Speeches by Jones.

“My hon. Friend is exactly right. It is very difficult today to get information out of the public sector because it is often paper-based or on IT systems that we cannot access. With digital ID and the gov.uk app, citizens will have more control and more insight into how their data is being used and for what purposes in …”

“The consultation asks many questions about how we should build, implement and roll out this system. I am absolutely happy to tell the House that as of today, we do not know the answer. I would rather be honest with the House, as opposed to announcing a budget for something that then gets massively out of control in yea…”

“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…”

“No.”

“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 taxp…”

“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 welco…”

“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 …”

“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 don…”

“That is exactly our ambition. We will all have constituents who struggle to get in touch with the right people with the right information and the right ability to make a decision when they are trying to access support or information. This will make it much easier for people to do without having to think about different…”

“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 Govern…”

“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 w…”

“Digital ID is the premium option of one login. In many ways, one login is a great system, but it still has lots of challenges, not least because we cannot pull all these systems together into one place for citizens. That is what digital ID enables us to do, because people can prove authentically that they are who they …”

“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 servi…”

“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 …”

“The hon. Lady is wrong. I look forward to bringing provisions in the Bill later this year to prove that case.”

“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.”

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

“The hon. Lady is right that the grand idea is not just to improve public services, but to reduce cost by taking a more digital approach to delivery. At the moment, every call to a call centre or form that is filled out and passed from one person to another, is an additional cost to the taxpayer and money that is not sp…”

“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, th…”

“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.””