Northern Ireland

Debate between Lord Swire and Nigel Evans

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.