Asked by: Lyn Brown (Labour - West Ham)
Question to the Cabinet Office:
To ask the Minister for the Cabinet Office, if he will provide funding to local authorities to use rapid international postal services to send postal ballot packs to overseas electors, in particular where an election occurs unexpectedly.
Answered by Chris Skidmore
The Government has no plans to establish polling stations in other countries in the foreseeable future. However, the Government previously took action to make postal voting a more feasible option for overseas voters by lengthening the electoral timetable and removing the restriction on issuing postal votes ahead of the postal vote application deadline. Overseas voters can also appoint a proxy voter in the United Kingdom on their behalf. Introducing the use of embassies or consulates as polling stations would raise logistical and security issues in delivering, returning and counting ballot papers from embassies.
Rapid international postal services are not used to send postal ballot packs to overseas electors in order to keep the cost to the public purse reasonable when administering national elections. We will assess the balance between cost-effectiveness, and the importance of ensuring that overseas voters are able to engage in the democratic process, further in advance of future elections.
Asked by: Lyn Brown (Labour - West Ham)
Question to the Cabinet Office:
To ask the Minister for the Cabinet Office, if he will make an assessment of the value of using overseas diplomatic facilities as polling stations, to help electors living abroad to vote.
Answered by Chris Skidmore
The Government has no plans to establish polling stations in other countries in the foreseeable future. However, the Government previously took action to make postal voting a more feasible option for overseas voters by lengthening the electoral timetable and removing the restriction on issuing postal votes ahead of the postal vote application deadline. Overseas voters can also appoint a proxy voter in the United Kingdom on their behalf. Introducing the use of embassies or consulates as polling stations would raise logistical and security issues in delivering, returning and counting ballot papers from embassies.
Rapid international postal services are not used to send postal ballot packs to overseas electors in order to keep the cost to the public purse reasonable when administering national elections. We will assess the balance between cost-effectiveness, and the importance of ensuring that overseas voters are able to engage in the democratic process, further in advance of future elections.
Asked by: Lyn Brown (Labour - West Ham)
Question to the Cabinet Office:
To ask the Minister for the Cabinet Office, what plans there are to continue the statistical series Crime Statistics, Focus on Public Perceptions of Crime and the Police, and the Personal Well-being of Victims; and when he plans to publish the next such report.
Answered by Chris Skidmore
The information requested falls within the responsibility of the UK Statistics Authority. I have asked the Authority to reply.
Asked by: Lyn Brown (Labour - West Ham)
Question to the Cabinet Office:
To ask the Minister for the Cabinet Office, for what reasons the February 2017 release of the Overview of the UK Population series has been cancelled; what plans the Office of National Statistics has to publish such releases in the future; and what plans there are to continue that series in future.
Answered by Chris Skidmore
The information requested falls within the responsibility of the UK Statistics Authority. I have asked the Authority to reply.
Asked by: Lyn Brown (Labour - West Ham)
Question to the Cabinet Office:
To ask the Minister for the Cabinet Office, pursuant to the Answer of 24 January 2017 to Question 60953, if he will place in the Library summary data on the incidence and prevalence of (a) cyber-enabled crime, (b) plastic payment card fraud and (c) other similar technology crimes in each year between 1999 and 2015.
Answered by Chris Skidmore
The information requested falls within the responsibility of the UK Statistics Authority. I have asked the Authority to reply.
Asked by: Lyn Brown (Labour - West Ham)
Question to the Cabinet Office:
To ask the Minister for the Cabinet Office, in what year the Crime Survey for England and Wales first asked questions on (a) any form of cyber-enabled and (b) credit card fraud.
Answered by Chris Skidmore
The information requested falls within the responsibility of the UK Statistics Authority. I have asked the Authority to reply.
Asked by: Lyn Brown (Labour - West Ham)
Question to the Cabinet Office:
To ask the Minister for the Cabinet Office, what the (a) total cost and (b) cost in each principal category of expenditure was of the police and crime commissioner elections in 2016; and in which months of 2016 costs for each of the principal items were incurred.
Answered by Chris Skidmore
The total cost of the Police and Crime Commissioner elections held in May 2016 comprises two main elements: the expenditure incurred by Returning Officers in running the polls; and the cost of producing and delivering on-demand candidate information booklets. Returning Officers have six months from the day of the elections to submit their expenses claims and so the final cost will not be known until all of these have been received, scrutinised and settled. The majority of Returning Officers’ expenditure was incurred in April and May 2016.
Asked by: Lyn Brown (Labour - West Ham)
Question to the Cabinet Office:
To ask the Minister for the Cabinet Office, how many fraud offences involving online shopping have been recorded by each UK law enforcement agency in each year since 2010.
Answered by Chris Skidmore
The information requested falls within the responsibility of the UK Statistics Authority. I have asked the Authority to reply.
Asked by: Lyn Brown (Labour - West Ham)
Question to the Cabinet Office:
To ask the Minister for the Cabinet Office, what estimate he has made of the number of people enrolled in the National Citizen Service.
Answered by Brooks Newmark
Successive independent evaluations have shown that National Citizen Service has seen significant growth in participation across England and Northern Ireland, with the programme seeing its 100,000th participant this year. The programme is delivered by regional providers who are performance managed by the NCS Trust, an independent not-for-profit organisation. Regional performance is regularly monitored, along with other factors including quality of NCS delivery and the social mix of participants.
An independent evaluation of NCS will be published by Cabinet Office in 2015, after the conclusion of the 2014 NCS programmes, and will detail the costs and number of young participants during 2014.
Asked by: Lyn Brown (Labour - West Ham)
Question to the Cabinet Office:
To ask the Minister for the Cabinet Office, how much his Department has allocated to the National Citizen Service in the 2014-15 financial year.
Answered by Brooks Newmark
Successive independent evaluations have shown that National Citizen Service has seen significant growth in participation across England and Northern Ireland, with the programme seeing its 100,000th participant this year. The programme is delivered by regional providers who are performance managed by the NCS Trust, an independent not-for-profit organisation. Regional performance is regularly monitored, along with other factors including quality of NCS delivery and the social mix of participants.
An independent evaluation of NCS will be published by Cabinet Office in 2015, after the conclusion of the 2014 NCS programmes, and will detail the costs and number of young participants during 2014.