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1123910

	registered interest
	date	30/04/2019
	answering body	Wales Office
	answering dept id	28
	answering dept short name	Wales
	answering dept sort name	Wales
	hansard heading	Wales Office: Contracts
	house id	1
	legislature	25259 pref label House of Commons
	question text	To ask the Secretary of State for Wales, how many companies based in (a) Wales, (b) the UK, (c) the EU and (d) the rest of the world had contracts or grants awarded by his Department in each of the last three years; and what the value of those contracts or grants was.
	tabling member constituency	Vale of Clwyd
	tabling member printed	Chris Ruane
	uin	249229
	answer	answer is ministerial correction date of answer 07/05/2019 answer text <p>The Office of the Secretary of State for Wales does not issue contracts directly. The Office buys goods and services under Government frameworks agreements and receives procurement services from the Ministry of Justice. The Office has not awarded any grants.</p> answering member constituency Torbay answering member printed Kevin Foster question first answered 07/05/2019 10:49:06 answering member 4451 label Biography information for Kevin Foster
	tabling member	534 label Biography information for Chris Ruane

1124383

	registered interest
	date	01/05/2019
	answering body	Wales Office
	answering dept id	28
	answering dept short name	Wales
	answering dept sort name	Wales
	hansard heading	Wales Office: Secondment
	house id	1
	legislature	25259 pref label House of Commons
	question text	To ask the Secretary of State for Wales, how many civil servants in his Department have been seconded to (a) the Department for Exiting the European Union and (b) the Department for International Trade in each of the last three years.
	tabling member constituency	Vale of Clwyd
	tabling member printed	Chris Ruane
	uin	249915
	answer	answer is ministerial correction date of answer 07/05/2019 answer text <p>None.</p> answering member constituency Torbay answering member printed Kevin Foster question first answered 07/05/2019 10:50:34 answering member 4451 label Biography information for Kevin Foster
	tabling member	534 label Biography information for Chris Ruane

1141262

	registered interest
	date	23/07/2019
	answering body	Cabinet Office
	answering dept id	53
	answering dept short name	Cabinet Office
	answering dept sort name	Cabinet Office
	hansard heading	Electoral Register: Visually Impaired and Learning Disability
	house id	1
	legislature	25259 pref label House of Commons
	question text	To ask the Minister for the Cabinet Office, what steps his Department has taken to increase registration rates and voter turnout of (a) visually impaired voters and (b) voters with learning difficulties.
	tabling member constituency	Vale of Clwyd
	tabling member printed	Chris Ruane
	uin	280933
	answer	answer is ministerial correction date of answer 03/09/2019 answer text <p>In September 2017 the Government launched a Call for Evidence to find out how people with disabilities experience registering to vote and voting itself. The government responded to this in August 2018 and is working with organisations such as the RNIB and the Royal Mencap Society in overseeing delivery of the actions contained in the Government’s response and more widely.</p><p>These actions include reviewing the online registration system, utilising opportunities to promote awareness for groups representing disabled people, such as in National Democracy Week, providing information in Easy Read format and making use of sight registers held by local authorities in England to support more and better information being made available.</p><p><br>Improvements in place and intended for the voting process also support participation and include improved training of polling station staff to provide better support to voters with sight loss and those who have a learning disability and consideration of options for equipment for people with disabilities to use when voting.</p> answering member constituency Torbay answering member printed Kevin Foster question first answered 03/09/2019 13:28:33 answering member 4451 label Biography information for Kevin Foster
	tabling member	534 label Biography information for Chris Ruane

1141471

	registered interest
	date	23/07/2019
	answering body	Cabinet Office
	answering dept id	53
	answering dept short name	Cabinet Office
	answering dept sort name	Cabinet Office
	hansard heading	Elections: Proof of Identity
	house id	1
	legislature	25259 pref label House of Commons
	question text	To ask the Minister for the Cabinet Office, with reference to the voter ID pilot, what assessment he has made of the effect of the (a) poll card, (b) mixed ID, and (c) photographic ID model on people with protected characteristics under the Equality Act 2010.
	tabling member constituency	Vale of Clwyd
	tabling member printed	Chris Ruane
	uin	280955
	answer	answer is ministerial correction date of answer 03/09/2019 answer text <p>In line with the 2018 pilot evaluation, the 2019 pilots have been evaluated by both the Electoral Commission and the Cabinet Office. The evaluations show that the overwhelming majority of people cast their vote without a problem. As in 2018, the data collected does not indicate that any demographic group was consistently adversely impacted by the models across the pilot authorities.</p> answering member constituency Torbay answering member printed Kevin Foster question first answered 03/09/2019 13:29:11 answering member 4451 label Biography information for Kevin Foster
	tabling member	534 label Biography information for Chris Ruane

1142007

	registered interest
	date	25/07/2019
	answering body	Cabinet Office
	answering dept id	53
	answering dept short name	Cabinet Office
	answering dept sort name	Cabinet Office
	hansard heading	Health
	house id	1
	legislature	25259 pref label House of Commons
	question text	To ask the Minister for the Cabinet Office, whether his Department measures optimism in society.
	tabling member constituency	Vale of Clwyd
	tabling member printed	Chris Ruane
	uin	282212
	answer	answer is ministerial correction date of answer 03/09/2019 answer text <p>The Cabinet Office does not routinely measure optimism in society. Occasionally questions on optimism may be included in other research studies undertaken by the Cabinet Office for contextual purposes.</p> answering member constituency Torbay answering member printed Kevin Foster question first answered 03/09/2019 13:24:43 answering member 4451 label Biography information for Kevin Foster
	tabling member	534 label Biography information for Chris Ruane

1142278

	registered interest
	date	25/07/2019
	answering body	Cabinet Office
	answering dept id	53
	answering dept short name	Cabinet Office
	answering dept sort name	Cabinet Office
	hansard heading	Electoral Register: Students
	house id	1
	legislature	25259 pref label House of Commons
	question text	To ask the Minister for the Cabinet Office, what assessment he has made of the potential merits of (a) the University of Sheffield's initiative on voter registration for students and (b) mandating universities to promote students to register to vote.
	tabling member constituency	Vale of Clwyd
	tabling member printed	Chris Ruane
	uin	282225
	answer	answer is ministerial correction date of answer 03/09/2019 answer text <p>The Government is encouraged by the University of Sheffield’s experience but has no plans to mandate a single approach across the country.</p><p>The Government is, however, committed to ensuring the electoral registration system is responsive to the needs of students. Ministerial Guidance was issued to the Office for Students (OfS) in February 2018 acting on a commitment made in Parliament during the<br>passage of the Higher Education and Research Act (2017), directing that they require Higher Education providers to comply with Electoral Registration Officer (ERO) requests for data and they be encouraged to work with Local Authorities to promote electoral registration amongst their student populations. The merits of working closely with EROs have been demonstrated by a number of Higher Education providers across the country.</p><p>Yet, the Government does not believe that one size fits all and instead favours an approach which allows innovation.</p><p>The Ministerial Guidance has since been used by the OfS to produce their own guidance to Higher Education providers, which advises them how they might best implement, and abide by, the requirements placed on them. The OfS guidance came into force in August. The Government is committed to ensuring everyone who is eligible to register to vote is able to do so and, in 2014, introduced online registration for the first time. Statistics show young people aged between 14 and 24 are more likely than average to use this as a means of registering to vote.</p><p>The Government believes these measures will drive up the number of applications to register from students – improving both the completeness and accuracy of the electoral register – as well as further improve the relationships between Higher Education provider and Local Authorities.</p> answering member constituency Torbay answering member printed Kevin Foster question first answered 03/09/2019 09:00:36 answering member 4451 label Biography information for Kevin Foster
	tabling member	534 label Biography information for Chris Ruane

1142279

	registered interest
	date	25/07/2019
	answering body	Cabinet Office
	answering dept id	53
	answering dept short name	Cabinet Office
	answering dept sort name	Cabinet Office
	hansard heading	Electoral Register
	house id	1
	legislature	25259 pref label House of Commons
	question text	To ask the Minister for the Cabinet Office, what assessment he has made of potential merits of introducing block voter registrations in (a) care homes and (b) university halls of residence.
	tabling member constituency	Vale of Clwyd
	tabling member printed	Chris Ruane
	uin	282226
	answer	answer is ministerial correction date of answer 03/09/2019 answer text <p>Block registration undermines the principles underpinning Individual Electoral Registration that individuals take ownership of their registration status, deciding when and where they want to be registered. The Government, therefore, has no plans to implement any measures, including introducing block registration that would remove this choice</p><p>The Government has taken a number of steps to improve student registration. The Higher Education and Research Act 2017 ensures that student electoral registration is a core condition of the new higher education framework and subsequent regulatory guidance for higher education providers reinforces their obligations to promote registration and provides case studies of good practice.</p> answering member constituency Torbay answering member printed Kevin Foster question first answered 03/09/2019 08:55:24 answering member 4451 label Biography information for Kevin Foster
	tabling member	534 label Biography information for Chris Ruane

1142281

	registered interest
	date	25/07/2019
	answering body	Cabinet Office
	answering dept id	53
	answering dept short name	Cabinet Office
	answering dept sort name	Cabinet Office
	hansard heading	Electoral Register
	house id	1
	legislature	25259 pref label House of Commons
	question text	To ask the Minister for the Cabinet Office, what assessment he has made of the potential merits of including information on voter registration in national insurance number notification letters.
	tabling member constituency	Vale of Clwyd
	tabling member printed	Chris Ruane
	uin	282227
	answer	answer is ministerial correction date of answer 03/09/2019 answer text <p>The Government has worked closely with HMRC to identify opportunities to promote voter registration, for example in tax information products, and we are continuing to discuss how this might work in other communications, including National Insurance Number notification<br>letters</p><p>In addition, we publish a message reminding people to register to vote on our high traffic GOV.UK pages, such as HMRC and DVLA, in the run-up to electoral registration deadlines.</p><p>We welcome new opportunities to signpost voter registration, including to young people, and are continuing to explore physical and online spaces to place prompts with partners across government and the electoral community.</p> answering member constituency Torbay answering member printed Kevin Foster question first answered 03/09/2019 08:51:24 answering member 4451 label Biography information for Kevin Foster
	tabling member	534 label Biography information for Chris Ruane

1142283

	registered interest
	date	25/07/2019
	answering body	Cabinet Office
	answering dept id	53
	answering dept short name	Cabinet Office
	answering dept sort name	Cabinet Office
	hansard heading	Electoral Register
	house id	1
	legislature	25259 pref label House of Commons
	question text	To ask the Minister for the Cabinet Office, what assessment he has made of the potential merits of a pilot scheme allowing election-day voter registration in polling stations.
	tabling member constituency	Vale of Clwyd
	tabling member printed	Chris Ruane
	uin	282228
	answer	answer is ministerial correction date of answer 03/09/2019 answer text <p>The Government has no plans to introduce election day registration. To work effectively and securely, it would require all polling stations in a constituency to be electronically linked and the register updated in real time to prevent anyone registering and voting in one<br />polling station and moving quickly to another to do the same. This would present considerable technical challenges and carry significant cost.</p><p><ins class="ministerial">Such a change would introduce uncertainties as to the register to be used for the election and undermine confidence in the process if candidates were unable to challenge any unusual trends in registration prior to Polling Day.</ins></p><p>Electoral Registration Officers (EROs) are legally responsible for determining who is eligible to vote in polls in their local areas. Coming to a determination can take time and cannot be done instantaneously.</p> answering member constituency Torbay answering member printed Kevin Foster question first answered 03/09/2019 09:22:51 question first ministerially corrected 05/09/2019 14:18:34 answering member 4451 label Biography information for Kevin Foster previous answer version 132660 answering member constituency Torbay answering member printed Kevin Foster answering member 4451 label Biography information for Kevin Foster
	tabling member	534 label Biography information for Chris Ruane

1142284

	registered interest
	date	25/07/2019
	answering body	Cabinet Office
	answering dept id	53
	answering dept short name	Cabinet Office
	answering dept sort name	Cabinet Office
	hansard heading	Electoral Register
	house id	1
	legislature	25259 pref label House of Commons
	question text	To ask the Minister for the Cabinet Office, what assessment he has made of the potential merits of replacing ERO electoral registers with a single national electoral register.
	tabling member constituency	Vale of Clwyd
	tabling member printed	Chris Ruane
	uin	282229
	answer	answer is ministerial correction date of answer 03/09/2019 answer text <p>The Government has no plans to introduce a new nation-wide database for the purposes of electoral registration. The introduction of such a database would raise a number of significant technical and practical issues, as well as security and privacy concerns.</p><p>The Cabinet Office is currently considering ways to modernise and streamline the existing registration system to ensure it is responsive to the needs of electoral administrators and citizens alike. This includes making the system of electoral registration even more convenient, accessible and user-friendly, as well as more efficient by developing more cost effective approaches to maintaining the completeness and accuracy of their registers.</p> answering member constituency Torbay answering member printed Kevin Foster question first answered 03/09/2019 08:56:40 answering member 4451 label Biography information for Kevin Foster
	tabling member	534 label Biography information for Chris Ruane