(2 days, 13 hours ago)
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This is about reconnecting citizens with Government. Everyone will have constituents coming to every one of their surgeries with a form they cannot fill out, a piece of maladministration in public services, something they cannot access or a difficulty in getting access to benefits. There are still people in this country who are entitled to huge parts of the benefit system but do not claim. There are people who will need this for verification of identity and their age in buying alcohol—all those things that are a big inconvenience for people. This is about reconnecting citizens with Government—modernising government, as we have heard from the Opposition spokesperson, the hon. Member for Runnymede and Weybridge (Dr Spencer). It is about making sure that the Government can be effective and can be in the digital age with a digital population. This happens in many other countries around the world. I do not have time to run through all of them now, but hon. Members can look them up.
Let me take on two issues before I finish. The first is data and security. This is a federated data system, so I say to the hon. Member for Dewsbury and Batley (Iqbal Mohamed) that his idea of bringing it all together in one database is the wrong option. The data does not move; it sits with the Government Department, and the digital ID system, or whatever system is used, goes into those datasets and brings out affirmative or otherwise—
I do not have time.
The system brings out affirmative or otherwise information in relation to the specific information that the system requires. Having one central database is the wrong approach; there would be security issues. The dataset is federated, and does not move from the home Departments. The system reaches in to get the data it requires and bring it into what it needs to do to answer the questions.
I fully understand the points made about digital inclusion; we all do. Governments have been talking about digital inclusion for far too long, and this is an opportunity to sort it once and for all. Where digital ID has been introduced, those in the most deprived communities, furthest away from Government services, have got the best access to them. Those who would not have had access before and geographically isolated communities, like those represented in Scotland by the hon. Member for Perth and Kinross-shire, have been connected the quickest and have had the greatest use from the connection to Government services.
The myths about digital inclusion, about safety and security, about the ID being called a Britcard, and about it being mandatory are not the case in terms of the policy. I look forward to everyone inputting into the consultation and the Government bringing forward the legislation in due course.
Question put and agreed to.
Resolved,
That this House has considered the matter of mandatory digital ID.