Tag: Chris Ruane

The below Parliamentary question was asked by Chris Ruane on 2014-06-24.

To ask the Deputy Prime Minister, with reference to the Answer of 28 January 2014, Official Report, column 510W, on electoral register: young people, how much funding his Department has made available to (a) Rock Enroll and (b) Bite the Ballot in each year for which data is available; and how many people each such organisation has directly registered in each year for which data is available.

Greg Clark

The Government is supportive of organisations that promote democratic engagement such as Bite the Ballot.

Cabinet Office and Bite the Ballot co-developed the Rock Enrol learning resource in 2012/2013. The value of the contract was £25,700. The Government has made Rock Enrol freely available freely available on the gov.uk and Times Education Supplement websites.

The below Parliamentary question was asked by Chris Ruane on 2014-06-26.

To ask the hon. Member for South West Devon, representing the Speaker’s Committee on the Electoral Commission, if the Electoral Commission will make it their policy to gather information on registration levels on an annual basis.

Mr Gary Streeter

The Electoral Commission informs me that they collect from every ERO, and publish, annual electoral registration statistics covering a range of topics including the number of electors on the registers, response rates to the annual canvass, numbers of additions and deletions on the registers and levels of carry forward.

This data collection will be more frequent during the transition to individual electoral registration (IER).

The Commission further informs me that they report periodically on the overall levels of accuracy and completeness of the electoral registers. Such studies are costly to conduct and it is not therefore feasible to conduct them annually. There are two such studies planned as part of the Commission’s approach to monitoring the implementation of IER.

The below Parliamentary question was asked by Chris Ruane on 2014-06-26.

To ask the Deputy Prime Minister, what additional central government funding is available to electoral registration officers for the purpose of electoral registration in each of the last 10 years; and which local authorities were successful in bidding for such funding.

Greg Clark

The following additional amounts were available for the purpose of electoral registration in the last 10 years:

2007/2008 – £934,741

2008/2009 – £544,391

2009/2010 – £427,190

2010/2011 – £54,708

2011/12 – no additional funding

2012/13 – no additional funding

2013/14 – £4,857,018

2014/15 – £29,992,993

In the financial years 2007/2008 to 2010/2011, local authorities were able to bid for funding from the Participation Fund, which was abolished due to lack of demand. A table listing those local authorities which received money from this fund has been placed in the Library of the House.

The Government has provided funding in 2013/14 and 2014/15, in addition to the Revenue Support Grant, for every local authority and Valuation Joint Board in England, Wales and Scotland for the net additional cost of the transition to Individual Electoral Registration (IER).

In addition, in 2013/14 every local authority and Valuation Joint Board in England, Wales and Scotland received a share of £3,984,068funding to support the costs of activities to maximise electoral registration.

The below Parliamentary question was asked by Chris Ruane on 2014-06-26.

To ask the hon. Member for South West Devon, representing the Speaker’s Committee on the Electoral Commission, on which dates the Electoral Commission will report to (a) Parliament and (b) individual hon. Members on the progress on the implementation of individual electoral registration.

Mr Gary Streeter

The Commission informs me that it will report to both Parliament and individual Members at appropriate points, and in line with its statutory duties throughout the implementation of Individual Electoral Registration.

The Commission intends to publish updates on progress at three key points in the transition, as laid out in its March report. This is available on the Commission’s website here:

www.electoralcommission.org.uk/__data/assets/pdf_file/0020/166511/Readiness-for-the-transition-to-IER-Progress-Report-March-2014.pdf

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The below Parliamentary question was asked by Chris Ruane on 2014-06-26.

To ask the hon. Member for South West Devon, representing the Speaker’s Committee on the Electoral Commission, how many and what proportion of people were deleted from the electoral register after the second year of non-response to electoral canvass in the 10 local authorities with the (a) greatest and (b) smallest decreases; and what parliamentary constituencies are covered by such local authorities.

Mr Gary Streeter

The Electoral Commission informs me that the requested data is presented in the table below. This data is for Great Britain and therefore excludes Northern Ireland.

Local authority	Number of deletions (from Nov 2013 register) following second year of non-response	Deletions (from Nov 2013 register) following second year of non-response (% of register)	Decrease (Dec 2012 to Feb/March 2014)
Leeds	28,190	5.0	-24177
Birmingham	0	0.0	-20243
Cornwall	16541	3.9	-13273
Newham	2491	1.2	-13183
Northampton	2,659	1.7	-11851
Shropshire	3,360	1.4	-11551
Barnet	2422	1.0	-11255
Maidstone	10498	8.7	-9257
Durham	1191	0.3	-6683
Taunton Deane	–	–	-7578
Adur	370	0.8	-109
Staffordshire Moorlands	195	0.2	-99
North West Leicestershire	20	0.0	-97
Lewes	569	0.7	-82
Cotswold	105	0.2	-80
Oadby and Wigston	45	0.1	-73
Newcastle-Under-Lyme	885	0.9	-72
Shetland Islands	17	0.1	-48
Surrey Heath	602	0.9	-36
Tunbridge Wells	0	0.0	-22

The following constituencies are covered by these areas:

East Ham

West Ham

Elmet and Rothwell

Leeds Central

Leeds East

Leeds North East

Leeds North West

Leeds West

Morley and Outwood

Pudsey

Birmingham Edgbaston

Birmingham, Erdington

Birmingham, Hall Green

Birmingham, Hodge Hill

Birmingham, Ladywood

Birmingham Northfield

Birmingham, Perry Barr

Birmingham Selly Oak

Birmingham, Yardley

Sutton Coldfield

Camborne and Redruth

North Cornwall

South East Cornwall

St Ives (includes the Isles of Scilly)

Truro and Falmouth

Northampton North

Northampton South

South Northamptonshire

Ludlow

North Shropshire

Shrewsbury and Atcham

The Wrekin

Chipping Barnet

Finchley and Golders Green

Hendon

Faversham and Mid Kent

Maidstone and The Weald

Taunton Deane

Bishop Auckland

City of Durham

Easington

North Durham

North West Durham

Sedgefield

East Worthing and Shoreham

Staffordshire Moorlands

Stone

North West Leicestershire

Brighton, Kemptown

Lewes

The Cotswolds

Harborough

Newcastle-under-Lyme

Staffordshire Moorlands

Stoke-on-Trent North

Stone

Orkney and Shetland

Surrey Heath

Maidstone and The Weald

Tunbridge Wells

The below Parliamentary question was asked by Chris Ruane on 2015-01-15.

To ask the Secretary of State for Transport, what limits are in place in relation to noise from (a) aircraft and (b) motor vehicles.

Mr Robert Goodwill

Civil aircraft using UK airports are subject to international noise certification standards. These are set by the International Civil Aviation Organisation (ICAO) and applied at the time of manufacture. In addition some airports may have restrictions in place to limit noise, which will be set out in their Noise Action Plans.

The limit in place in relation to noise for modern passenger cars is 74 decibels. For motorcycles it is between 75 and 80 decibels depending on the size of the machine. For large buses and coaches the limit is between 78 and 80 decibels. For small buses and light goods vehicles it is between 76 and 77 decibels and for heavy goods vehicles the limit is between 77 and 80 decibels. These figures are all measured using a microphone fixed 7.5 metres from the line along which the vehicle is travelling.

The below Parliamentary question was asked by Chris Ruane on 2014-06-26.

To ask the hon. Member for South West Devon, representing the Speaker’s Committee on the Electoral Commission, which 50 local authorities had the largest decrease in electoral registration between December 2012 to March 2014; and which parliamentary constituencies cover such local authorities.

Mr Gary Streeter

The Electoral Commission informs me that the requested data is available here:

[hyperlink attached document]

The below Parliamentary question was asked by Chris Ruane on 2015-01-15.

To ask the Secretary of State for Transport, what examples his Department holds of best practice in respect of work carried out to reduce traffic noise for residents living alongside main roads.

Mr John Hayes

Best practice measures that can be used to reduce road noise for residents living alongside the strategic road network are set out in the Design Manual for Roads and Bridges HD213/11. Low noise surfacing can be installed on new roads or when replacing existing worn out surfaces. Noise mitigation can be incorporated into the design of new roads by routeing away from properties where practicable and using cuttings and other land forms to act as noise barriers. Noise barriers, made from a wide variety of materials are also used to reduce road noise.

The below Parliamentary question was asked by Chris Ruane on 2014-06-26.

To ask the hon. Member for South West Devon, representing the Speaker’s Committee on the Electoral Commission, which local authorities have failed standard 3 door-to-door canvassing more than once and (a) have and (b) have not applied for additional central government funding for electoral registration.

Mr Gary Streeter

The Electoral Commission informs me that the Electoral Registration Officers (EROs) for the authorities set out in the table below have not met standard 3 in more than one year:

Brentwood

Broxbourne

Castle Point

East Devon

East Dorset

East Hampshire

East Hertfordshire

Epping Forest

Great Yarmouth

Gwynedd

Hyndburn

Lancaster

Maldon

Merthyr Tydfil

Mid Devon

Mid Sussex

North Devon

North Dorset

North Lanarkshire

North Warwickshire

Powys

Rhondda, Cynon, Taff

Sedgemoor

Solihull

South Lanarkshire

Taunton Deane

The Vale of Glamorgan

Torridge

Uttlesford

Warwick

West Devon

West Oxfordshire

West Somerset

The Electoral Commission informs me that it does not hold information on applications made for central government funding for electoral registration. The Cabinet Office is responsible for managing this process.

The below Parliamentary question was asked by Chris Ruane on 2015-02-11.

To ask the hon. Member for South West Devon, representing the Speaker’s Committee on the Electoral Commission, what guidance the Electoral Commission issues on the sale of electoral registration details of electors who (a) are on the open register and (b) have opted not to be included on the central register.

Mr Gary Streeter

Electoral legislation prescribes in what circumstances and to whom electors’ details on the full and open electoral registers can be sold.

The ‘full’ electoral register includes the names and addresses of everyone who is registered to vote. Access to, and use of, the full electoral register is carefully controlled. It is only available for sale to certain government departments and other bodies, as well as to credit reference agencies, and may only be used for the purposes for which it has been supplied (for example, credit reference agencies may only use it for credit reference purposes).

The open register is an extract of the electoral register, which electors can opt out of. The open register can be bought by any person, company or organisation.

The Electoral Commission’s guidance to Electoral Registration Officers (EROs) summarises what they are required to do by law. The guidance makes clear the difference between the open and the full registers, and sets out who can have access to them and the prescribed fees for supply.

Individuals applying to register to vote are provided with information on the open and full registers, including what they are used for and who can be provided with data from them.

As part of the transition to Individual Electoral Registration, EROs wrote to all existing electors who had been automatically transferred to the new registers. This letter included information on both the open and full register. The Commission’s report on the first phase of the transition to Individual Electoral Registration, published in October 2014, noted that when EROs began sending these confirmation letters it became clear from the response that many people who were on the open register were not aware of that fact, and were unhappy about how their information was being used.

The Commission remains of the view that the open register should no longer be compiled or made available for sale. The Commission has also recommended that, should the open register be retained, electors should be asked whether they wish to opt in, rather than opt out.