Asked by: Andrew Bowie (Conservative - West Aberdeenshire and Kincardine)
Question to the Department for Levelling Up, Housing & Communities:
To ask the Secretary of State for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities, what recent assessment he has made of the safety and security of independent council candidates in the context of the requirement to provide a visible address on election literature in local authority elections.
Answered by Kemi Badenoch - President of the Board of Trade
Imprints are required on any printed election material, including that of independent candidates at local elections, to provide voters with the level of transparency they rightly expect about who is campaigning. The imprint requirement also supports the rules on campaign spending limits. The requirement to include an address as part of the imprint is important to enable the police and the courts to enforce the rules relating to candidate election material with legal certainty.
The safety of election campaigners and candidates is our utmost priority. For this reason, while candidates must use a postal address where they can be contacted, a range of addresses are permitted under the imprint rules. Therefore, candidates have alternative options if they feel uncomfortable publishing their home address on printed election material. As outlined in Electoral Commission guidance, this can be an office or business address. Candidates may also use a PO Box address or other mailbox service.
Asked by: Andrew Bowie (Conservative - West Aberdeenshire and Kincardine)
Question to the Department for Levelling Up, Housing & Communities:
To ask the Secretary of State for Housing, Communities and Local Government, when Scottish local authorities will be able to apply for Shared Prosperity Funding for specific projects.
Answered by Luke Hall - Minister of State (Education)
The UK Shared Prosperity Fund (UKSPF) will help to level up and create opportunity across the UK. A portion of the UKSPF will target places most in need across the UK, such as ex-industrial areas, deprived towns and rural and coastal communities.
Places receiving funding will be asked to agree specific outcomes to target within a UK-wide framework. They will then develop investment proposals to be approved by the Government among a representative stakeholder group. A second portion of the Fund will be targeted differently to people most in need through bespoke employment and skills programmes that are tailored to local need.
To help local areas prepare over 2021/22 for the introduction of the UKSPF, we will provide additional UK funding to support our communities to pilot programmes and new approaches.
Further detail on the additional funding will be published soon and we will publish a UK-wide investment framework in Spring 2021 setting our further information on the UKSPF.
Asked by: Andrew Bowie (Conservative - West Aberdeenshire and Kincardine)
Question to the Department for Levelling Up, Housing & Communities:
What progress the Government has made on the Shared Prosperity Fund.
Answered by Luke Hall - Minister of State (Education)
The UK Shared Prosperity Fund will operate across the Union to make sure each of the four nations prosper. Decisions the design of the fund will need to be taken after a cross-Government Spending Review. In the meantime, we will continue to work closely with interested parties whilst developing the fund.