Darren Jones MP: speeches

Speeches

• 11 Mar 2026 · Points of Order · Hansard source

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  Further to that point of order, Madam Deputy Speaker. I can only apologise to Members of the House if answers to parliamentary questions have not been quick enough to meet their expectations. I just remind Members and the hon. Member for Arbroath and Broughty Ferry (Stephen Gethins) that all the documents that have been published today have had to be subject to checks with the Metropolitan police and the Intelligence and Security Committee so as not to prejudice criminal investigations, which, as I am sure he and all Members across the House will agree, we do not want to interfere with inappropriately.

• 11 Mar 2026 · Points of Order · Hansard source

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  rose—

• 10 Mar 2026 · Digital ID: Public Consultation · Hansard source

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  I thank my hon. Friend for her question; the Government look forward to working with her and her Select Committee as we develop these policies. She is absolutely right. We are focusing on building the app and the login system with digital ID, but the big prize in the years ahead is when we can get the old services off the old computers, into the app and working well. I do not underestimate the challenge of that process, but it presents an opportunity for investment and reform that will modernise those systems, deal with those legacy issues around security and the quality of data, and ultimately provide better services to the public. It will take a number of years to do, but I am confident that in the end, it is the only viable route to modern public services in our country.

• 10 Mar 2026 · Digital ID: Public Consultation · Hansard source

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  Any costs incurred so far have been purely for civil servants to pull together the consultation and for the Department to hold discussions and roundtables with stakeholders. Government will need spending authority from Parliament to start this scheme being built, and that will be part of the Bill that will come to the House later this year.

• 10 Mar 2026 · Digital ID: Public Consultation · Hansard source

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  I can confirm that the Government will not be doing any such thing.

• 10 Mar 2026 · Digital ID: Public Consultation · Hansard source

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  Members of the Science, Innovation and Technology Committee know that I look forward to working with them and other Members on how we might legislate more innovatively through the Bill coming later this year, so that quicker digital transformation of public services is enabled through appropriate checks and balances in the House, without having to return to an enormous piece of primary legislation or have repeated Bills. I look forward to the Committee being a part of that when we legislate later this year.

• 10 Mar 2026 · Digital ID: Public Consultation · Hansard source

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  The outcomes of the deliberative democracy process will form a legal part of the consultation, so it will feed into the consultation in the normal way. This is the first time that Government have done that. I recognise that it is a bit of an innovation and a risk, but I am so confident we will get members of the panel to a place where they think it is a perfectly sensible thing to do that I think it will be a useful process. Other colleagues may wish to consider it for other policy areas in the future. It will take some time over the next few years to legislate, build the login and integrate it into the app, so we will come back to the hon. Lady’s question on future services towards the back end of this Parliament.

• 10 Mar 2026 · Digital ID: Public Consultation · Hansard source

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  Today the Government are launching a national conversation on how we will build and use digital ID as the means to access public services digitally on a mobile phone or computer. Public services are meant to be there at the most important moments of your life: free childcare hours to help your children get a good start in life, getting your passport to go on your first holiday, passing your driving test and getting your first driving licence, asking for help if you lose your job, or receiving your state pension in retirement. But today, as the House knows, it is often too hard for people to get what they need when they need it. The current legacy system of call centres, paperwork and the need for people to tell their story multiple times to different parts of Government, with hours on hold and not knowing where they are in the process, is not good enough. I want to change that, and this Government will. In its place, we will build a truly modern Britain where public services work for the citizen, through new digital public services that come together on the gov.uk app, so that help is there when people need it most. To do that, Government need to build the foundations for these new modern public services, and that is exactly what this digital ID system is for. It will be free to access for anyone who wishes to use it, and it will be built on three core principles. First, it must be useful. It needs to be easier than the old telephone and paper-based systems. Secondly, it must be secure. People will have more control over what data they share, and we expect nothing less than the level of security protections provided by banks for online banking services. Thirdly, it must be for everyone. We will not leave people behind, and the Government will help those who are less confident with technology or do not have other forms of ID, such as a passport. With a digital ID, citizens will be able to log in to the gov.uk app and then, crucially, prove who they are. But unlike an ordinary login, the digital ID will work across different Departments and services, bringing those all together in one place in the gov.uk app, so that the public can access all the services they need in one place. This is different from building one giant Government IT system—that is not what we are doing. Services will remain on separate IT systems in their relevant Departments, and the NHS app and citizens’ health data will always remain separate, but the gov.uk app and digital ID will, over time, bring all other public services into one app on mobile phones—the front door to modern public services. This will not be a new experience for citizens. The public already use these systems every day, from banking to shopping. Other countries are already far ahead of us, from Denmark and Estonia to Australia and India. Britain is having to catch up. It is an issue of convenience and efficiency, but it is also one of fairness and equality. We all know who the status quo often favours: those with the resources, the headspace, and perhaps the pointy elbows or the pushiness to get themselves to the front of the queue or allow them to play the system. But public services are meant to be there when people need them most, and how the legacy system has sometimes treated people in these stressful or difficult situations is quite frankly an outrage, piling them up with bureaucracy and leaving them without the help they need. Who is it who struggles to fill in the forms correctly or lacks the form of ID required? Who are the one in seven people across the UK who do not have a passport? They are often the strivers who are juggling work and caring responsibilities. This Government believe that everybody deserves a fair shot, and it is up to Government to give people support and a leg-up when they need it. Today we are launching this national conversation to discuss how we will build and use a digital ID. We want to know where frustrations exist with the current legacy system and which services could be made easier via the gov.uk app. Later today, I will share a prototype of how a digital ID could work that shows how “government by app” could become a reality, joining up different Departments and services so that the public do not have to do the work themselves. In the initial stages, the digital ID system will start by making it easier to complete simple administrative tasks, such as proving one’s right to work when starting a job. Other tasks, such as paying car tax, ordering a passport or sorting childcare entitlements, could become part of the same app. I understand that the idea of a digital ID has sparked significant public interest, so I have instructed my Department to ensure that this consultation goes further than any other that the Government have done before. As part of the public consultation, which is live right now, we will invite a representative sample of the public at large—from all walks of life and all parts of the country—to form a people’s panel. [ Interruption. ] That deliberative democracy process will build on our experience of supporting Parliament’s citizens assembly on net zero in the previous Parliament. Working with over 100 citizens, we will debate the difficult questions, find ways forward and build a system that can secure the trust and support of everyone. [Interruption.] To those Members chuntering from a sedentary position about having a conversation with the public, I say, “What do you fear?” This Government are very happy to talk to the public about what we are doing, and I look forward to talking to hon. Members’ constituents if they are selected to be part of the process. I understand that this will not be for everyone. I hope that the services we build will be so good that most people will wish to use them, but for those who do not, I want to make sure that help is on hand in their local community. That is why the roll-out of the digital ID will be accompanied by a digital inclusion drive to help people to access and use the services. I do not come to Parliament today with preconceived answers, and we will of course need to ensure that any future scheme is value for money, but I am interested to hear ideas about how we might use the people and buildings we already support through public expenditure to help local communities. We could use local post offices and postal workers, or libraries and jobcentres, to ensure that the majority of people can, if they need to, access digital assistance to use these services. For those who really do not wish to, traditional routes will of course still be made available. As right hon. and hon. Members from across the House know, by the end of this Parliament, digital checks to verify someone’s right to work will be mandatory when they start a new job. It is currently a legal requirement for employers to check that a new employee has a legal right to work in the United Kingdom, but the often paper-based approach of photocopying or scanning a passport or utility bills, without further checks, is vulnerable to fraud and does not create a clear record for enforcement agents of when and where checks have been carried out. That is why the Prime Minister has asked for those existing checks to be conducted digitally by the end of this Parliament. It will still be the employer’s responsibility, but employees will be able to choose between using their Government digital ID—as we are setting out today—and using a passport, e-visa or other alternative method. It will be easier and quicker for individuals to demonstrate their right to work. For businesses, it will streamline and reduce the cost of compliance reporting. For the Home Office, it will create a digital audit trail of where checks have been carried out, to support enforcement where checks have not been carried out and to deter those who think that it is too easy to work illegally in the United Kingdom. This is quite a technical consultation, but it is also a deeply political one. When the public voted for change they also voted for better public services. That is what Labour Governments at their best are all about: building new and innovative public services to support opportunity for all, rather than for just the privileged few—from the NHS in the 1940s, to the Open University in the 1960s and Sure Start centres in the 2000s. Today we are continuing that proud Labour tradition by building modern, digital public services that extend opportunity and support for people when they need it. This stands in stark contrast to political parties that wish to conserve the unacceptable status quo, or that offer to tear everything down and leave people on their own. We want people across Britain to want this system, we want them to be part of it, and we want them to have the opportunity to shape it. This consultation is that opportunity. I look forward to the involvement of Members from across the House and of our constituents. I thank my hon. Friend the Member for Makerfield (Josh Simons) for his work on this issue to date, and the Parliamentary Secretary, Cabinet Office, my hon. Friend the Member for Bury North (Mr Frith), for all the work that he will now do to make this a reality—for which I will take the credit if it goes well, and he the blame if it goes wrong. I commend this statement to the House.

• 10 Mar 2026 · Digital ID: Public Consultation · Hansard source

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  There is a little irony in the SNP advising the Labour Government that we should spend more taxpayers’ money on worse public services, which is exactly what the SNP has been doing for the last 20 years in Scotland. I look forward to the hon. Gentleman being part of this process so that we can show him how it can be done.

• 10 Mar 2026 · Digital ID: Public Consultation · Hansard source

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  No.

• 10 Mar 2026 · Digital ID: Public Consultation · Hansard source

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  I enjoyed the hon. Member’s response to the statement, and I thank him for lifting our spirit with it. Let me say two things to him gently. First, I am very confident that, because the public do their banking and shopping online in a quick and convenient way, the fact that the Government are saying, “You should be able to access public services in that way,” will seem perfectly sensible and pragmatic. If Conservative Members want to say that the status quo is the best we have to offer and we should not even try to make it better, then all luck to them. Secondly, I genuinely do not think that I heard—not for the want of trying—a single question in the hon. Gentleman’s remarks, so I have nothing further to add.

• 10 Mar 2026 · Digital ID: Public Consultation · Hansard source

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  May I suggest some of the gospels that might be a little more uplifting for the hon. Gentleman to read, as opposed to the section on Armageddon at the end? I reassure him that the gov.uk app and the digital ID login will be optional. Members of the public can choose to use it if they wish to; if they do not want to, that is entirely up to them. As I have said repeatedly to this House, I am very confident that we will build public services that are quick, easy and simple to use. That will be welcomed by people across the whole of the United Kingdom.

• 10 Mar 2026 · Digital ID: Public Consultation · Hansard source

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  We are already in discussions with the European Commission on shared standards, primarily because in Northern Ireland, subject to the Good Friday agreement, members of the public can have an Irish passport or a British passport and still work in the United Kingdom. To honour that commitment, we will be building the system to recognise an Irish passport as well as a British passport, and in doing so meet the equivalence of standards with the European Union more widely.

• 10 Mar 2026 · Digital ID: Public Consultation · Hansard source

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  Childcare is a great example. To claim a 20% reduction in childcare fees, people must log into the HMRC website every three months, calculate the figure for 80% of the fees, do the card transaction themselves, find the nursery provider and send the money. On top of that, they get a form from the council every quarter with a code they must fill out—crazy. The whole point of gov.uk and digital ID is to make things like that quicker and easier for members of the public at home, so that the user experience is as good in the public sector as it is in the private sector.

• 10 Mar 2026 · Digital ID: Public Consultation · Hansard source

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  As I have said to the House, I have been in touch with Ministers in the Scottish Government just this morning to extend an invitation to them to be part of this modernising approach to public services in the future, and I hope that they will welcome that. Of course, I hope more deeply that there will be a Labour Government in Scotland who will, of course, say that this is the right thing to do, showing that two Labour Governments can deliver better outcomes for the public. We should continue to hold the Scottish Government to account for poor public services, and encourage them to follow our way and deliver change for the public.

• 10 Mar 2026 · Digital ID: Public Consultation · Hansard source

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  I thank the hon. Lady and her colleagues for their engagement with the Government on this issue; we look forward to continuing to work with them on this. The good news is that on each of the principles she sets out, the Government agree wholeheartedly. I hope that means we will get the support of the Liberal Democrats, and we look forward to delivering these great reforms to public services together for the public.

• 10 Mar 2026 · Digital ID: Public Consultation · Hansard source

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  There have been some estimates that if we are able to harness the full benefit of the gov.uk app and improve the productivity of customer services across Government, we could save tens of billions of pounds every single year. That is tens of billions of pounds of money that is being spent right now on poor public services that can be reinvested into the frontline to support people, or even given back to taxpayers in the years ahead.

• 10 Mar 2026 · Digital ID: Public Consultation · Hansard source

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  As the House would expect, I have been engaging with the First Ministers and Deputy First Ministers of the devolved Governments in Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland about the scheme. We have made an open invitation that, should they wish to bring devolved services into the app in the future, they are more than welcome to do so. In the past, we have seen examples of choices made by devolved Governments that we would rather avoid, if we can. For example, the Scottish Government decided not to be a part of the development of the NHS app in England, which resulted in a worse service for people in Scotland than in England. Ultimately, we want the system to be so useful and so effective that people will want to use it because it will be so easy that the alternatives are not attractive.

• 10 Mar 2026 · Digital ID: Public Consultation · Hansard source

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  The consultation is open to anyone and everyone, whatever view they hold, so I encourage the hon. Lady to invite her constituents to take part. She asked about the cost of the scheme. As I have said, the Bill will come to the House later this year. A money resolution will be required, for the Government to spend money on the scheme. Future costs will be subject to the next spending review in 2027.

• 10 Mar 2026 · Digital ID: Public Consultation · Hansard source

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  It is not for me to advise other Members on how to please their constituents, but if the hon. Gentleman asked his constituents, “Would you like better public services that are easier to use?”, they would probably say, “Yes.”

• 10 Mar 2026 · Digital ID: Public Consultation · Hansard source

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  I very much agree with my hon. Friend. We have to remember that taxpayers pay for these public services, but they have nowhere else to go, unlike in the private sector, where they can go to someone else if they are getting a rubbish service. It is a requirement for all of us in this House to make sure we are using taxpayers’ money effectively to build effective modern public services, and that is what this Government will be doing.

• 10 Mar 2026 · Digital ID: Public Consultation · Hansard source

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  As I said in my statement, if people want to use online services, they can log into some websites in some Departments independently, but they must log into each one differently, as they do not talk to each other. The difference between one login and digital ID is that by proving who they are in the app, we can plumb those services into one place, so there is a front door to those services. I am confident that the public would expect that and would want to be able to vote for that in the future, in contrast to privatising the NHS, which they definitely will not vote for.

• 10 Mar 2026 · Digital ID: Public Consultation · Hansard source

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  I am happy to confirm that the digital ID scheme and its build in the gov.uk app will be built as a sovereign capability within Government and within the UK. It will not be outsourced to a foreign company.

• 10 Mar 2026 · Digital ID: Public Consultation · Hansard source

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  My hon. Friend is exactly right to call out the challenge of digital inclusion. We see in the private sector lots of services becoming digital but very little help for the public if they cannot use them. The great opportunity of this programme, as I said in my statement, is that if we can create opportunities in people’s local communities—whether in post offices, libraries, GP surgeries or jobcentres—so that there is someone nearby who can help them if they want help to use these digital systems, that would be a huge advancement on digital inclusion. I hope this programme will help deliver those outcomes.

• 10 Mar 2026 · Digital ID: Public Consultation · Hansard source

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  First, the Prime Minister’s announcement was that it should be mandatory for digital verification of ID. This scheme enables that, but there are other routes available to people if they wish to follow them. The other commitment I can give the right hon. Member is that I suspect it will be on the face of the Bill that we will bring to the House later this year.