Local Elections (Northern Ireland) (Amendment) Order 2020

Lord Rennard Excerpts

Monday 23rd March 2020 Grand Committee

[Viscount Younger of Leckie (Con)]

My Lords, this statutory instrument would amend the existing legislative framework for local elections in Northern Ireland so that it will no longer be a requirement that a candidate’s home address must be disclosed and published during the election process.

It used to be an accepted part of local elections that candidates standing for election would disclose their home address and that that address would be printed on the ballot paper. The provision was designed to demonstrate the local connection of the candidate. This local connection is undeniably an important aspect of our local government system. However, times change. It is sadly the case that intimidation and threats are now a part of many elected representatives’ lives. The death of Jo Cox MP stands as a particularly stark reminder of that fact. We fully accept that it is no longer proportionate to require candidates to make public their home addresses in order to stand for public office.

There is no requirement to disclose home addresses publicly at parliamentary or Assembly elections in Northern Ireland. This draft order will provide consistency across all electoral events in Northern Ireland and most other elections across the UK, by removing this requirement for Northern Ireland local elections. The order brings local elections into line with other elections in Northern Ireland by removing the requirement for all candidates’ home addresses to be included on nomination papers and consent to nomination forms and then printed on the ballot paper. Candidates will instead be able to choose whether they wish their home address to be included on these public documents.

Nevertheless, when voting for candidates in local elections, electors have a right to know that each candidate has a tie to the local area. To balance that right with the aim to provide protection for candidates, this draft order will ensure that candidates will be required to provide their home address on a separate form. This home address form, which will not be made public, will be used by the Chief Electoral Officer to confirm that a candidate has a local tie.

It is worth noting that these provisions do not alter the requirements for a local connection. As has always been the case, anyone wanting to stand as a councillor in Northern Ireland must be on the electoral register for that council area, or, broadly speaking, have owned or rented land, or have lived in or worked in the area, for the preceding year. If a candidate indicates on the home address form that they do not wish the address to become public, it will not appear on any public documents, which include the statement of persons nominated and the ballot paper. In such cases, the area that the candidate’s address is in—instead of the candidate’s home address—will appear. I am pleased to be bringing this order forward. It is important that as many barriers as possible are removed from stopping individuals engaging in the public and democratic life of our country.

In addition to removing home addresses from ballot papers, the order makes provision to remove the current legislative requirement that candidates’ surnames are printed all in capital letters on ballot papers. This will ensure that a candidate’s name can appear on the ballot paper as the candidate would normally spell it. For example, where a capital letter is not usually at the beginning of the name, as is sometimes the case with Irish names, that can be accurately reflected on the ballot paper.

Finally, the order will remove the requirement that local councils are described as “district councils” on the ballot paper. The order will provide instead that a council can print its official name and describe itself as, for example, a “borough” or “city” council as appropriate.

This draft order is not controversial but nevertheless it is important. It is about helping to ensure that as many people as possible feel able to be part of the democratic process without feeling intimidated. It is about letting people standing as candidates have their name spelled as they would usually spell it, and about allowing councils to describe themselves on ballot papers by the name that they are commonly known by. I hope your Lordships will agree that, while technical, these are important provisions, and noble Lords will support this order. I commend it to the House, and I beg to move.

[Lord Rennard (LD)]

My Lords, this is the sort of order that I am sure will not attract any controversy. The provisions on how surnames appear on ballot papers are a simple matter of equal recognition for different traditions, and of fairness.

On the issue of the non-appearance of a home address on ballot papers, I do not think we can let the measure pass without at least expressing some regret, engaged as we are in the political process, that it has become necessary to remove candidates’ home addresses from ballot papers. For the reasons that the Minister gave, it is now sadly necessary to do that.

For those of us who have been involved in elections over many decades, as some of us clearly have, elections have sometimes revolved largely around the issue of the locality of one candidate versus the lack of locality of another. In my early years in Liverpool elections, the by-election was based largely on the fact that our candidate happened to live in the ward in Liverpool where the election was taking place, while the Labour Party candidate happened to live in Southport. No other issue seemed to be important. It is important that there is still some recognition of how local or otherwise a candidate is. Therefore, I have only one question for the Minister. Could he explain what is meant by “area” in the order? Clearly, something less specific than the road on which the candidate lives, but more specific than “Northern Ireland”, is appropriate. What sort of criteria will be applied in describing the area in which a candidate is based?

[Lord Collins of Highbury (Lab)]

My Lords, I thank the Minister for introducing the order. I agree with him that this is not a controversial issue; I think we can all agree on that. Some of the comments about Liverpool might have prompted me to jump in and be perhaps a little more partisan than I should be, but I will resist the opportunity.

I do not normally cover these issues; I am standing in for my noble friend Lord Kennedy. He and I have worked together on elections over many years. Certainly, when I was general secretary, he was a senior officer supporting me on compliance and some of the legal issues.

One thing that struck me when reading the Explanatory Memorandum was that, as the Minister said, bearing in mind the circumstances in Northern Ireland, removing the requirement to disclose a candidate’s address is not a controversial step. In fact, there is a growing threat to elected representatives, not just in Northern Ireland but everywhere in the UK. Paragraph 7.4 of the Explanatory Memorandum refers to the 2017 report from the Committee on Standards in Public Life which recommended the change. From 2017 to 2020 seems an extremely long time for us to get our act together to address this, particularly as Northern Ireland has been a sensitive area in which security has been a fundamental issue. I can understand that, in the context of Brexit, there may have been other things to deal with, but surely that does not explain the amount of time this has taken. I hope the Minister can reassure us on that.

I totally agree with the measures regarding the use of capital letters and ensuring that everyone can meet the requirements of their own name and language; it a sensible move. However, it would be helpful to understand exactly how many people the Government think will be affected by this change, bearing in mind that the purpose of the original legislation was to ensure that everyone’s name appears in exactly the same format, so that there was no discriminatory impact in the way a name was presented.

The other thing that was mentioned is the question of district, borough and city councils. Again, the Explanatory Memorandum did not quite address this. How many councils are affected by this? It is non-controversial but, again, bearing in mind that the changes to the names of local authorities have been around for some time, it seems that it has taken a long time to address this issue.

I echo some of the comments that have already been made, but that is all I have to say at this moment.