Tag: Lord Rennard

The below Parliamentary question was asked by Lord Rennard on 2016-10-21.

To ask Her Majesty’s Government, further to the statement by Baroness Chisholm of Owlpen on 20 October (HL Deb, col 2484–90), how much of the Pharmacy Access Fund will come from existing funds to support community pharmacies, and how much of the Pharmacy Access Fund will be additional money to support community pharmacies.

Lord Prior of Brampton

The Pharmacy Access Scheme (PhAS) will be paid for from the funding for the community pharmacy contractual framework. The PhAS will be an additional monthly payment, made to all small and medium sized pharmacies that are a mile or more from another pharmacy. The PhAS has been designed to capture the pharmacies that are most important for patient access, specifically those pharmacies where patient and public access would be materially affected should they close. The PhAS takes isolation and need levels into account.

The scheme also includes a review process, and reviews of eligibility will also be granted for pharmacies that may have narrowly missed out on the scheme through the distance criteria, but are in areas of high deprivation. This will cover pharmacies that are located in the top 20% most deprived areas in England, and are located 0.8 miles or more from another pharmacy. Additional funding for successful reviews under this criterion will be made available as required.

The below Parliamentary question was asked by Lord Rennard on 2016-01-11.

To ask Her Majesty’s Government what assessment they have made of research from the University of East Anglia forecasting that the introduction of Individual Voter Registration will lead to a decline in levels of electoral registration.

Lord Bridges of Headley

The Government is aware of research by the University of East Anglia into Individual Electoral Registration (IER) that was submitted to the Political and Constitutional Reform Committee in 2011. The electoral registers used for the 2015 General Election contained over 400,000 more entries than the last registers published prior to the introduction of IER. As such, suggestions that IER would lead to a decline in registration levels were proved incorrect.

The below Parliamentary question was asked by Lord Rennard on 2016-10-20.

To ask Her Majesty’s Government, in the light of the independent report commissioned by the Electoral Commission, Evaluation of Electoral Administration at the EU Referendum, published in August, which showed that almost half of Counting Officers responsible for the referendum considered that their teams had insufficient funds available to support the work required to compile the electoral register, whether they plan to review the electoral registration funding process.

Baroness Chisholm of Owlpen

It is the responsibility of Local Authorities, under the Representation of the People Act 1983, to appoint an Electoral Registration Officer who has a statutory duty to maintain registers of UK Parliamentary and local government electors for their area. To support Local Authorities with this process, and fund the transition to Individual Electoral Registration, the Cabinet Office has provided over £25 million of funding in 2014/2015 and over £15 million in 2015/2016. In addition, the Government has committed to cover the additional costs associated with the modernisation of electoral registration for at least the rest of this parliament.

The below Parliamentary question was asked by Lord Rennard on 2016-01-11.

To ask Her Majesty’s Government what steps they have taken to ascertain how many people shown as having voted on the marked register for the General Election on 7 May 2015 were on the electoral register at that time solely by virtue of the household based electoral registration system; whether they will make any such data available, broken down by (1) country, (2) constituency, and (3) local authority; how many of those voters were removed from the electoral registers on 1 December 2015; and what plans they have to help ensure that those voters are included on electoral registers based on Individual Electoral Registration.

Lord Bridges of Headley

While data is not available on the number of non-IER registered electors who voted at the 2015 General Election, the Electoral Commission found 96% of the entries on the electoral register in May 2015 were already registered under IER. The remaining non-IER registered electors will have been contacted as part of the annual canvass, and specifically targeted by Electoral Registration Officers, to encourage them to submit an application under IER ahead of the end of the transition to IER.

The below Parliamentary question was asked by Lord Rennard on 2016-10-20.

To ask Her Majesty’s Government, further to the answer by Lord Bridges of Headley on 15 June (HL Deb col 1218), what progress they have made in assessing the benefits of an online registration checking tool.

Baroness Chisholm of Owlpen

The Government recognises that finding a way to reduce the number of duplicate applications to register to vote would be beneficial for both citizens and electoral administrators. An online registration checking tool is one of many potential solutions.

We are currently in the discovery phase of investigating the issue of duplicate applications and are scoping a number of options. Whether or not an online registration checking tool is the most viable solution will only become clear after this work has been completed.

The below Parliamentary question was asked by Lord Rennard on 2016-01-11.

To ask Her Majesty’s Government what plans they have to gather data from Electoral Registration Officers about levels of electoral registration as at 1 December 2015, and whether that process will differ from practice in previous years.

Lord Bridges of Headley

Electoral Registration Officers (EROs) will have published their revised registers by 1 December 2015. As in previous years the Electoral Commission will use the data from these registers to inform their assessment of the state of the December 2015 registers, which they plan to publish in late February/early March. The Cabinet Office has worked with EROs, Electoral Management Software suppliers and the EC to gather data that will assist the assessment of the December 2015 registers.

The below Parliamentary question was asked by Lord Rennard on 2016-10-20.

To ask Her Majesty’s Government what their response is to the recommendation of the Electoral Commission in its report on the 2016 EU referendum that Governments should make use of all available owned channels to promote voter registration ahead of any major poll.””

Baroness Chisholm of Owlpen

We welcome the Electoral Commission’s recommendation. This recommendation reflects the success of activities conducted by the Government to promote registration ahead of the EU Referendum that complemented the activity delivered by the Commission.

The below Parliamentary question was asked by Lord Rennard on 2016-01-11.

To ask Her Majesty’s Government whether they will publish data showing the number of entries on the electoral register as at 1 December 2015; and if so, whether they will break down that information by (1) country, (2) constituency and (3) local authority.

Lord Bridges of Headley

On 24th February the Office for National Statistics will publish total register entries at a local authority level for local government registers and at a constituency level for parliamentary registers. The Electoral Commission is planning to publish a report in late February/early March on the state of the December 2015 registers.

The below Parliamentary question was asked by Lord Rennard on 2016-10-20.

To ask Her Majesty’s Government how many allegations of personation were made to the police in respect of the EU referendum, how many of these are under active investigation, and what proportion this represents of votes cast in the referendum.

Baroness Chisholm of Owlpen

The Electoral Commission’s report on the EU Referendum has found that at the referendum there were 19 allegations relating to personation at a polling station and that following police inquiries, five of these cases have been resolved as no further action required, one resulted in a caution being accepted, and the remaining 13 are still under investigation. The Commission’s report states that 33,577,342 votes were cast at the referendum. The Government is currently considering the recommendations of the independent review by my Rt Hon Friend, the Member for Brentwood and Ongar (Sir Eric Pickles), which includes recommendations on tackling the scope for personation and introducing voter ID at polling stations.

The below Parliamentary question was asked by Lord Rennard on 2016-01-11.

To ask Her Majesty’s Government what assessment they have made of the completeness of the electoral register as at 1 December 2015, broken down by (1) the UK in total, (2) country, (3) local authority and (4) constituency.

Lord Bridges of Headley

The Electoral Commission is expected to publish their assessment of the completeness and accuracy of the first full electoral registers under IER this summer. This will provide a breakdown at a country level but not by local authority or constituency. The previous study of this nature was based on the last registers prior to the introduction IER, published in February/March 2014.