Question to the Department for Business and Trade:

To ask the Secretary of State for Business and Trade, whether the (a) Intelligence Community and (b) National Cyber Security Centre will have any role in the certification and auditing of companies authorised to provide electronic balloting services for trade unions.

This Government is committed to allowing modern, secure, electronic balloting and workplace ballots for trade unions, as political parties and listed companies already use.

We have worked with the National Cyber Security Centre (NCSC) in our development of this policy which will require detailed cyber-security standards, independent cyber-security certification requirements, and audit principles to be met for electronic balloting to be used.

When conducting statutory ballots by electronic means, trade unions will have to appoint an independent scrutineer who meets the conditions under the Trade Union Ballots and Elections (Independent Scrutineer Qualifications) Order 1993 to assure that there is no contravention of the required standards.