§ Mr. Gordon PrenticeTo ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department if he will make it his policy to collect centrally and arrange for the official publication of the results of all local authority elections and by-elections.
§ Mr. Peter LloydResults of local authority elections outside London are collected by the local government chronicle elections centre, university of Plymouth, and published in the local elections handbook series. Electoral data for London boroughs are collected and published by the London Research Centre. It would not be an effective use of resources for the Home Office to duplicate the work of either the university of Plymouth or the LRC.
The Home Office collects information on the number and turnout in by-elections. This is published annually in "Social Trends" and the Central Statistical Office?s "Annual Abstract of Statistics". We do not currently publish the results of individual by-elections and there are no plans to do so.