to GDPR via provisions in the Data Protection and Digital Identity Bill will provide a clearer legal basis for businesses sharing information for crime prevention purposes.
Asked by: Lord Lipsey (Labour - Life peer)
Question to the HM Treasury:
To ask His Majesty's Government what plans they have to make the Government Gateway more accessible for new users.
Answered by Baroness Penn - Minister on Leave (Parliamentary Under Secretary of State)
Before a customer can interact with HMRC online services we need to be confident that the customer has the right to do so and that customer data is suitably protected. Core tools that help HMRC to gain this confidence are:
HMRC currently use Government Gateway and HMRC Identity Service for online authentication and identity verification respectively but are planning to migrate to a new service titled Gov.UK One Login.
Gov.UK One Login is a cross-Government service being developed by Government Digital Service (GDS). The service aims to simplify access to all Government services by allowing a customer to prove their identity once and to then re-use that identity. This reduces the barrier created in requiring customers to prove their identity multiple times across different Government departments.
Accessibility and inclusivity are a priority for the programme and GDS have a plan of activity to improve inclusion over time. Examples include:
This intention to migrate to Gov.UK One Login as the cross-Government strategic solution means that HMRC will limit any activity to increase accessibility within Government Gateway and the internal HMRC identity verification services. This is due to the limited remaining window to gain benefit from improvements to those services and the need to avoid duplication of effort.
Asked by: Justin Madders (Labour - Ellesmere Port and Neston)
Question to the Ministry of Defence:
To ask the Secretary of State for Defence, pursuant to the Answer of 9 November to Question 78753 on Veterans: Identity Cards, what progress his Department has made on the (a) new digital service for veterans and (b) delivery of Veterans’ Recognition Cards.
Answered by Andrew Murrison - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Ministry of Defence)
The Government remains committed to delivering recognition cards to existing veterans. Work is underway to develop the verification system required in order to begin the second phase of the card rollout to those who left service before December 2018. The Office for Veterans’ Affairs has led this work through the initial development phases and the Ministry of Defence has now taken responsibility for the next stage which will further develop and test the service, including with a small community of veterans. We will be engaging with veterans over the coming months to participate in this testing phase.
Asked by: Christopher Chope (Conservative - Christchurch)
Question to the Cabinet Office:
To ask the Minister for the Cabinet Office, when he plans to respond to the consultation on the draft Digital Government (Disclosure of Information) (Identity Verification Services) Regulations 2023, published on 4 January 2023.
Answered by Alex Burghart - Parliamentary Secretary (Cabinet Office)
The public consultation is due to run until 1 March 2023. Following this, the Cabinet Office will publish a government response and written ministerial statement to the public consultation within the period set out in Cabinet Office consultation principles guidance.
Asked by: Tim Loughton (Conservative - East Worthing and Shoreham)
Question to the Department for Digital, Culture, Media & Sport:
To ask the Secretary of State for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport, what steps she is taking to ensure that data collected by her (a) Department and (b) Department’s associated arms-length bodies records biological sex as opposed to gender identity.
Answered by Julia Lopez - Minister of State (Department for Science, Innovation and Technology)
In respect of employee data, DCMS collects both biological sex and gender identity data on our HR System. Our processing and handling of this data is set out in our HR privacy notice published on gov.uk. The Department does not have oversight of staff data collected by its ALBs.
The Department also follows the Government Social Research and Government Statistical Service guidance and best practice on biological sex and gender identity as published on gov.uk.