Ministers: Government Business

Lord Scriven Excerpts

Wednesday 2nd November 2022 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Neville-Rolfe (Con)]

I will not, of course, comment on the particular; however, it is the case that government systems should be used, as far as practicable, for government business. The guidance issued and kept under review does not rule out the use of different forms of electronic communications in some circumstances. There has to be a place for a variety of digital channels. Ministers have informal conversations from time to time and they have to use a variety of digital communications for personal, political and parliamentary matters.

[Lord Scriven (LD)]

My Lords, Ministers have said that they are conducting government business on Signal, a messaging app that deletes messages after five seconds and can block screen grabs. How is this compatible with official rules on the use of private devices for such business, particularly when having to send copies of messages to civil servants?

[Baroness Neville-Rolfe (Con)]

As I said, government systems should be used as far as practicable. In some cases it is not possible to do that, and in some cases it is not appropriate—for example, changing the time of a meeting can be done perfectly well in this digital world. Having said that, the Cabinet Office has previously published guidance on how information is held; it is always being looked at and updated to reflect modern forms of working and technology—and, of course, the changing threat. Cyber and technology are changing all the time, which is why this work is so important and why I mentioned the task force set up under Minister Tugendhat.