Department for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities written question – answered at on 5 February 2024.
Dan Jarvis
Shadow Minister (Home Office) (Security)
To ask the Secretary of State for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities, how many members of staff were working in the Joint Election Security and Preparedness Unit on 31 January 2024.
Dan Jarvis
Shadow Minister (Home Office) (Security)
To ask the Secretary of State for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities, whether he and the Minister for the Cabinet Office plan to increase the number of staff who work in the Joint Election Security and Preparedness Unit.
Simon Hoare
Chair, Northern Ireland Affairs Committee, Parliamentary Under Secretary of State (Department for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities)
It is, and always will be, an absolute priority for this Government to protect our democratic and electoral processes. The Joint Election Security and Preparedness Unit (JESP) works between DLUHC and GSG in Cabinet Office to coordinate election security and preparedness activity within government and externally. JESP carries out the Majority of its work to track and mitigate risks through officials in other government departments and the UK intelligence community. The JESP also works with the devolved administrations, local authorities and the Electoral Commission.
Details of staffing are published in departmental organograms, which are updated periodically.
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Secretary of State was originally the title given to the two officials who conducted the Royal Correspondence under Elizabeth I. Now it is the title held by some of the more important Government Ministers, for example the Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs.
The cabinet is the group of twenty or so (and no more than 22) senior government ministers who are responsible for running the departments of state and deciding government policy.
It is chaired by the prime minister.
The cabinet is bound by collective responsibility, which means that all its members must abide by and defend the decisions it takes, despite any private doubts that they might have.
Cabinet ministers are appointed by the prime minister and chosen from MPs or peers of the governing party.
However, during periods of national emergency, or when no single party gains a large enough majority to govern alone, coalition governments have been formed with cabinets containing members from more than one political party.
War cabinets have sometimes been formed with a much smaller membership than the full cabinet.
From time to time the prime minister will reorganise the cabinet in order to bring in new members, or to move existing members around. This reorganisation is known as a cabinet re-shuffle.
The cabinet normally meets once a week in the cabinet room at Downing Street.
Ministers make up the Government and almost all are members of the House of Lords or the House of Commons. There are three main types of Minister. Departmental Ministers are in charge of Government Departments. The Government is divided into different Departments which have responsibilities for different areas. For example the Treasury is in charge of Government spending. Departmental Ministers in the Cabinet are generally called 'Secretary of State' but some have special titles such as Chancellor of the Exchequer. Ministers of State and Junior Ministers assist the ministers in charge of the department. They normally have responsibility for a particular area within the department and are sometimes given a title that reflects this - for example Minister of Transport.
The term "majority" is used in two ways in Parliament. Firstly a Government cannot operate effectively unless it can command a majority in the House of Commons - a majority means winning more than 50% of the votes in a division. Should a Government fail to hold the confidence of the House, it has to hold a General Election. Secondly the term can also be used in an election, where it refers to the margin which the candidate with the most votes has over the candidate coming second. To win a seat a candidate need only have a majority of 1.
