HM’s Government has ruled out a search through the private email account of former Health Secretary Matt Hancock for discussions on official government business.
Downing Street has admitted Mr Hancock, who quit last month, used his personal address for government business.
The campaign group Good Law Project argued his inbox should be checked for the sake of transparency.
However, the government rejected this notion, saying a sweep of emails was “neither necessary nor proportionate”.
The Sunday Times has reported that, as a result of Mr Hancock’s use of his personal account, the government does not have a record of much of his decision-making during the pandemic.
The newspaper claimed included negotiating PPE contracts, creating the test-and-trace programme and overseeing the care homes strategy.
Government ministers are not strictly banned from using personal emails for work purposes, but, according to guidance, they should consider whether communications contain “substantive discussions or decisions generated in the course of conducting government business”.
If they do, ministers should “take steps to ensure the relevant information is accessible”, such as copying emails from their personal account to a government account, so they are automatically stored on Whitehall systems.
But the advice goes on to say that what counts as government business is not always “clear cut” and that it is up to ministers themselves to decide.
In a letter sent by its lawyers on 13 July, the Good Law Project asked the government to search the private email account of Mr Hancock, as well as those of health minister Lord Bethell, international trade minister Greg Hands and former Treasury minister Lord Deighton.
It said this was a “straightforward” request that should be dealt with in a “straightforward manner”.
But the government responded that, in the course of a “disclosure exercise”, it had already searched more than 1.4 million documents.
The government added: “Nothing in those documents… indicated that it was necessary to search the private emails of the four named individuals to ensure that all relevant information and all material facts were put before the court in compliance with the duty of candour.”
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Editor-in-Chief | Carl D. Pearson has been involved in British politics and media from an early age, with the key knowledge of what it takes to run a news organisation for the 21st century. Mr Pearson, as Editor-in-chief, is responsible for supervising the daily tasks of publishing media and content to UNN’s website and various platforms.
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