Question to the HM Treasury:

To ask His Majesty's Government what plans they have to make the Government Gateway more accessible for new users.

Before a customer can interact with HMRC online services we need to be confident that the customer has the right to do so and that customer data is suitably protected. Core tools that help HMRC to gain this confidence are:

• Identity Verification (IV): What is the real world identity of the user accessing the online services
• Authentication: Confidence that a returning user is the same user who created the original account

HMRC currently use Government Gateway and HMRC Identity Service for online authentication and identity verification respectively but are planning to migrate to a new service titled Gov.UK One Login.

Gov.UK One Login is a cross-Government service being developed by Government Digital Service (GDS). The service aims to simplify access to all Government services by allowing a customer to prove their identity once and to then re-use that identity. This reduces the barrier created in requiring customers to prove their identity multiple times across different Government departments.

Accessibility and inclusivity are a priority for the programme and GDS have a plan of activity to improve inclusion over time. Examples include:

• A wider selection of data sources and options for a customer to use to prove their identity
• Offline channels available to those who cannot use the online offering

This intention to migrate to Gov.UK One Login as the cross-Government strategic solution means that HMRC will limit any activity to increase accessibility within Government Gateway and the internal HMRC identity verification services. This is due to the limited remaining window to gain benefit from improvements to those services and the need to avoid duplication of effort.