SCIENCE Secretary Peter Kyle has said that the government is to reduce the amount of paperwork involved in delivering public services and will soon launch a new phone app.

He told GB News: “We need to transition government into the digital age. The way that people interact with banking, commerce and travel services via smartphones and other ways simply isn’t the case with government and public services.

“We want to make sure we get government fit for the digital age, and that is underway now. We’ve discovered that almost half of all transactions undertaken by government are analogue.

“That means 45,000 envelopes opened at the DVLA. It means 100,000 phone calls being answered by HMRC.

“Someone in my office in government, a civil servant who, fantastically, got pregnant, recently had a baby. Her maternity card was sent through the post. She had to fill it out by hand. She had to go through with all the check ups having it filled in manually.

“She was told that if she didn’t have that card with her when she went into labour and went into hospital to give birth, then it wouldn’t have they wouldn’t have access to her medical records.

“This is no way to do government. It is no way to do government into that during the 2020s going forward, and we are going to fix that by delivering a more efficient and effective civil service and systems in government and a much better service to people up and down our country…

“When I came into office just seven months ago, I asked how quickly it would take to get a digital driving license into people’s hands in their smartphones, I was told that it would take more than five years and couldn’t be done in one parliament.

“Well, I’m pleased to say that in June this year, we will deliver a gov.uk app so anyone with a smartphone can access a range of government services.

“You can use AI in the app to talk and communicate with the government, having access to 700,000 pages of information in a human chat facility. And then shortly afterwards, you’ll get the digital wallet.

“And then by the end of this year, you will have a digital driving license with all of the age verification functions attached to it. So we will deliver that app within 11 months.

“I hope that shows people, because none of that work was started when we came into office, I started that work in my department, and that shows what we are capable of as a government and as a Civil Service when you have clear objectives, strident leadership, and you are determined to deliver the change people need.”