Asked by: Lord Hayward (Conservative - Life peer)
Question to the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government:
To ask His Majesty's Government, further to the remarks by Baroness Taylor of Stevenage on 16 June (HL Deb col 227), what are the associated costs of the changes to the voting system introduced by the Combined Authorities (Mayoral Elections) (Amendment) Order 2026.
Answered by Baroness Taylor of Stevenage - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Housing, Communities and Local Government)
The costs of mayoral elections are met by local authorities and are not held centrally, with each authority responsible for managing and retaining its own election cost data. The Government is therefore unable to provide this information.
Our estimate of the additional costs that might arise from second rounds of counting for all mayoral elections in England and Police and Crime Commissioner elections in England and Wales over the 10-year period from 2026/27 to 2035/36 is £12.5m, comprising approximately £5.8m for Police and Crime Commissioner elections and £6.7m for mayoral elections. This estimate includes elections for elected local authority mayors, combined authority mayors, combined county authority mayors, the Mayor of London and Police and Crime Commissioners. This estimate does not factor in the Home Office’s plans to abolish the role of Police and Crime Commissioner.
Asked by: Lord Hayward (Conservative - Life peer)
Question to the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government:
To ask His Majesty's Government, further to the remarks by Baroness Taylor of Stevenage on 16 June (HL Deb col 227), what the total cost of the Greater Manchester mayoralty by-election will be.
Answered by Baroness Taylor of Stevenage - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Housing, Communities and Local Government)
The costs of mayoral elections are met by local authorities and are not held centrally, with each authority responsible for managing and retaining its own election cost data. The Government is therefore unable to provide this information.
Our estimate of the additional costs that might arise from second rounds of counting for all mayoral elections in England and Police and Crime Commissioner elections in England and Wales over the 10-year period from 2026/27 to 2035/36 is £12.5m, comprising approximately £5.8m for Police and Crime Commissioner elections and £6.7m for mayoral elections. This estimate includes elections for elected local authority mayors, combined authority mayors, combined county authority mayors, the Mayor of London and Police and Crime Commissioners. This estimate does not factor in the Home Office’s plans to abolish the role of Police and Crime Commissioner.
Asked by: Lord Hayward (Conservative - Life peer)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask His Majesty's Government what is the annual budget of the UK Health Security Agency; and whether they have reviewed its budget recently.
Answered by Baroness Merron - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department of Health and Social Care)
Work is underway to develop a multi-year financial profile for the UK Health Security Agency (UKHSA) following the conclusion of the Spending Review. This is subject to Department-wide business planning process, through which the UKHSA’s Executive Team continue to regularly engage with colleagues in the Department.
The UKHSA total agency budget is £1,793 million.
Asked by: Lord Hayward (Conservative - Life peer)
Question to the Cabinet Office:
To ask His Majesty's Government what proportion of the number of fines issued by the government and bodies authorised by the government to individuals were unpaid in the last full year for which they have data, broken down by economic region if that breakdown is available.
Answered by Baroness Anderson of Stoke-on-Trent - Captain of the King's Bodyguard of the Yeomen of the Guard (HM Household) (Deputy Chief Whip, House of Lords)
The requested information is not centrally held, and complying with this request would incur a disproportionate cost to the department.
Asked by: Lord Hayward (Conservative - Life peer)
Question to the Ministry of Justice:
To ask His Majesty's Government what proportion of the number of fines issued by the court system to individuals were unpaid in the last full year for which they have data, broken down by economic region if that breakdown is available.
Answered by Baroness Levitt
HM Courts & Tribunals Service (HMCTS) has no ability to identify the number of fines that are unpaid in the last full year by reference to available digital system reports. Nor could any such report be created and run. Instead, it would be necessary to interrogate court records manually. Accordingly, the information requested could only be obtained at disproportionate cost.
In addition to the complexities of the way digital systems operate, assessing payment outcomes over a fixed period is complicated in and of itself. For example, complexities are introduced by later account movements, including account consolidations, Transfer of Fine Orders and write offs. These processes can remove accounts as discrete records or require them to be written off and re raised on different systems, creating a risk of misattribution and double counting. As a result, activity recorded within a given period may relate to fines imposed outside that period, meaning period-based measures of payment rates or balances are inherently unreliable without full account level review.
Asked by: Lord Hayward (Conservative - Life peer)
Question to the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government:
To ask His Majesty's Government, further to the Written Answer by Baroness Taylor of Stevenage on 3 November (HL11135), whether they will take into consideration the burden that monitoring the proposed pilots of flexible voting methods at the May 2026 elections in England will impose on police forces when selecting the local authorities to carry out those pilots.
Answered by Baroness Taylor of Stevenage - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Housing, Communities and Local Government)
The Government is exploring ways to make voting in person more efficient, more convenient, and better aligned with the expectations of today’s electors.
Local authorities were invited to submit applications to pilot a range of flexible voting methods at the May 2026 elections in England. We are working with individual local authorities to shape the detail of their flexible voting pilots. We will continue to work with key stakeholders and local authorities throughout development and delivery of the pilots.
We are currently reviewing applications from local authorities wishing to pilot at the May 2026 elections and we will share further details in due course.
Asked by: Lord Hayward (Conservative - Life peer)
Question to the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government:
To ask His Majesty's Government, further to the Written Answer by Baroness Taylor of Stevenage on 3 November (HL11135), which local authorities have applied to pilot flexible voting methods at the May 2026 elections in England; which voting methods will be piloted; and what criteria will be applied when selecting the local authorities to operate these pilots.
Answered by Baroness Taylor of Stevenage - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Housing, Communities and Local Government)
The Government is exploring ways to make voting in person more efficient, more convenient, and better aligned with the expectations of today’s electors.
Local authorities were invited to submit applications to pilot a range of flexible voting methods at the May 2026 elections in England. We are working with individual local authorities to shape the detail of their flexible voting pilots. We will continue to work with key stakeholders and local authorities throughout development and delivery of the pilots.
We are currently reviewing applications from local authorities wishing to pilot at the May 2026 elections and we will share further details in due course.
Asked by: Lord Hayward (Conservative - Life peer)
Question to the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government:
To ask His Majesty's Government, further to the Written Answer by Baroness Taylor of Stevenage on 3 November (HL11135), which organisations and political parties have been consulted on the election pilots.
Answered by Baroness Taylor of Stevenage - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Housing, Communities and Local Government)
The Government is exploring ways to make voting in person more efficient, more convenient, and better aligned with the expectations of today’s electors.
Local authorities were invited to submit applications to pilot a range of flexible voting methods at the May 2026 elections in England. We are working with individual local authorities to shape the detail of their flexible voting pilots. We will continue to work with key stakeholders and local authorities throughout development and delivery of the pilots.
We are currently reviewing applications from local authorities wishing to pilot at the May 2026 elections and we will share further details in due course.
Asked by: Lord Hayward (Conservative - Life peer)
Question to the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government:
To ask His Majesty's Government whether they plan to carry out voting system trials in the May 2026 local elections; and if so, which voting systems they will trial, and in which local authorities those trials will take place.
Answered by Baroness Taylor of Stevenage - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Housing, Communities and Local Government)
The Government committed in its manifesto to encourage greater participation in democracy. To support this, the Government is exploring ways to make voting in person more efficient, more convenient, and better aligned with the expectations of today’s electors.
Local authorities were invited to submit applications to pilot a range of flexible voting methods at the May 2026 elections in England, and these are being considered for approval.
Asked by: Lord Hayward (Conservative - Life peer)
Question
To ask the Senior Deputy Speaker whether he will publish the percentage change in staff headcount in each House of Lords Administration department over the past 5 years.
Answered by Lord Gardiner of Kimble
The table below shows the percentage change in the number of staff employed by the House of Lords Administration between 31 March 2020 and 31 March 2025. This provides a snapshot of the number of people employed on these two dates, including any short-term appointments. The overall staff headcount in the Administration increased by 16% between these two dates with increases in eight offices and reductions in five.
Changes in the organisational structures such as teams moving between offices can make office-level comparisons more difficult. Figures are also not available for Parliamentary Knowledge and Information, which was created on 1 April 2024. The Parliamentary Commercial Directorate (PCD) was part of the Finance Office in 2020 and will become a joint department on 1 October 2025; if PCD is excluded from these 2025 figures, the overall increase in staffing since 2020 is 3%.
House of Lords Administration Office | Change in Staffing Headcount between 2020 and 2025 |
|
Archives Relocation Programme/ Parliamentary Archives | -20% | -8 |
Black Rod's Office | -4% | -1 |
Catering and Retail Services | 7% | 11 |
Clerk of the Parliament's Office/Lord Speaker's Office* | 16% | 7 |
Committee Office | 25% | 18 |
Communications | 32% | 6 |
Finance Department | -24% | -10 |
Parliamentary Commerical Directorate |
|
|
Parliamentary Knowledge and Information |
|
|
Hansard | -14% | -9 |
Human Resources Office | 46% | 11 |
Journal Office | 33% | 8 |
Legislation Office | 47% | 9 |
Library | 13% | 6 |
Property & Office Services | -11% | -6 |
Total | 16% |
|
*The Lord Speaker's Office became a standalone office in 2022.