Asked by: Greg Knight (Conservative - East Yorkshire)
Question to the Cabinet Office:
To ask the Minister for the Cabinet Office, pursuant to the Answer of 2 April 2019 to Question 238278, what the figures are for Government spending in the last six months on (a) newspaper and magazine and (b) radio adverts on the potential effects of the UK leaving the EU.
Answered by David Lidington
To date the Cabinet Office have used a range of paid-for and no-cost channels to direct citizens and businesses to a dedicated area on GOV.UK at Gov.uk/euexit.
The Cabinet Office has undertaken to publish information relating to ongoing expenditure on the public information campaign as part of the department’s regular data transparency releases.
In conjunction, Cabinet Office will disclose full costs regarding future advertising as part of these data sets in due course.
Asked by: Greg Knight (Conservative - East Yorkshire)
Question to the Cabinet Office:
To ask the Minister for the Cabinet Office, how much the Government has spent on (a) newspaper and magazine and (b) radio adverts advertising the potential effects of the UK leaving the EU; what assessment he has made of the value for money of such advertising; and if he will make a statement.
Answered by David Lidington
The Cabinet Office is leading and coordinating the cross-departmental Prepare for EU Exit public information campaign to help fulfil the Government’s duty to inform citizens and businesses about how leaving the EU might affect them, and to advise them on the steps they may need to take to prepare. To date we have used a range of paid-for and no-cost channels to direct citizens and businesses to a dedicated area on GOV.UK at Gov.uk/euexit.
The Cabinet Office has undertaken to publish information relating to ongoing expenditure on the public information campaign as part of the department’s regular data transparency releases. For maximum economies of scale, media for all Government campaigns is bought centrally through a new Crown Commercial Service framework. The framework maximises value for UK taxpayers through robust pricing guarantees that are defined for the life of the contract and rates that are benchmarked against other public and private sector organisations.
Asked by: Greg Knight (Conservative - East Yorkshire)
Question to the Cabinet Office:
To ask the Minister for the Cabinet Office, what steps the Government is taking to ensure the protection of the UK's critical infrastructure from cyberattack; and if he will make a statement.
Answered by David Lidington
I refer the Right Honourable Member to the answer given by Lord Young of Cookham to Lord Haskel on Wednesday 21 November, Official Report, HL column 238.
Asked by: Greg Knight (Conservative - East Yorkshire)
Question to the Cabinet Office:
To ask the Minister for the Cabinet Office, if he will extend the requirement for political campaigning material to carry an appropriate imprint to inform readers of its promoter to include online material and social media.
Answered by Chloe Smith
I refer the Hon Member to the answer given to the Member for Lancaster and Fleetwood to PQ148915 on 7 June 2018.
Asked by: Greg Knight (Conservative - East Yorkshire)
Question to the Cabinet Office:
To ask the Minister for the Cabinet Office, if he will introduce a trial of electronic voting in a pilot area with a view to avoiding delays occurred by manual counting of ballot papers; and if he will make a statement.
Answered by Chris Skidmore
There are no plans to trial electronic voting. The selection of elected representatives for Parliament is regarded as requiring the highest possible level of integrity and, at present, there are concerns that e-Voting, by any means, is not seen by many to be suitably rigorous and secure, and could be vulnerable to attack or fraud. The Government has stated in its manifesto that it will retain the traditional method of voting by pencil and paper, and tackle every aspect of electoral fraud.
Asked by: Greg Knight (Conservative - East Yorkshire)
Question to the Cabinet Office:
To ask the Minister for the Cabinet Office, if he will take steps to allow postal voting ballot papers to be counted separately in order to more easily detect fraud.
Answered by John Penrose
The law provides for the checking of the integrity of completed postal ballots prior to them being included in the count. Returning Officers are required to check 100% of postal vote identifiers (signatures and dates of birth) returned with completed postal votes against those supplied by the elector when they applied for a postal vote. Any that do not match will not be counted in order to prevent any attempt at electoral fraud. The law requires that postal ballot papers are mixed with ballot papers from a ballot box before they can be counted as a necessary step in order to help protect the secrecy of the ballot.
Asked by: Greg Knight (Conservative - East Yorkshire)
Question to the Cabinet Office:
To ask the Minister for the Cabinet Office, what progress the Government is making in implementating the EU Directive 2014/55/EU on invoicing in public sector procurement; what steps he has taken to ensure that all Departments will be in a position to implement the directive fully by autumn 2018; and if he will make a statement.
Answered by Lord Maude of Horsham
The Government is committed to the introduction of electronic invoicing across the public sector. The Small Business Enterprise and Employment Bill includes clauses that will enable Ministers to make regulations on the acceptance of e-invoices by public bodies.