Oral Answers to Questions

Jeremy Quin Excerpts

Wednesday 9th December 2015 Commons Chamber

[Matthew Hancock]

We changed the rules last year to ensure that when the Government buy from the private sector, payments must be made within 30 days—and that cascades all the way down the supply chain. I can also report that we have hit our target for a quarter of all Government procurement to go to small businesses, and we now want to increase that target from a quarter to a third.

[Jeremy Quin (Horsham) (Con)]

T3. What plans does the Minister have to ensure that groups who are under-represented on the electoral roll register to vote?

[Mr Letwin]

We are fully committed to bringing more under-represented groups into electoral participation. That is why we are working with Operation Black Vote and other such groups to bring people in from the black and minority ethnic communities. I also draw my hon. Friend’s attention to the very interesting experiment being tried at Sheffield University to nudge the student population to sign up for an automatic registration system. We are looking very carefully at that.