Local Elections (Northern Ireland) (Amendment) Order 2021

Baroness Hoey Excerpts

Tuesday 22nd June 2021 Grand Committee

[Baroness Hoey (Non-Afl) [V]]

My Lords, I add my thanks to the Minister for the very clear articulation of what this SI says. Reading what we got from the Library and the Northern Ireland Office, I found one or two points where it did not seem quite so clear, and I think that he made a very clear run at telling us what it says. It is also quite nice to speak when the Minister is moving something on Northern Ireland with which I am totally in agreement.

I very much support this order. We should have consistency across the United Kingdom in our elections as far as possible. Sometimes that is not just one-way; of course, Northern Ireland has very sensibly and successfully had photographic ID for elections for a long time, and now the rest of Great Britain is going to follow on that. I think that is very sensible. You do not need a passport or driving licence; the local authority will give you something that shows your identity, which I think is very important. It is not just a case of Northern Ireland always catching up. As I think the noble Lord, Lord Browne, said, sometimes we are actually ahead in Northern Ireland.

The imprint issue is important, and this has clarified what will happen in the future. I was also going to raise the question of social media, Twitter and Facebook, all of which are being used much more in elections, so I am very pleased that the Minister has mentioned this. I am interested that there is going to be legislation. Could the Minister give us some timings on that? I think this will be more and more of a problem. Having said that, Twitter and Facebook have brought a lot of people into listening to and being interested in politics who maybe did not or were not before, so we have to be careful in judging social media. There are positive aspects of both Facebook and Twitter, but for elections it is important that there is the same amount of scrutiny of who is posting and promoting things. I would support that, and I would like to find out whether there is a date for legislation coming through.

Finally, could the Minister tell us what is now left? What is the not the same in Northern Ireland as in the rest of Great Britain? It would be useful to know whether we will be exactly identical in our election format, procedures and rules after both aspects he mentioned go through.