Question to the Department for Digital, Culture, Media & Sport:

To ask the Secretary of State for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport, pursuant to the Answer of 3 February 2020 to Question 9674 on Digital Technology, whether the Government’s target for digital exclusion target is zero per cent.

There is currently no percentage target on digital exclusion. However, as per the Digital Strategy, this Government is actively committed to tackling digital exclusion and ensuring that everyone can increase their digital capability to make the most of the digital world.

From August of this year, the new Digital Entitlement will allow adults with no or low digital skills to undertake new digital qualifications free of charge.

Community-based programmes like those based across the Libraries network are also vital in supporting those digitally excluded. For example, the Future Digital Inclusion programme, funded by the Department for Education and delivered by the Good Things Foundation, has supported 1.3m people with their Essential Digital Skills to date.

Government will always offer support to those who need it to use digital by default public services, be it over the phone, face to face, or via webchat. We call this ‘assisted digital support’, and it is a requirement of the service standard, which all government services must meet if they are to go onto GOV.UK.