Asked by: Royston Smith (Conservative - Southampton, Itchen)
Question to the Cabinet Office:
To ask the Minister for the Cabinet Office, what criteria determine the eligibility of publications to be destinations for publicly-funded advertisements.
Answered by Ben Gummer
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.
Asked by: Royston Smith (Conservative - Southampton, Itchen)
Question to the Cabinet Office:
To ask the Minister for the Cabinet Office, if he will take steps to ensure that questions that would enable local authorities to ascertain the number of (a) veterans and (b) service personnel living in their areas are included in the 2021 census.
Answered by Matt Hancock
The information requested falls within the responsibility of the UK Statistics Authority. I have asked the Authority to reply.
Asked by: Royston Smith (Conservative - Southampton, Itchen)
Question to the Cabinet Office:
To ask the Minister for the Cabinet Office, what framework determines what will be included in the 2021 census.
Answered by Matt Hancock
The information requested falls within the responsibility of the UK Statistics Authority. I have asked the Authority to reply.
Asked by: Royston Smith (Conservative - Southampton, Itchen)
Question to the Cabinet Office:
To ask the Minister for the Cabinet Office, what the life expectancy is of residents of the (a) Southampton City, (b) NHS West London, (c) NHS North Manchester and (d) West Hampshire clinical commissioning group areas.
Answered by Rob Wilson
The information requested falls within the responsibility of the UK Statistics Authority. I have asked the Authority to reply.
Asked by: Royston Smith (Conservative - Southampton, Itchen)
Question to the Cabinet Office:
To ask the Minister for the Cabinet Office, what steps he is taking to ensure that people who are not eligible to vote in the EU referendum and who have received ballot papers in error are not able to use those ballot papers.
Answered by John Penrose
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.
Asked by: Royston Smith (Conservative - Southampton, Itchen)
Question to the Cabinet Office:
To ask the Minister for the Cabinet Office, what steps he is taking to ensure that postal votes and ballot papers are sent only to eligible voters for the forthcoming EU referendum.
Answered by John Penrose
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/.
Asked by: Royston Smith (Conservative - Southampton, Itchen)
Question to the Cabinet Office:
To ask the Minister for the Cabinet Office, pursuant to the Answer of 4 May 2016 to Question 35770, what technical and practical barriers will prevent the Electoral Commission implementing a registration look-up tool before the EU referendum.
Answered by John Penrose
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.
Asked by: Royston Smith (Conservative - Southampton, Itchen)
Question to the Cabinet Office:
To ask the Minister for the Cabinet Office, what representations he has made to the Electoral Commission on resolving recent problems with registration on aboutmyvote.co.uk related to the EU referendum.
Answered by John Penrose
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.
Asked by: Royston Smith (Conservative - Southampton, Itchen)
Question to the Cabinet Office:
To ask the Minister for the Cabinet Office, what discussions he has had the Electoral Commission on ensuring that people are able to check whether they are registered on aboutmyvote.co.uk related to the EU referendum.
Answered by John Penrose
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.
Asked by: Royston Smith (Conservative - Southampton, Itchen)
Question to the Cabinet Office:
To ask the Minister for the Cabinet Office, what steps the Government plans to take to ensure institutions and organisations in receipt of public funds do not express a corporate opinion on the forthcoming EU referendum.
Answered by John Penrose
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.