Northern Ireland

Lord Swire Excerpts

Wednesday 17th November 2010 Commons Chamber

[The Minister of State, Northern Ireland Office (Mr Hugo Swire)]

I beg to move,

That the draft Local Elections (Northern Ireland) Order 2010, which was laid before this House on 25 October, be approved.

[Mr Deputy Speaker]

With this we shall take the following motion:

That the draft Northern Ireland Assembly (Elections) (Amendment) Order 2010, which was laid before this House on 25 October, be approved.

[Mr Swire]

These orders update the law governing elections to the Northern Ireland Assembly and to district councils in Northern Ireland in advance of elections in 2011.

I will deal first with the Assembly order, which is much the smaller of the two. That is because the law governing elections to the Northern Ireland Assembly was substantially amended as recently as 2009. Since then, some minor procedural updates have been applied to European and parliamentary elections that, for consistency, should also be applied to Assembly elections. For example, article 3 of the order makes provision to allow a candidate standing in the name of two or more parties to have one of those party’s emblems on the ballot paper.

It also enables a person who cannot sign his or her signature to use a mark in place of any signature required at the nomination stage. Article 4 requires individuals to give reasons if they request their absent vote to be sent to a different address from that at which they are registered. Those are clearly relatively small changes, but they nevertheless mirror updates made to the law since 2009 that apply at other elections in Northern Ireland, and they will provide for greater consistency.

The draft Local Elections (Northern Ireland) Order 2010 is the more substantial order, and provides a much-needed update of the law governing local elections in Northern Ireland. The Electoral Administration Act 2006 made a considerable number of changes to the law governing parliamentary elections across the United Kingdom. As I have indicated, those changes were applied to Northern Ireland Assembly elections and European elections in 2009, but have not yet been applied to district council elections in Northern Ireland. They are set out in schedule 1 to the order, and they include allowing returning officers to correct procedural errors and supply documents in other languages and formats.

Schedule 1 also makes provision for the control of donations to candidates in local elections in Northern Ireland, in line with the donation controls that apply at all other elections in Northern Ireland and across the UK. Schedule 2 makes changes to absent voting procedures, which again already apply at other elections in Northern Ireland. They include adding registered social workers to the list of those who may attest absent vote applications on the grounds of illness and disability, which will make it easier for people with disabilities who live in the community to apply for an absent vote. Schedule 3 aligns the law relating to access to and inspection of documents at local elections with procedures at all other elections in Northern Ireland.

The order also amends the local election rules contained in schedule 5 to the Electoral Law Act (Northern Ireland) 1962. That includes updating the list of acceptable forms of photographic ID that can be presented in order to vote in Northern Ireland, which is of course crucial to ensure consistency of approach for all polls in 2011.

The order is substantial, and I would not wish to detain the House by providing an in-depth description of each provision. I hope the House is satisfied that it contains small but important changes to the law that will provide much-needed modernisation of local election procedures in Northern Ireland and greater consistency with other elections across the UK.

Finally, article 3 of the local elections order sets the date of the next district council elections in Northern Ireland as 5 May 2011. Hon. Members will be aware that in 2008, the previous Government agreed to a request from the Northern Ireland Executive to postpone the local elections that were scheduled to take place in May the following year. The House subsequently approved legislation to postpone the election until 2011, on a date to be specified nearer the time. The postponement was to allow time for new local government boundaries to be redrawn as part of the overall review of public administration that was taking place in Northern Ireland. That review was to provide, among other things, for the number of district councils in Northern Ireland to be reduced from 26 to 11.

I regret to report that that reduction did not proceed as planned. Although the local government boundaries commissioner reported to the Executive with proposed new boundaries on time in 2009, an order has still not been brought before the Assembly to give effect to them. This June I made it absolutely clear to the Executive that there could be no prospect of further postponement of the elections beyond the two years previously agreed. I was also advised that further delay in passing the order to give effect to the boundaries would seriously jeopardise planning for elections in May 2011. The Executive therefore needed to take an urgent decision on whether the proposed new councils could be delivered in time to allow for elections to them in May 2011.

On 15 June I received confirmation from the Minister for the Environment in the Executive that the reorganisation would not now go ahead in 2011. I announced shortly afterwards that there was now no option but to hold elections to the existing 26 councils in May 2011. The local elections order will provide for that. I know that some hon. and right hon. Members may have concerns about those elections being combined with both Assembly elections and a potential referendum on the alternative vote. I have received the advice of both the Electoral Commission and the chief electoral officer on this matter, and both are confident that a combined poll in May 2011 can be successfully delivered if the risks are properly managed.

My officials are working closely with the commission and the chief electoral officer in the run-up to the polls to ensure that there is an early identification and resolution of any potential problems.

[Mr Gregory Campbell (East Londonderry) (DUP)]

The Minister alludes to the difficulties that could be presented, with the distinct possibility—or probability—of our having three elections, using two different voting systems, on the same day. Will he ensure that as much co-ordination and co-operation takes place to ensure that after this legislation passes, which it undoubtedly will, the people of Northern Ireland get the maximum amount of information to ensure that they are fully prepared for what will be an unprecedented voting day next May?

[Mr Swire]

The hon. Gentleman is absolutely right: we must do that. In fact there are two elections, which will be held in the normal way for the people in Northern Ireland, and the third is just a straight yes/no vote. I hope that the people of Northern Ireland will vote in the same way as I will.

[Naomi Long (Belfast East) (Alliance)]

The Minister mentioned that in his meeting with the Electoral Commission, it had indicated that it was happy to facilitate all the elections taking place on the same day, provided that the risks were properly managed. Will he also agree that the commission said that it needed to ensure that it is properly resourced, given that there will be complications involving, for example, the number of ballot boxes available, and a number of other logistical issues, which will require more expenditure than a regular election?

[Mr Swire]

The hon. Lady is absolutely right. Of course this needs to be properly resourced, and the necks of both the Secretary of State and myself are on the line if anything goes wrong. What we all want to avoid, on both sides of the House, are scenes such as those that we saw in the recent general election, when people were turned away from the polling stations. The matter is further complicated because some polling stations in Northern Ireland are quite small. There is also the issue of screening, and, as the hon. Lady said, of ballot boxes. I understand that the ballot boxes are being sourced at the moment. She is right to say that we must get it right, and to do that requires proper planning and funding.

As I was saying, my officials are working closely with the commission and the chief electoral officer in the run-up to the polls to ensure that there is early identification and resolution of any problems such as the ones that we have just heard about.

I hope that the House is satisfied that the vast majority of provisions in these orders will make small but important changes to provide for greater consistency with elections elsewhere in the UK. I also hope that hon. and right hon. Members are reassured that the necessary steps will be taken to ensure successful combined polls in May 2011, and will therefore agree that the date of the next local elections should be set for 5 May next year. I commend these orders to the House.

--- Later in debate ---

[Mr Swire]

This has been an interesting debate and a number of interesting points have been raised. The shadow spokesman, the hon. Member for Falkirk (Eric Joyce), touched only lightly on the proposed legislation under discussion, and seemed to refer rather more to the Parliamentary Voting System and Constituencies Bill. He talked about various topics including the House of Lords, Scotland, the boundary commissions and a number of MPs, none of which related to what we are discussing tonight, but his comments were nevertheless interesting for my ministerial colleagues who are present in the Chamber, as they have been discussing that Bill for many days.

The hon. Gentleman said that the changes to the Northern Ireland electoral system are confusing. The changes we propose ensure consistency across all elections in Northern Ireland, making the electoral system clearer for candidates, administrators and voters, and the changes are minor and principally administrative.

The right hon. Member for Belfast North (Mr Dodds) asked a number of interesting questions. He talked about electoral law offences. It is worth putting on record that if a person is suspected of committing such an offence, the chief electoral officer should refer the matter to the police and the prosecuting authorities. Prosecutions are a matter for the Public Prosecution Service, of course. He also talked about the timetabling of local elections. Local election procedures regarding the timetable will now be aligned with the Northern Ireland Assembly timetable by virtue of this order.

The right hon. Gentleman also talked about a subject that I discussed: polling agents. As the former Northern Ireland Minister, the right hon. Member for Wythenshawe and Sale East (Paul Goggins), will no doubt remember, the previous Government undertook a full public consultation on that in 2008. There was no consensus then on whether they should be abolished. It is also worth noting that the law allowing for polling agents applies across the UK, but we will review this again after the May 2011 elections. I must confess that I have a considerable interest in this point and am more than happy to discuss it with the right hon. Member for Belfast North over the coming months.

[Mr Dodds]

I look forward to those discussions. The Minister mentioned a lack of consensus. Obviously we will not get consensus across all the political parties, for the very reasons that I outlined. Would he not put a lot of weight on the views of the chief electoral officer, who surely has an independent view on all this in terms of the conduct of elections?

[Mr Swire]

I do not think that I am breaking any confidences by saying that I have discussed this matter with the chief electoral officer and his predecessor. I can only say that I am more than happy to discuss it with the right hon. Gentleman. I have considerable interest in this and considerable sympathy with where he is coming from. He also raised the issue of political donations. As he will know, the consultation on the provision for donations to political parties in Northern Ireland to be made confidentially concluded on 25 October, and we are considering how best to take that forward.

The right hon. Member for Wythenshawe and Sale East spoke, as usual, intelligently and with tremendous knowledge. I know that he shares my frustration that things have not moved along as much as we would have liked on local government reorganisation. He asked whether there are signs of progress, and one hears from time to time various rumblings coming from the hill. The answer is that we must not relax on this matter and we must keep up the pressure, and he was right about that. I shall return to that in a moment, if I may. He also spoke about the combined elections in 2015 and he will not be surprised to hear that no decision has yet been taken—we are trying to get through next year first. I would prefer to await the outcome of the combined polls in 2011 before taking a decision on whether it is desirable to combine elections in 2015 or whether a provision should be made for their separation.

I was asked what the Government are planning to do about the coincidence of elections in 2015. I am writing to all Northern Ireland parties setting out our proposed approach and requesting their views. It should be remembered—we have been discussing this recently in terms of other legislation—that the Secretary of State already has a power to alter the Assembly election date by two months. We will see whether we need to do that at that time.

The right hon. Member for Lagan Valley (Mr Donaldson) talked about outdated boundaries. We would very much hope that the Executive have agreed new boundaries to ensure that they are updated well in advance of 2015, but in any case, I am proposing to write to the Minister for the Environment to take forward such a review immediately after the 2011 elections. I believe I am right in saying that the current boundaries are 19 years old, which is not at all acceptable, so clearly this is something that they need to get on with, regardless of local government reorganisation.

The right hon. Member for Wythenshawe and Sale East asked whether we would bring forward elections. We have received no such request and we would need to consider such a proposal carefully, as we would want to ensure that the transition to new councils and the new set-up was in its final stages. We do not want to chop and change dates without good reason. He would probably support that approach, given that he said that it was with extreme reluctance that he postponed the date of the original election; I believe he said that he did not do that lightly. Nor should we tamper with this. We will have elections in May, but we need to keep up the pressure.

The hon. Member for Belfast East (Naomi Long) raised some interesting points about ID, which I had raised with officials today. It is true to say that this order ensures that requirements at all elections are now consistent in Northern Ireland. I am told that people will be able to use the Translink smartpass, provisional driving licence and other smartcards. She also asked about foreigners and foreign ID. It is true that someone can now use an EU driving licence or an EU passport to vote in Assembly and local elections.

[Naomi Long]

One example that we had a problem with was non-EU documentation, such as that from Commonwealth countries. For example, people who are resident ordinarily in Northern Ireland and have Canadian or Indian passports cannot use them as a document to vote, even though they are entitled to vote in that election.

[Mr Swire]

The hon. Lady raises a good point. We should make it perfectly clear well in advance of the elections what photo ID will be acceptable. There could be nothing more frustrating than queuing to take part in three elections, arriving almost as the clock is striking 10 o’clock, only to be told that one has the wrong form of ID. That is something we should consider and, again, we need to be properly prepared. We would not want people in any great numbers—or, indeed, any individual—to feel that they had been disfranchised because they were not aware that their ID, which they thought was quite proper and which could be used on airlines and so on, was not appropriate for an election. We heard loud and clear what the hon. Lady had to say.

The hon. Lady also asked about the Assembly election dominating debate, leading to local issues being ignored. It is worth pointing out that, as the right hon. Member for Belfast North mentioned, local elections were held successfully alongside Westminster elections in Northern Ireland in both 2001 and 2005. The hon. Lady said that Northern Ireland has a sophisticated voting population, and it is up to the individual candidates to set fire in the minds and hearts of their potential electorate—[Interruption.] Not literally, but in terms of trying to get interest in the election. I think the hon. Lady is probably wrong on this point because having three elections, albeit two voting one way and another being a straight yes or no, will mean that people will talk about the elections much more. I would not be at all surprised if we had a very good turnout. I do not think that one issue should eclipse the other—I think that we are going to have a very political new year.

The right hon. Member for Lagan Valley mentioned ward boundaries. Again, that is a matter for his colleague the Environment Minister in the Executive, but, as we have said, we cannot go on working on boundaries that are nearly 19 years out of date. He also asked a specific question about the electoral night, and I am looking forward to the morning after, which I hope will be one without too much trouble. I am told by the Parliamentary Secretary, Cabinet Office, my hon. Friend the Member for Forest of Dean (Mr Harper), that the Electoral Commission’s recommendation is that the Assembly election should be first, the referendum second and the local government election third, on the Monday. I believe that that has already been published.

It has been an interesting debate, but not a controversial one. The legislation is necessary to tidy up some anomalies. The contributions made by right hon. and hon. Members of all parties will be listened to by the Electoral Commission and the chief electoral officer. Let us hope that we have a good day next year.

Question put.

The Deputy Speaker’s opinion as to the decision of the Question being challenged, the Division was deferred until Wednesday 24 November (Standing Order No. 41A).

Northern Ireland

Motion made, and Question put,

That the draft Northern Ireland Assembly (Elections) (Amendment) Order 2010, which was laid before this House on 25 October, be approved.—(Mr Swire.)

The Deputy Speaker’s opinion as to the decision of the Question being challenged, the Division was deferred until Wednesday 24 November (Standing Order No. 41A).