Northern Ireland (Elections) (Amendment) (No. 2) Order 2015

Lord Dunlop Excerpts

Monday 23rd November 2015 Lords Chamber

Moved by

[Lord Dunlop]

That the draft Order laid before the House on 2 November be approved.

Relevant document: 8th Report from the Joint Committee on Statutory Instruments

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Scotland Office (Lord Dunlop) (Con)]

My Lords, this statutory instrument, the Northern Ireland (Elections) (Amendment) (No. 2) Order 2015, makes a number of changes to the legislative framework for Northern Ireland elections. Some are minor administrative points, and I will focus on the two most substantive provisions.

The draft order makes provision to allow the retention of certain entries on the Northern Ireland electoral register for a further year. Northern Ireland is unique within the UK in that it does not hold an annual canvass to refresh its register. Since 2006, the register in Northern Ireland has been maintained not via a canvass but through a system of continuous registration which relies on cross-checking electoral data against prescribed official data streams. This approach is possible because all electoral registration in Northern Ireland has been individual registration rather than household registration since 2002.

Following the last full Northern Ireland canvass in 2013, provision was made to retain some entries on the register where the individuals in question had not returned the canvass form but where the Chief Electoral Officer had no reason to question the validity of their entry. The Electoral Office for Northern Ireland was able to assess the validity of entries for these non-respondents, as all the individuals in question were individually registered and the electoral office’s data-checking facility with both DWP and health service records allows a high level of assurance on people’s current address and other key information.

Let me be clear that the entries that relate to these non-respondents were all checked after the 2013 canvass and have been continuously checked since then in response to alerts from other government data sources. The Electoral Office for Northern Ireland receives regular updates of data from a variety of official sources, including the DWP, the Registrar-General and Business Services Organisation. BSO holds all the details of individuals on GP and dentist lists in Northern Ireland. If there is an inconsistency between the data on the register and that received from the other data sources, the electoral office issues chasing letters to the individual and then a final warning. If the individual does not respond, they are removed from the register.

Of the 112,000 registered electors who did not respond to the 2013 canvass, about 10,000 have been removed from the register and more than 20,000 have been successfully re-registered. Approximately 82,000 voters are therefore affected by the provision we are considering today. The original provision made in 2013 to retain these particular entries on the register was for two years and will expire at the beginning of December this year when the new register is published. However, it was always the intention that the retained entries should not be removed in advance of the next Northern Ireland Assembly elections. Due to the clash of the parliamentary general election and the Assembly election which was originally scheduled for 2015, the date of the Assembly election was postponed until May 2016. That postponement is the reason we need the extension of these provisions for one further year.

Both the Electoral Commission and the Chief Electoral Officer for Northern Ireland share the Government’s view that the retention of these entries for a further year is desirable in the context of the continuous registration system employed in Northern Ireland. We fully intend that this will be the final provision made to retain non-respondent voters. We propose to introduce digital registration in Northern Ireland in 2016, and in the context of easier online registration and the publicity associated with its introduction, non-respondent voters will be given clear notice that they will come off the register in December 2016 if they do not take action.

The second substantive provision made by this order is to allow the Chief Electoral Officer for Northern Ireland not to be guilty of an offence if they take steps to fully correct procedural errors made at Assembly elections that would otherwise be a breach of their official duty. Currently, for all Northern Ireland elections, with the exception of those for the Assembly, the relevant legislation provides for the Chief Electoral Officer not to be guilty of an offence if they take steps to remedy in full an administrative error or omission. The order will correct this anomaly and bring the provision in respect of Assembly elections into line with the provisions for parliamentary, European and local elections in Northern Ireland. Although this is an electoral matter, which is therefore not devolved to the Northern Ireland Assembly, it tangentially touches on criminal justice matters. Your Lordships will wish to know that my honourable friend the Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Northern Ireland, Ben Wallace, has written to the Northern Ireland Minister for Justice to inform him of our intentions in this as a matter of courtesy.

--- Later in debate ---

[Lord Dunlop]

My Lords, I thank the noble Lords, Lord Tyler, Lord Bew, Lord Kennedy and Lord Empey, for their contributions. The noble Lords, Lord Tyler and Lord Kennedy, have reminded us of the recent debate over the end of transition to individual electoral registration in Great Britain, particularly regarding the concerns that they have over the impact on GB registers of removing the remaining carry-forward entries this December as opposed to in December 2016. However, what we are considering today are provisions for Northern Ireland alone, and I do not propose to rehearse the arguments and merits of what was determined in that case for Great Britain.

The fact is that the framework in place for ensuring the integrity of the Northern Ireland register is entirely different from that for Great Britain. In Great Britain, we are moving away from household registration and have decided not to carry forward entries that are not IER-registered by this December. We are acting to tackle concerns about ghost entries that the system of household registration gave rise to.

In Northern Ireland we have had individual registration for well over a decade. Every elector on the Northern Ireland register is individually registered. Because Northern Ireland does not have an annual canvass but instead checks entries through data streams, we can and do check the validity of non-respondents.

Great Britain and Northern Ireland have different systems for registration. We believe that there is merit in retaining these individuals on the Northern Ireland register, but that it is simply not appropriate in the case of Great Britain to retain non-IER-registered entries that have not been validity-checked and have not responded to the sustained programme of contact that GB councils have carried out. The chief electoral officer has made it clear that he has no reason to think that non-respondents retained on the Northern Ireland register are anything other than eligible voters. Given the framework of individual registration and data checking in place in Northern Ireland and the current expectation of voters and activists alike that non-respondents who have been validity-checked will remain on the register for the Assembly elections, I urge noble Lords to support this order and the range of provisions in it. I therefore commend this order to the House.

[Lord Kennedy of Southwark]

Before the Minister sits down, I remind him that I put a number of points to him about when these decisions were taken—whether before or after 27 October—on what he knew when he was voting on 27 October and with regard to timelines. He has not addressed them at all in his response.

[Lord Dunlop]

I do not have that information, but I am happy to write to the noble Lord.

[Lord Tyler]

My Lords, despite the advice of the Companion, on 27 October I was denied the opportunity to reply to the debate on my Motion or even to indicate whether I wished to withdraw the Motion or to test the opinion of the House. It seems to be my fate that this evening when I do not need it, I am getting that opportunity. As I shall explain, I do not intend to press this amendment to a Division.

If in Northern Ireland the process that has been described well by a number of colleagues is so much better and does not need an annual canvass, why do the Government not introduce those improvements instead of creating the entirely phoney spectre of ghost voters, as they did when they were dealing with England, Wales and Scotland? The Government have shown themselves to be adopting double standards on this issue. That does no credit to Ministers or indeed to the House or to the Government themselves.

This particular order is much more helpful than the one that we were addressing last month, and I support it. In those circumstances, I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.