District Electoral Areas Commissioner (Northern Ireland) Order 2012

Debate between Lord Morrow and Lord Browne of Belmont

Tuesday 20th November 2012 Grand Committee

[Lord Browne of Belmont]

My Lords, I welcome the order. It is important that the commissioner is in place as soon as possible, to move forward quickly and to have the mechanism to allow the establishment of the 11 new councils and, particularly, to group the new wards in the appropriate councils. The 11 new councils will be more efficient and cost-effective, and prove better value for the rate-payers of Northern Ireland. However, like the noble Lord, Lord Empey, I am concerned about the timeframe. Is the Minister satisfied that the timeframe that will be afforded to the commissioner will be sufficient to allow local elections to proceed in 2014? Finally, is any appeal process available to those who object to the commissioner’s findings?

[Lord Morrow]

My Lords, I will make a few remarks on the reform of local government. As one who has been in local government from 1973 to the present day, what strikes me is that when local government was first reformed under the recommendations of the Macrory report—I heard what the noble Lord, Lord Kilclooney, said: that this happened under his watch—it was a straight-across change. There were no shadow councils put in place then. It was one way today and a different way tomorrow; that was just the way it happened. There was no learning process, there was no settling in and there was no getting to know the ropes. You just landed on your feet; at least, that is the way that I had to do it. I suspect that no one else did any differently.

We had an election in 2011. I think it has been implied that there was no election then. Well, I stood in an election in 2011 so there was one, and there is another now proposed for 2014. Generally, I support the principles of what has been outlined here today. We have 26 district councils. I am not going to comment on whether they have been good, bad or indifferent. There have been deficiencies, all right. However, I agree with noble Lords when they say that it was the only form of government, of elected representation, there for some 40 years. It is right that we should pay tribute to those who unfortunately had to pay the ultimate sacrifice, for whatever reason. Indeed, some are being asked to do that to this very day.

If we are going to reform local government, and it has taken some time to bring it to this stage, we would do better to get it right than to do it quickly. I do not think that we in Northern Ireland could ever be accused of doing anything too quickly. We take an inordinate amount of time going through this process, but it is an important process for a number of reasons. I support the concept of 11 councils. Quite frankly, Northern Ireland is much too small to have 26 district councils, 108 MLAs, 18 MPs and three MEPs. We are oversubscribed in relation to public representatives, and it is right that change should come quickly.

Having made those observations, I generally and basically agree with what is outlined here today.