The below Parliamentary question was asked by Chris Ruane on 2014-05-12.
To ask the Deputy Prime Minister, pursuant to the Answer of 5 March 2014, Official Report, column 971W, on the Electoral Administration Act 2013, whether non-individual electoral registration entries will be included on the register by the time of the freeze date for the next boundary review on 1 December 2015.
Greg Clark
It has not proved possible to respond to the Hon Member in the time available before Prorogation.
The below Parliamentary question was asked by Chris Ruane on 2014-06-04.
To ask the Secretary of State for Energy and Climate Change, what length of cables between onshore windfarms and connecting sub-stations has been placed (a) above ground and (b) underground in each of the last five years.
Michael Fallon
The Department does not hold this information. Windfarms usually own the cables connecting them to substations. Gathering the information requested would, therefore, require contacting individual windfarm developers at a disproportionate cost.
The below Parliamentary question was asked by Chris Ruane on 2014-06-04.
To ask the Deputy Prime Minister, what training has been given to electoral registration officers in the implementation of fixed penalty notices for non-registration.
Greg Clark
From 10 June 2014, alongside the introduction of individual electoral registration (IER), Electoral Registration Officers in England and Wales will be able to impose civil penalty notices for failure to respond to a notice of requirement to register on the electoral register. In Scotland this will be from 19 September 2014 alongside the introduction of IER in Scotland, following the Scottish referendum.
In conjunction with the Electoral Commission we intend to collect information on the number of civil penalties issued for failure to respond to an IER invitation through each local authority’s Electoral Management System.
Local authority staff who are responsible for the delivery of electoral registration have been fully trained on IER processes, including a module on notices of requirement to register and on civil penalties.
The below Parliamentary question was asked by Chris Ruane on 2014-06-04.
To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, what estimate he has made of the proportion of people who are currently unemployed who have repeat episode depressions; and what discussions he has had with the Secretary of State for Health on the use of mindfulness-based interventions in making people ready for work.
Mike Penning
We do not keep health data on those who are currently unemployed. However we know that at any one time one in six people has a mental health problem like anxiety or depression, and a further two in a hundred are affected by severe mental illnesses like schizophrenia.
We are currently considering the design of the pilots to test the most promising interventions and evidence-based approaches put forward by RAND Europe and we will be implementing these pilots this year.
The below Parliamentary question was asked by Chris Ruane on 2014-06-12.
To ask the Secretary of State for Health, what assessment he has made of the findings of Mental Health Foundation research into the impact of mindfulness-based interventions on the reduction in patient visits to the GP.
Norman Lamb
No such assessment of the saving to the National Health Service from the use of mindfulness interventions to reduce the number of general practitioner visits has been made.
The Department is aware of the Mental Health Foundation’s research into the impact of mindfulness. The benefits of mindfulness are widely recognised. The National Institute for Clinical Excellence guidance for the NHS has recommended Mindfulness-Based Cognitive Therapy (MBCT) for recurrent depression since 2004. MBCT is available through a number of Improving Access to Psychological Therapy services in England.
The below Parliamentary question was asked by Chris Ruane on 2014-06-18.
To ask the hon. Member for South West Devon, representing the Speaker’s Committee on the Electoral Commission, what steps the Electoral Commission is taking to increase the number of British overseas electors registered to vote.
Mr Gary Streeter
The Electoral Commission informs me that it runs public awareness campaigns to encourage British expatriates to register to vote; the most recent took place ahead of the European elections this year.
Two briefing notes, which included details of the campaign, were circulated to hon. Members in advance of the elections. These notes are available on the Commission’s website here:
· www.electoralcommission.org.uk/__data/assets/pdf_file/0010/164449/Elections-May-2014-briefing.pdf
The Commission intends to run a similar campaign ahead of the 2015 General Election. It is currently evaluating the performance of its 2014 campaign to identify improvements that could be made for the General Election campaign. The Commission will ensure that a copy of the evaluation is sent to the hon. Member when it has been completed.
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The below Parliamentary question was asked by Chris Ruane on 2014-03-17.
To ask the hon. Member for South West Devon, representing the Speaker’s Committee on the Electoral Commission, pursuant to the Answer of 22 Janaury 2013, Official Report, columns 131-3W, on the electoral register, what assessment the Electoral Commission has made of the reasons for the increase from 8 to 58 in the number of electoral registration officers who failed performance standard 3 between 2010 and 2011.
Gary Streeter
The Electoral Commission informs me that it has previously corresponded with the honourable member on this issue.
Within that correspondence the Electoral Commission set out that following its 2010 report assessing the performance of Electoral Registration Officers (EROs) it became aware of anecdotal evidence suggesting that for various reasons, including local authority budget reductions, there may have been a greater number of EROs who were not meeting performance standard 3. Therefore, in addition to the 2011 performance standard return, the Commission asked all EROs for the first time to confirm specifically whether or not they carried out a personal canvass of all non-responders and, if not, to provide an explanation as to the reasons why.
The Commission subsequently requested further data from EROs who had not confirmed that they carried out a personal canvass of all non-responders in order to make a better-informed assessment of performance against performance standard 3. This data included the number of non-responding households that were not contacted by a personal canvasser or by any other method (not including forms and reminders); how many of these households had entries confirmed by other records; and how many of those households had entries that could not be confirmed and were removed.
Following this process, the Commission revised the assessments of 51 EROs to ‘below’ the standard. This meant that, including the seven EROs who originally reported that they did not meet the standard, there were 58 EROs who did not meet this standard in 2011.
The below Parliamentary question was asked by Chris Ruane on 2014-03-13.
To ask the hon. Member for South West Devon, representing the Speaker’s Committee on the Electoral Commission, if he will list the registration rates for students in higher education institutions in the UK in ranked order for the most recent period available.
Gary Streeter
The Electoral Commission informs me that it does not hold data on the registration rates of students by higher education institution.
The Commission has conducted an analysis of the results of the dry run of the confirmation process to be used during the transition to IER. This indicated that students were one of the groups less likely to be matched against the Department of Works and Pensions database.
This analysis and all the associated data is available to EROs across the country. This has allowed them to identify areas, such as those with large student populations, where they may need to target more of their resources in order to maintain or improve levels of registration.
The below Parliamentary question was asked by Chris Ruane on 2014-03-07.
To ask the hon. Member for South West Devon, representing the Speaker’s Committee on the Electoral Commission, which local authorities in Great Britain failed the Standard Three performance standard for the completeness and accuracy of electoral registration records in 2013.
Gary Streeter
The Electoral Commission informs me that this information was published and tabled in a written statement to the House on 31 March. The Commission has written to the hon. Member with a copy of the report.
The below Parliamentary question was asked by Chris Ruane on 2014-03-25.
To ask the Secretary of State for Energy and Climate Change, what his Department’s policy is on allowing officials to appear before all-party parliamentary groups.
Gregory Barker
I refer the hon. Member to answer given by my rt. hon. Friend the Minister of State for the Cabinet Office and Paymaster General on 26 March 2014, Official Report, Column 300W.