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Business VAT Returns
Mrs. Anne Campbell: To ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer how many random checks on business value added tax returns were carried out in each of the last three years for which figures are available, by region and ethnicity of the business owner. [1110]
Dawn Primarolo: Customs does not hold the statistics requested.
Private Health Insurance (Tax Relief)
Mr. Colvin:
To ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer what is the annual financial saving to the Exchequer from abolishing tax relief on private patient insurance schemes for the elderly. [1099]
2 Jun 1997 : Column: 90
Dawn Primarolo:
The total tax relief on private medical insurance contracts for individuals aged 60 or over is estimated to be about £120 million in 1997-98.
Mr. Mitchell:
To ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer if he will include in his proposals for banking supervision arrangements for auditors of all banks regulated under the Banking Act 1987 to be appointed by the regulatory body. [1537]
Mrs. Liddell:
We have no plans to include such arrangements.
Mr. Burstow:
To ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer by what means his Department makes available its publications in (a) Braille, (b) audio tape and (c) large print; and how this is publicised. [1688]
Mrs. Liddell:
If requested Treasury publications would be made available in braille using braille transcripton services. However to date this has not been requested.
Similarly, if requested, the Treasury could make arrangements to have publications produced on audio tape.
However as these services cannot be provided in-house, they are not publicised as Treasury services.
In addition, all public Treasury documents are produced in the optimum typeface sizes (at least 12 point). These are also available on the Internet, where they can be heard by visually handicapped people who have access to a "talking computer" or can be printed out as text of any size.
Mr. Matthew Taylor:
To ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer if he will take steps to graduate the rate of vehicle excise duty by the fuel efficiency of the vehicle.[1002]
Dawn Primarolo:
The Government are keeping all options for vehicle excise duty under review.
Mr. Vaz:
To ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer how many of those eligible to vote he estimates were not registered to vote at the time of (a) the 1987 General Election, (b) the 1992 General Election and (c) the 1997 General Election. [1493]
Mrs. Liddell:
The information requested falls within the responsibility of the Chief Executive of the Office for National Statistics. I have asked him to arrange a reply to be given.
Letter from Tim Holt to Mr. Keith Vaz, dated 2 June 1997:
2 Jun 1997 : Column: 91
(20) Persons aged 17 and over, together with 63 per cent of those aged 16, who became 18 during the period when each register was in use. No account has been taken of adults who died between the mid-year reference date for population estimates and the 10 October qualifying date for the following year's electoral register.
The ratios in the final column suggest that coverage of the electoral register has been steady in recent years, after a decline in the period between 1986 and 1991. However, these ratios need to be treated with care and do not represent the proportion of eligible persons who were on the register at their qualifying address for a number of reasons:
the electoral register (the numerator) contains some redundant entries for people who had already moved elsewhere or died at the time when it was compiled but whose names were nonetheless carried forward to a new register;
the electoral register contains some legitimate dual registrations, for example by students and owners of second homes;
the electoral register, but not the population estimates (the denominator) includes overseas voters and service voters who are living abroad; the population estimates include residents who were ineligible to be on the electoral register because they were neither British Commonwealth nor Republic of Ireland citizens.
2 Jun 1997 : Column: 92
Mr. Colvin:
To ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer if he will list, by parliamentary constituency, the total number of overseas electors registered in each constituency in the United Kingdom. [844]
Mrs. Liddell:
The information requested falls within the responsibility of the Chief Executive of the Office for National Statistics. I have asked him to arrange for a reply to be given.
Letter from Tim Holt to Mr. Michael Colvin, dated 2 June 1997:
The Chancellor of the Exchequer has asked me to reply as Director of the Office for National Statistics (ONS) to your recent question about overseas electors registered in each constituency in the United Kingdom.
Mr. Ben Chapman:
To ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer what will be the role of the Bank of England's agents in the setting of interest rates. [1122]
Mrs. Liddell:
Interest rate decisions will be made by a Monetary Policy Committee, on the basis of a majority vote. The MPC will require regional and sectoral information for the purposes of monetary policy formation, including reports from the Bank's agents. The non-Executive Members of the Court will review the performance of the MPC, with particular regard to whether the Bank is collecting proper regional and sectoral information.
The Chancellor of the Exchequer has asked me to reply as the Director of the Office for National Statistics (ONS) to your recent question asking how many of those eligible to vote he estimates were not registered to vote at the time of (a) the 1987 General Election, (b) the 1992 General Election and (c) the 1997 General Election.
There is not enough information to give a reliable figure for those missing from the Electoral Register. It is not possible to compare registration figures with estimates of the resident population directly because these two sources are not compiled on the same basis. The differences between the coverage of the Electoral Registers and the mid year population estimates have been published in Appendix B to the ONS publication '1996 Electoral Statistics' series EL no. 23, a copy of which is attached.
An approximate figure has been calculated for the UK resident population who were eligible to vote in 1987 and 1992 and, relative to the number of electors registered in 1987 and 1992, this suggests that 2.6% and 4.5% of those eligible to vote were not registered in these two years respectively.
An estimate cannot be made for those registered at the time of the 1997 General Election because mid year estimates for the resident population at the preceding mid year are not yet available. This will be possible to do when the ONS publish the 1996 mid year population estimates which is planned for August 1997.
Parliamentary electors Approximate corresponding resident population at preceding mid-year(20) (a) as percentage of (b)
(Thousands) (a) (Thousands) (b)
1976 39,739 40,870 97.2
1981 41,069 42,108 97.5
1982 41,405 42,369 97.7
1983 41,642 42,584 97.8
1984 41,906 42,859 97.8
1985 42,048 43,167 97.4
1986 42,305 43,470 97.3
1987 42,563 43,722 97.4
1988 42,596 43,965 96.9
1989 42,492 44,164 96.2
1990 42,533 44,360 95.9
1991 42,424 44,502 95.3
1992 42,583 44,628 95.4
1993 42,565 44,713 95.2
1994 42,624 44,781 95.2
1995 42,727 44,861 95.2
1996 42,808 45,012 95.1
ONS have published, by parliamentary constituency, the number of overseas electors on the 1997 Electoral Registers for the United Kingdom. This information was published on 26 March 1997 in ONS Monitor EL97/1, and is available in the Library.
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