Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:

To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, if he will make an assessment of the potential merits of expanding the use of e-mail to communicate with his Department's customers.

DWP utilises technology which allows encryption with most providers of personal email services, such as Gmail or Outlook, helping this stay secure. As such, email communication with customers is currently permitted in certain circumstances, for example, where the customer has a reasonable adjustment in place.

The Department is keen to utilise the benefits provided by email communication, as part of its work in modernising customer contact channels to deliver modernised services. The department is currently exploring a number of specific possibilities to expand its use of outbound email to communicate with customers, recently testing sending of notifications via email to overseas customers in areas where the postal system is unreliable.