Security of Ministers’ Offices and Communications

Lord Wallace of Saltaire Excerpts

Tuesday 29th June 2021 Lords Chamber

[The Minister of State, Cabinet Office (Lord True) (Con)]

My Lords, on private emails, government guidance is that official devices, email accounts and communication applications should be used for communicating classified information. Other forms of electronic communication may be used in the course of conducting government business. Each Minister is responsible for ensuring that government information is handled in a secure way. The specific quantitative points the noble Baroness raised I cannot respond to at this point. But, in answer to another of the noble Baroness’s questions, the official information held in private email accounts is subject to FoI.

[Lord Wallace of Saltaire (LD)]

My Lords, the government guidance seems to be not entirely clear. When Ministers are using private emails for official business, does this mean that their officials, including their own private offices and Permanent Secretaries, have access to these or are they outside the regard of civil servants? Can we be sure that CCTV is securely held? Are private contractors engaged in this? Is the technology—hardware and software—also secure or is some of it procured from, for example, China?

[Lord True (Con)]

My Lords, I apologise to the noble Baroness opposite for not answering the question on CCTV, which was a lapsus memoriae—we are not supposed to use Latin, but it was. As I understand it, the Department of Health is looking into the specifics here. It constitutes a leak and is a serious matter with security implications. I can tell the House that our understanding is that this is certainly not a covert camera, nor is there a general policy of such cameras across Whitehall. As far as the question of emails is concerned, Ministers will have informal conversations from time to time in person or remotely, but significant contact relating to government business from such discussions should be, and is, passed back to officials. That would be in line with the relevant guidance on information handling and security. The Cabinet Office has previously published guidance on how information is held for the purposes of access to information. We obviously review this from time to time. I would expect all Ministers to seek to conform to the guidance.