Royston Smith

Our Places for Growth programme will relocate Civil Servants out of London, with at least 1,000 roles moved by 2022 and thousands more by 2030.

This in addition to the twelve new public bodies that will be located outside of London.

The information requested falls within the responsibility of the UK Statistics Authority. I have asked the Authority to reply and their response will be placed in the Library.

The Places for Growth programme seeks to deliver the Government’s commitment to move Civil Service roles and public bodies out of London and the South East of England. This commitment was set out in the Conservative Party Manifesto of 2017 and then restated in the Industrial Strategy White Paper and the Government Estates Strategy (July 2018).

The Cabinet Office is supporting departments and public bodies to identify opportunities for relocation of roles to cities across the regions and nations of the United Kingdom. This will boost local economic growth and impact on the economic growth of wider city regions, and the United Kingdom as a whole, as well as ensure the administration of central government is distributed more evenly across the United Kingdom.

All locations remain under active consideration as potential relocation destinations. The programme will be looking to consult with a number of additional cities over the coming months and we would be happy for Southampton to be involved in this process.

The Places for Growth programme seeks to deliver the Government’s commitment to move Civil Service roles and public bodies out of London and the South East of England. This commitment was set out in the Conservative Party Manifesto of 2017 and then restated in the Industrial Strategy White Paper and the Government Estates Strategy (July 2018).

The Cabinet Office is supporting departments and public bodies to identify opportunities for relocation of roles to cities across the regions and nations of the United Kingdom. The Programme is providing support and coordination across Whitehall to move roles and organisations to locations that have the skills and capacity to enable organisations and cities to flourish.

The Programme is also engaging with city leaders across the UK to understand the local economic and industrial priorities which will inform the decision-making process.

The information requested falls within the responsibility of the UK Statistics Authority. I have asked the Authority to reply.

The information requested falls within the responsibility of the UK Statistics Authority. I have asked the Authority to reply.

Voting more than once at a General Election or at other national polls such as a referendum is a crime which carries a financial penalty.

We take this matter very seriously. I have raised this issue as a priority with the Electoral Commission, and will consider carefully the findings of their report on electoral registration at the 2017 General Election, as well as their upcoming report on the administration of that poll.

It is possible to determine whether an individual has voted twice at a General Election by checking the marked register of those who have voted. If anyone has evidence of someone voting twice, then they should report this to their local returning officer and to the police.

I have also written to the National Police Chiefs' Council (NPCC) to reiterate the Government's support for the police to make every effort to investigate reports of criminal behaviour in relation to elections.

The Government will continue to consider if further steps should be taken to ensure the integrity of the electoral system and where opportunities could exist to reiterate that voting more than once at the General Election or other national polls is illegal.

The electoral register is already harmonised in terms of how it is compiled, who is eligible to be registered and the information which must be included. The Government has no plans to legislate to further harmonise the electoral register. For citizens, accessing the electoral register has been made considerably quicker and easier by online registration. For individuals and organisations with a legitimate interest in accessing the information included in the registers, a number of provisions already exist that allow them to do so.

The Government’s view is that electoral fraud is unacceptable on any level. Sir Eric Pickles’ review made a number of recommendations for strengthening the integrity of the electoral process, including requiring voters to provide a form of identification at polling stations before voting. In line with the manifesto commitment, the Government plans to run pilot schemes in a number of local authority areas in 2018 that will test the requirement for voters to present ID before voting. Pilots will help to identify the best way of administering this new requirement.

The Government is considering the way forward on the other recommendations made by Sir Eric Pickles, and will continue to consider how to improve the integrity of electoral processes more generally.

The Electoral Commission intends to publish data on the number of new electors added to the register at the election in due course.

The Government's manifesto re-affirms the commitment to deliver equal and updated boundaries and reduce the size of the House of Commons.

Following laws already passed by Parliament, which provided that the current Boundary Review should be based on the electoral registers from 2015, the independent and impartial Boundary Commissions are consulting on their proposals to deliver the boundary changes, and they will submit their final proposals to Parliament in autumn 2018. These reforms will ensure fair and equal representation for the voting public across the United Kingdom.

Equalising the size of constituencies in the Boundary Review will ensure everyone’s vote will carry equal weight. Without such boundary reforms, MPs could end up representing constituencies based on data that is over 20 years’ old, disregarding significant changes in demographics, house building and migration.

The Electoral Commission will be publishing, in due course, a report on the General Election held on 8 June 2017 which we expect will include data on the number of postal votes cast at the General Election and information on rejected postal votes.

The Electoral Commission will be publishing, in due course, a report on the General Election held on 8 June 2017 which we expect will include data on the number of postal votes cast at the General Election and information on rejected postal votes.

It has not proved possible to respond to the hon. Member in the time available before Prorogation.

Government develops services based on research into user needs. Services do not go public unless they can demonstrate during Service Assessment that they have met user needs in line with the Digital Service Standard, including methods for user support and contact. Where Government has a shared need, the Government Digital Service can develop products that can be reused across departments and agencies. For example, GOV.UK Notify was developed to make it easier and more efficient to keep people updated, by helping service teams across government to send text messages, emails or letters to their users. We do not currently have plans to develop a texting service for users to contact or respond to helpline services.

In October 2015 the Government published guidance on department’s use of telephone prefixes and free numbers which can be found here:

https://www.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/470411/20151006_Customer_phone_lines_draft_guidance_October_2015.pdf

Departments are responsible and accountable for their choice of number prefix, supported by an appropriate numbering policy position. Where appropriate, departments must justify exceptions to the guidance.

The Government buys advertising space via a single media buying agency, Carat.

The media buying agency have been instructed to ensure that Government advertising only appears in reputable media, including publications.

The Government buys advertising space via a single media buying agency, Carat.

The media buying agency have been instructed to ensure that Government advertising only appears in reputable media, including publications.

The information requested falls within the responsibility of the UK Statistics Authority. I have asked the Authority to reply.

The information requested falls within the responsibility of the UK Statistics Authority. I have asked the Authority to reply.

The information requested falls within the responsibility of the UK Statistics Authority. I have asked the Authority to reply.

The EU referendum will be overseen by the Chief Counting Officer, chair of the independent Electoral Commission, who is responsible for making sure the referendum is held in accordance with the legislation governing the conduct of the poll. The Electoral Commission has recently issued a statement setting out the actions that have been taken to address an issue with elections software used by a number of local authorities in England and Wales. They will ensure that any postal votes which have been issued to electors who are not eligible to vote in the referendum will be cancelled and none of these electors will be shown as eligable on the electoral register to be used at polling stations on the 23rd June.

The referendum will be overseen by the Chief Counting Officer, chair of the independent Electoral Commission, who is responsible for making sure the referendum is held in accordance with the legislation. The Electoral Commission made a statement on "non-eligible EU citizen voters" on the 2 June 2016 which can be found at http://www.electoralcommission.org.uk/.

As required by legislation, all applications to register to vote are assessed by Local Authority Electoral Registration Officers (EROs). There are around 360 EROs across the UK. EROs manage and maintain separate electoral registers for their areas on a variety of different software platforms. A national registration look-up tool would require access to all of these locally held and owned electoral registers, and, if it required the creation of a central national database, could require legislative changes and raise significant data protection concerns.

Cabinet Office officials have worked closely with colleagues at the Electoral Commission to ensure the messaging on aboutmyvote.co.uk informs electors that they do not need to re-register for the EU referendum.

A registration look up tool that allowed electors to check their registration status would reduce duplicate applications. Technical and practical barriers prevent its implementation before the EU referendum.

The rules on campaigning at the referendum are set out in the European Union Referendum Act 2015 and the Political Parties, Elections and Referendums Act 2000. There is no general restriction on institutions and organisations in receipt of public funds expressing a corporate opinion on the European Union Referendum. However, there are restrictions on organisations whose expenses are met wholly or mainly from public funds publishing certain material relating to the referendum in the final 28 days.

As the independent regulator for charities in England and Wales, the Charity Commission published guidance for charities on 7 March 2016 regarding the forthcoming EU referendum. This clearly sets out the threshold necessary to justify any charitable activity on this specific issue.

The rules on campaigning at the referendum are set out in the European Union Referendum Act 2015 and the Political Parties, Elections and Referendums Act 2000. There is no general restriction on institutions and organisations in receipt of public funds expressing a corporate opinion on the European Union Referendum. However, there are restrictions on organisations whose expenses are met wholly or mainly from public funds publishing certain material relating to the referendum in the final 28 days.

As the independent regulator for charities in England and Wales, the Charity Commission published guidance for charities on 7 March 2016 regarding the forthcoming EU referendum. This clearly sets out the threshold necessary to justify any charitable activity on this specific issue.

The information requested falls within the responsibility of the UK Statistics Authority. I have asked the Authority to reply.

I refer the hon. Member to the answer I gave him on 7 March 2016 to UIN: 28897.

The information requested falls within the responsibility of the UK Statistics Authority. I have asked the Authority to reply.

The Government is committed to ensuring as many eligible people as possible are registered to vote. The introduction of online voter registration has made it easier and quicker to register to vote than ever before. It can take less than three minutes and you can register throughout the year from wherever you are in the world, within the commonwealth and beyond.

Improving the efficiency and productivity of the public sector is central to the work of the Cabinet Office. By 2014/15 the Government had saved £18.6 billion through efficiency and reform, and tackling fraud, error and uncollected debt (against a 2009/10 baseline).

The Government Hubs programme will reduce the government office estate from around 800 buildings to around 200 by 2023 and generate savings of over £2bn over ten years.

This is being supported by a smart working revolution to transform how and where civil servants work. In line with what many private sector organisations have achieved, we expect this to increase productivity, reduce costs, improve wellbeing, and contribute to wider objectives such as localism, sustainability, and reducing pressure on the transport system.

The information requested falls within the responsibility of the UK Statistics Authority. I have asked the Authority to reply.

Representatives of the Government will be attending a number of events to celebrate Her Majesty the Queen’s 90^th birthday including a National Service of Thanksgiving at St Paul’s Cathedral and The Queen’s Birthday Parade on Horseguards Parade.

This information is not held and could only be obtained at disproportionate cost.