District Electoral Areas Commissioner (Northern Ireland) Order 2012

Debate between Lord Colwyn and Lord Empey

Tuesday 20th November 2012 Grand Committee

[The Deputy Chairman of Committees (Lord Colwyn)]

I think that the noble Lord should not make another speech at this stage. Perhaps we could hear from other speakers and then from the Minister. He can interrupt on points of clarification then. It is not correct to speak twice in these debates.

[Lord Empey]

My Lords, I note what the noble Lord, Lord McAvoy, says, but the lesson is that wherever you are in the United Kingdom, boundaries matter. As the noble Lord, Lord Kilclooney, said, it is encouraging that we can have a debate and discuss these issues in Northern Ireland without, thank God, the consequences that once might have been the case. It is a more mature discussion. While I have big problems with what is being proposed, decisions have been taken and they must be respected. This order is the natural outcome of those proposals.

Perhaps the Minister will give us some idea of the timing. Of course, the Northern Ireland Office can only respond to the devolved Administration—it cannot initiate the process; it has to wait—but if elections are to take place in 2014 as apparently proposed, the timetable for this operation is vital. If the appointment is made shortly, it will be the middle of next year before any proposal can be implemented. That is leaving things very short. This process has gone on since 2001. When those new local councils take power in 2015 it will have taken 14 years to reform local government for 1.8 million people.

You could not make it up if it was anywhere else in the world—and we are supposed to be lecturing people on the democratic process and how they conduct themselves. In fact, we have been so slow with this that the whole scene in local government will be out of date before we get it going. If this commissioner is not able to do his or her work in the first half of next year, the opportunity to hold those local elections will have been lost, and they will be postponed once again. I, too, would be interested to hear the Minister’s response.