§ The Earl of Northeskasked Her Majesty's Government:
What purpose is served in requiring that, in order to gain access to the United Kingdom online website, "per-session cookies" have to be allowed by the user's browser. [HL913]
§ The Minister of State, Cabinet Office (Lord Falconer of Thoroton)ukonline.gov.uk uses cookies so that each user can choose to receive different information according to their needs or interest. Without cookies, everyone would get exactly the same information. So if you lived in Scotland, for example, and were searching ukonline.gov.uk for information about how to register a birth, without cookies you could only receive generic UK-wide information, rather than information which has been specially tailored to reflect the different legal situation north of the Border. The use of per-session cookies is therefore vital to enable ukonline.gov.uk to meet its aim of providing every UK citizen with easy access to information and services which are relevant to them. In any case, these cookies are only temporary and are erased automatically once the user has finished their session on the site.