Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Mark Harper and Clive Betts

Thursday 24th November 2022 Commons Chamber

[Mr Harper]

I am very familiar with the issues that the hon. Gentleman raises, having served for a period in this House as the Minister for disabled people. I do not have the specific information to hand, so I will write to him and then, if appropriate, a meeting can be secured with the relevant Minister.

[Mr Clive Betts (Sheffield South East) (Lab)]

The last Prime Minister but two—I think I have got the number right—promised we would have London-style bus services in constituencies such as mine. He said people would be able to go to the bus stop and they would not need a timetable as the buses would be that frequent. We do not need a timetable on many routes in Sheffield now because the buses have been scrapped altogether and routes cut, so instead of a bus improvement plan, we now have a disintegration of bus services. Will the Secretary of State confirm that the covid grant, which has been extended to early next year, will be extended for the whole of the next financial year, because that is the only thing now keeping some bus services running in my constituency? Will he also arrange the meeting I asked for during the last Transport questions with Ministers for myself, local MPs and the Mayor?

[Mr Harper]

I am glad the hon. Gentleman mentioned the covid pandemic, because that has caused a number of issues for a range of transport providers. We are still seeing that bus users have not returned to using buses since the covid pandemic, and that puts those bus services under tremendous financial pressure, which is exactly why we put the support in place to deal with the pandemic. We have extended it through to the end of March, as he knows, and we will keep that under review, depending on what the situation requires. I know how important buses are, but the impact of the pandemic on buses and rail services is a challenge, and the important thing is to encourage people back to using buses to grow revenue and make sure the sector is financially sustainable.

Parliamentary Constituencies (Amendment) Bill

Debate between Mark Harper and Clive Betts

2nd reading: House of Commons
Friday 18th November 2016 Commons Chamber

[Mr Harper]

My hon. Friend illustrates the point that changes in the size of electorates have to be reflected in boundary changes. I was thinking of how to put this into context—

[Mr Betts]

rose—

[Patrick Grady (Glasgow North) (SNP)]

rose—

Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Mark Harper and Clive Betts

Monday 8th December 2014 Commons Chamber

[Mr Harper]

I do not think the hon. Gentleman is listening. I very clearly said—and I have said it a number of times here—that fixing delays to the PIP process is not at the bottom of my list; I have been very clear that it is at the top of my list of priorities. I have said that from the time I started doing this job and we have made considerable progress. We will be able to set out the up-to-date position when I give evidence to the Work and Pensions Select Committee chaired by the hon. Gentleman’s colleague, the hon. Friend Member for Aberdeen South (Dame Anne Begg). I have been invited to give an update at the end of January and I will be delighted to do so.

[Mr Clive Betts (Sheffield South East) (Lab)]

12. What estimate he has made of his Department’s expenditure on in-work housing benefit for migrant workers from the European economic area who have arrived in the UK within the last (a) six, (b) 12 and (c) 24 months.

Electoral Registration and Administration Bill

Debate between Mark Harper and Clive Betts

Wednesday 23rd May 2012 Commons Chamber

[Mr Harper]

There are, but I do not think that Members would be very pleased if I took all of them to speak from the Front Bench. Other Members want to participate in the debate.

I will finish answering the question from my hon. Friend the Member for Wolverhampton South West (Paul Uppal). If the check with the DWP database, the data matching or other information suggests to the electoral registration officers that a person is not eligible to vote, because they are not a real person or because they do not live at the given address, of course they will remove them from the register. This is about carrying forward people when there is no information to suggest that they are not eligible, and they simply have not registered. We thought, on balance, that it was better to do the carry-forward to avoid the problem that occurred when individual registration was implemented in Northern Ireland. The consultation suggests that we have got that balance right.

[Mr Clive Betts (Sheffield South East) (Lab)]

rose—

--- Later in debate ---

[Chris Ruane]

rose—

[Mr Betts]

rose—

[Mr Harper]

Go on then; I give way to the hon. Member for Vale of Clwyd (Chris Ruane)

--- Later in debate ---

[Mr Harper]

Canvassers will be able to identify that there are voters at an address, but each voter will have to register individually and provide their information to the local authority so that it can be verified. We will examine the canvass process when we develop the secondary legislation. Because of the nature of the information being collected on the doorstep—not just people’s names and addresses but their national insurance numbers—we need to take data security carefully, as we have at every step of the way. We will continue to have discussions with local authorities and the Information Commissioner about how best we can do that, but we have a robust set of processes in place to ensure that everyone is registered.

[Mr Betts]

rose—

[Mark Tami]

rose—

[Mr Harper]

Let me make a bit more progress, then I will give way to the hon. Member for Sheffield South East (Mr Betts), who has been bidding to get in for some time.

The use of data matching to confirm existing electors will simplify the transition process for most people in the country. It will create a floor below which registration rates cannot fall, and importantly it will allow registration officers to focus their efforts and resources on electors whose details cannot be confirmed and eligible people who are not on the register.

[Mr Betts]

The Minister said that there would not be transitional arrangements for people who have a postal vote. Does he understand that people who have applied for a postal vote in the past now assume that they are going to get one at every election? There could be a real problem with the Government’s proposals, because, in 2015, people who assume that they are going to get a postal vote will not get one as the lists will have been scrapped. That could have an adverse affect on turnout, because postal voters are more likely to vote, and it could effectively discriminate against the elderly and people with disabilities, who are proportionately more likely to have a postal vote.

Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Mark Harper and Clive Betts

Tuesday 20th March 2012 Commons Chamber

[Mr Clive Betts (Sheffield South East) (Lab)]

7. What recent representations he has received on individual electoral registration.

[The Parliamentary Secretary, Cabinet Office (Mr Mark Harper)]

We have received a number of representations on our proposals for individual electoral registration, including an excellent report from the Select Committee on Political and Constitutional Reform, to which we have responded.

[Mr Betts]

I am sure that the Minister agrees that if we are to avoid the prospect of many people leaving the electoral register when IER is introduced, we need a significant and robust system of data swapping. If that cannot be achieved in time for the date when the Government plan to introduce IER, will the Minister delay that date or run the risk of millions of people falling off the electoral register?

[Mr Harper]

I am sure that the hon. Gentleman has studied our response to the Select Committee’s report, so he will know that one of the things that arose from our data-matching pilots was that there is a good opportunity to use a pre-verification process to ensure that we, in effect, put a floor under electoral registers to reduce the risk of people falling off the register. We will test that further and no doubt debate it when the proposed legislation is going through the House. That can give us a great deal of confidence that we will not see the problems the hon. Gentleman mentions.

Individual Electoral Registration

Debate between Mark Harper and Clive Betts

Wednesday 15th September 2010 Commons Chamber

[Mr Harper]

My hon. Friend makes a good point. People who are on the register, and who have supplied the identifiers and where verification has taken place, will not have to supply the identifiers and go through that check every year if there are no changes to their details. I thank him for making that point, which has enabled me to make that clear to the House.

[Mr Clive Betts (Sheffield South East) (Lab)]

Data-matching and data-sharing will be key if we are to ensure that thousands of people are not removed from the register as a result of this process. Will the Minister therefore confirm that the pilots will look at as wide a range of data sources as possible? Will he give an assurance that he will look at sources from the Driver and Vehicle Licensing Agency and the Department for Work and Pensions, for instance, and from universities, colleges and schools as young people are often not registered? Will he also consider looking at sources from utilities in the private sector, given that they form an important part of the registration process in Australia?

[Mr Harper]

I thank the Chairman of the Communities and Local Government Committee for raising that point. As well as writing to local authorities, I will write to a number of other organisations, including civil society bodies, in looking for ideas on how to tackle this issue. I said in my statement that we will look at public databases. Other issues arise if we want to look at private databases, but we are considering that too as we want to use a wide variety of sources. As I will be writing to local authorities, I urge hon. Members who are concerned about registration to speak to their local authorities and to encourage them to participate in those pilots. We want a wide range of authorities to take part, and we want to look at a range of data sources because we want to discover which of them are the most effective before we roll this out across the country.