Question to the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs:

To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, what guidance her Department provides to Ministers on the use of personal email accounts for the conduct of public business.

The Cabinet Office has published guidance to departments on the use of private email that covers how information is held for the purposes of access to information, and how formal decisions are recorded for the official record. This guidance is being updated to reflect changes in technology and ways of working, and will be published by the Cabinet Office in due course.

It is Government policy not to comment on individual Ministers’ security arrangements. Ministers receive support and expert advice to help them meet their obligations in the most appropriate and secure fashion. That includes regular security briefings for Ministers, and advice on protecting their personal data and mitigating cyber threats.

There is a place for the use of a variety of digital channels in fast moving modern environments. Ministers will have informal conversations from time to time, in person or remotely, and relevant content from such discussions is passed back to officials. They will also use a variety of digital communications channels for personal, political and Parliamentary matters.