public sector

Minutes will not be published, and MPs still have no answer on the group's budget or how its members were chosen

The minutes of the government's recently announced digital ID advisory group will not be published, Cabinet Office minister James Frith has told a Conservative MP, while not answering his questions about its budget or how its members were selected.

Andrew Snowden, MP for Fylde and an assistant whip, asked the Cabinet Office whether the minutes, recommendations, and advice of the digital ID advisory group announced earlier this month will be published. In separate parliamentary written questions, he also asked what budget the group had been allocated and what criteria were used to select its members, who include security expert David Rogers, Mumsnet founder Justine Roberts, and former New South Wales digital government minister Victor Dominello.

"The running of the digital ID advisory group will be supported by the Cabinet Office's existing digital ID task force. The group is not a decision-making body and minutes will not be published," said Frith in identical replies to all three questions.

"The answer was disappointing to say the least," said Snowden when asked by The Register if he was satisfied with Frith's response. "Digital ID was a deeply controversial policy when Keir Starmer announced it, causing one of the many U-turns that led to the situation we are in today. If the government are persisting with developing a system of digital ID then scrutiny of that policy by Members of Parliament is vital. To ignore key questions will not increase public support for digital ID."

Snowden added that written parliamentary questions are an important way to hold the government to account and obtain further information. "When the government refuses to answer questions from Members it is not just us they are disrespecting. They are disrespecting Parliament itself and the people we represent."

The digital ID scheme was announced last September at the Labour Party's annual conference by current prime minister Keir Starmer. The conference also heard Greater Manchester mayor Andy Burnham speaking against the plans. "I think there's a risk of an opportunity cost situation here, where something can consume a huge amount of time and actually doesn't come through," he said.

Following his by-election victory last week and Starmer's announcement on Monday that he would resign, Burnham is widely expected to become the UK's next prime minister, which could leave him to decide the fate of an unpopular scheme introduced and championed by his predecessor. ®