Asked by: Lord Falconer of Thoroton (Labour - Life peer)
Question to the Cabinet Office:
To ask Her Majesty’s Government what assessment they have made of the potential impact of the end of the Advice Services Transition Fund in December 2015.
Answered by Lord Bridges of Headley
The fund is a Big Lottery Fund programme, to which Government contributed 50% of the budget. As the fund comes to a close, the Big Lottery Fund will be monitoring how organisations have met their agreed outcomes and will be supporting the dissemination of learning amongst the ASTF partnerships and beyond.
Asked by: Lord Falconer of Thoroton (Labour - Life peer)
Question to the Cabinet Office:
To ask Her Majesty’s Government whether they have any plans to amend section 3(5A) of the Parliamentary Constituencies Act 1986 to remove the requirement on the Secretary of State to lay the draft of an Order in Council for giving effect to the recommendations contained in the Boundary Commissions’ reports.
Answered by Lord Bridges of Headley
The Government will outline its plans for constituency boundaries when it responds to the Political and Constitutional Reform Committee’s report, What next on the redrawing of parliamentary constituency boundaries?, in due course.
Asked by: Lord Falconer of Thoroton (Labour - Life peer)
Question to the Cabinet Office:
To ask Her Majesty’s Government whether the Attorney General was consulted or notified before the decision was made to remove the reference to the need to comply with international law and treaty obligations from the Ministerial Code.
Answered by Lord Bridges of Headley
The Ministerial Code is normally updated and reissued after a General Election. The updated Code makes clear that Ministers must abide by the law. The obligations of Ministers under the law including international law remain unchanged.
Information relating to internal discussions and advice is not disclosed.
Asked by: Lord Falconer of Thoroton (Labour - Life peer)
Question to the Cabinet Office:
To ask Her Majesty’s Government, in the light of the new Ministerial Code, whether the duty of ministers to comply with the law continues to include international law and treaties.
Answered by Lord Bridges of Headley
The Ministerial Code is normally updated and reissued after a General Election. The updated Code makes clear that Ministers must abide by the law. The obligations of Ministers under the law including international law remain unchanged.
Information relating to internal discussions and advice is not disclosed.
Asked by: Lord Falconer of Thoroton (Labour - Life peer)
Question to the Cabinet Office:
To ask Her Majesty’s Government what assessment they have made of whether the removal of the reference in the Ministerial Code to having to comply with international law and treaty obligations alters the legal obligations of ministers.
Answered by Lord Bridges of Headley
The Ministerial Code is normally updated and reissued after a General Election. The updated Code makes clear that Ministers must abide by the law. The obligations of Ministers under the law including international law remain unchanged.
Information relating to internal discussions and advice is not disclosed.
Asked by: Lord Falconer of Thoroton (Labour - Life peer)
Question to the Cabinet Office:
To ask Her Majesty’s Government when they intend to come forward with legislation to extend the franchise to British citizens resident overseas for more than 15 years.
Answered by Lord Bridges of Headley
As set out in its manifesto, the Government is committed to removing the 15 year time limit on the Parliamentary voting rights of British citizens living overseas. The Government believes that the current 15 year time limit is arbitrary and that if British citizens want to vote in the UK Parliamentary elections, then they should be able to do so. The Government is currently considering the timetable for removing the 15 year rule and will set out more detail as soon as possible.
Asked by: Lord Falconer of Thoroton (Labour - Life peer)
Question to the Cabinet Office:
To ask Her Majesty’s Government whether they have any plans to respond to the Electoral Commission’s "Assessment of progress with the transition to Electoral Individual Registration" published on 18 June.
Answered by Lord Bridges of Headley
The Government is considering the findings and recommendation set out in the Electoral Commission’s report in order to inform our decision over whether to seek to end the transition to Individual Electoral Registration (IER) in December 2015 or December 2016. We will respond in due course with our approach for ending the transition to IER.
Asked by: Lord Falconer of Thoroton (Labour - Life peer)
Question to the Cabinet Office:
To ask Her Majesty’s Government whether they plan to end the requirement for Electoral Registration Officers to canvas households annually.
Answered by Lord Bridges of Headley
Following the introduction of Individual Electoral Registration (IER) in Great Britain in 2014, the annual canvass of households has been retained. There are no current plans to exercise an order under Part 1, Section 7(2)(b) of the Electoral Registration and Administration Act 2013.
Asked by: Lord Falconer of Thoroton (Labour - Life peer)
Question to the Cabinet Office:
To ask Her Majesty’s Government what plans they have to bring forward legislative proposals to amend the number of parliamentary constituencies.
Answered by Lord Bridges of Headley
The Government remains committed to equalising the size of constituencies in order to make votes of more equal value. The Parliamentary Voting System and Constituencies (PVSC) Act 2011 provides for the number of UK constituencies to be reduced from 650 to 600 and there is due to be a boundary review on this basis which must report before 1 October 2018.
Asked by: Lord Falconer of Thoroton (Labour - Life peer)
Question to the Cabinet Office:
To ask Her Majesty’s Government whether they have any plans to bring forward the end date for transitional arrangements to Individual Electoral Registration to December 2015.
Answered by Lord Bridges of Headley
On the 18 June the Electoral Commission (EC) published its analysis of the state of the registers used for the elections on 7 May. A decision on when the transition to Individual Electoral Registration ends will be made in light of this once the Government has had the opportunity to fully digest the detail it provides.