Speeches by Jones.

“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…”

“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…”

“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 …”

“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…”

“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,…”

“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 …”

“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…”

“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…”

“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 w…”

“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…”

“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…”

“No.”

“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 …”

“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 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…”

“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 sys…”

“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…”

“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 …”

“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…”

“I completely agree with my hon. Friend. The good news is that there will be a “Dear Colleagues” letter coming out later today that will invite all hon. Members, on a cross-party basis, to hold a constituency event on digital ID so that they can submit those views to the consultation.”