Asked by: Ian C. Lucas (Labour - Wrexham)
Question to the Cabinet Office:
To ask the Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster and Minister for the Cabinet Office, what discussions he has had with the Prime Minister and his advisers concerning centralisation of data collection in Government.
Answered by Simon Hart
The details of meetings between Ministers and their advisers are confidential.
Having a comprehensive anonymised view of how people interact with government services online is an important part of developing services which provide information in a way users understand.
Asked by: Ian C. Lucas (Labour - Wrexham)
Question to the Cabinet Office:
To ask the Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster and Minister for the Cabinet Office, what recent discussions he has had with Ministers in his Department on (a) reform of electoral law and (b) data protection.
Answered by Kevin Foster
The Cabinet Office is taking a cross-Government approach to the safeguarding of our electoral processes through the Defending Democracy programme and we continue to work closely with the Department for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport (DCMS). This work is led within the Cabinet Office by the Minister for the Constitution, under the oversight of the Minister for the Cabinet Office.
The Government remains committed to ensuring our electoral law is fit for purpose, now and into the future. In May this year, the Government announced we would be launching a consultation on electoral integrity. As part of that, we are considering measures to strengthen the regulatory framework around elections and ensure they are fully up to date for a modern electoral system. We are also awaiting the publication of the final report from the Law Commission on their review of electoral law, which we understand will be published early next year, and will look at their recommendations and comments with interest.
DCMS is responsible for data protection policy and sponsors the independent regulator of the Data Protection Act 2018, the Information Commissioner's Office (ICO). The ICO are consulting on a draft framework code of practice for the use of personal data in political campaigning, which concluded on 04 October.
Asked by: Ian C. Lucas (Labour - Wrexham)
Question to the Cabinet Office:
To ask the Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster and Minister for the Cabinet Office, what recent discussions he has had with the Secretary of State for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport on (a) data protection and (b) electoral reform.
Answered by Kevin Foster
The Cabinet Office is taking a cross-Government approach to the safeguarding of our electoral processes through the Defending Democracy programme and we continue to work closely with the Department for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport (DCMS). This work is led within the Cabinet Office by the Minister for the Constitution, under the oversight of the Minister for the Cabinet Office.
The Government remains committed to ensuring our electoral law is fit for purpose, now and into the future. In May this year, the Government announced we would be launching a consultation on electoral integrity. As part of that, we are considering measures to strengthen the regulatory framework around elections and ensure they are fully up to date for a modern electoral system. We are also awaiting the publication of the final report from the Law Commission on their review of electoral law, which we understand will be published early next year, and will look at their recommendations and comments with interest.
DCMS is responsible for data protection policy and sponsors the independent regulator of the Data Protection Act 2018, the Information Commissioner's Office (ICO). The ICO are consulting on a draft framework code of practice for the use of personal data in political campaigning, which concluded on 04 October.
Asked by: Ian C. Lucas (Labour - Wrexham)
Question to the Cabinet Office:
To ask the Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster and Minister for the Cabinet Office, if he will publish the (a) meetings and (b) subject matter of each such meeting he has attended on matters relating to his ministerial responsibilities since his appointment.
Answered by Kevin Foster
Details of Ministers’ meetings with external organisations are published quarterly in arrears on GOV.UK.
Asked by: Ian C. Lucas (Labour - Wrexham)
Question to the Cabinet Office:
To ask the Minister for the Cabinet Office, if he will make an estimate of the net change in the number of people in the working age population as a result of ageing demographic trends in the UK and excluding in-year migrants in the (a) last five years and (b) next five years.
Answered by Chloe Smith
The information requested falls within the responsibility of the UK Statistics Authority. I have asked the Authority to reply.
Asked by: Ian C. Lucas (Labour - Wrexham)
Question to the Cabinet Office:
To ask the Prime Minister, when she plans to respond to the letter sent by the Hon. Member for Wrexham on 21 February 2018 reference ZA21109 on modern slavery.
Answered by Baroness May of Maidenhead
A reply has been sent by my Hon. Friend, the Parliamentary Under Secretary of State for Crime, Safeguarding and Vulnerability and Minister for Women.
Asked by: Ian C. Lucas (Labour - Wrexham)
Question to the Cabinet Office:
To ask the Minister for the Cabinet Office, which visits have been made by officials of the Prime Minister’s Office and Cabinet Office Communications to (a) Wales and (b) the rest of the UK since the 2017 General Election; and what was the purpose of each visit.
Answered by Chloe Smith
The requested information is not held centrally and would incur disproportionate costs to determine. Officials visit all parts of the UK regularly, they have met with many individuals and organisations on a wide range of subjects and will continue to do so.
For example, the Cabinet Office Communications department is running seven Civil Service Live events for 18,000 civil servants across the UK. Civil Service Live will take place at the following locations this summer: Glasgow 7 June, Birmingham 13 June, Blackpool 27 June, Cardiff 5 July, Newcastle 12 July and London 17/18 July.
The UK Governement has more than 300,000 civil servants who, rather than visiting the rest of the UK, are based outside of London in Scotland, Wales, England and Northern Ireland.
Asked by: Ian C. Lucas (Labour - Wrexham)
Question to the Cabinet Office:
To ask the Minister for the Cabinet Office, how many staff in his Department employed after 24 June 2016 hold a post that includes work on the UK leaving the EU.
Answered by Caroline Nokes
EU Exit is an all-of-government operation. The Department for Exiting the European Union is doing detailed work with departments to prepare for the upcoming negotiations by understanding the risks and opportunities of leaving the EU and coordinating planning.
Members of staff across the Department may at times be required to provide advice and analysis on EU Exit issues as required. Since there is extensive crossover between EU exit work and the Department’s other priorities, it would not be possible to give an accurate figure.
Asked by: Ian C. Lucas (Labour - Wrexham)
Question to the Cabinet Office:
To ask the Minister for the Cabinet Office, how many and what proportion of people in Wrexham constituency worked in the public sector in each of the last five years for which data is available.
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: Ian C. Lucas (Labour - Wrexham)
Question to the Cabinet Office:
To ask the Minister for the Cabinet Office, what discussions have taken place between Ministers in his Department and Google on IT systems used by the Government in the last five years.
Answered by Matt Hancock
As part of my Department's transparency programme, details of Ministerial meetings with external organisations are published on the Cabinet Office website at: https://www.gov.uk/government/collections/ministers-transparency-publications.