Lord Evans of Temple Guiting rose to move, That the draft regulations laid before the House on 29 March be approved.
The noble Lord said: My Lords, first, I shall provide some background to these regulations which amend the Representation of the People (Northern Ireland) Regulations 2001 to enable the Chief Electoral Officer—CEO—for Northern Ireland to request information from specified local and public authorities in Northern Ireland for the purpose of meeting his registration objectives.
The Northern Ireland (Miscellaneous Provisions) Act 2006 removed the legal obligation on the CEO to conduct an annual canvass in Northern Ireland and made provision for a system of more extensive and targeted continuous updating of the electoral register. In particular, Section 7 of the Act enables regulations to be made that give the CEO the power to obtain information from local and public authorities to help him to meet his registration objectives. As the registration officer for all constituencies in Northern Ireland, with responsibility for maintaining the electoral register in Northern Ireland, the CEO’s objectives—set out in Section 10ZB of the Representation of the People Act 1983—are
“to secure, so far as is reasonably practicable”
the following three things: every person who is entitled to be registered in a register is registered in it; that no person who is not entitled to be registered in a register is registered in it; and, finally, that none of the required information relating to any person registered in a register is false.
In order to assist the registration officer in meeting the registration objectives under the new system of continuous updating of the electoral register, the regulations before us now will enable him to request information for the purposes of ensuring that the register is accurate and comprehensive. This information will include names and addresses, dates of births and deaths, and national insurance numbers, which will be used to identify duplicate or invalid entries on the register. It will help him to track changes in the circumstances of individuals on the register, such as their surname and address; to identify people not on the register but who are entitled to be; and to track the point at which “attainers”—individuals aged 16 or 17—will become eligible to be registered.
The bodies from which the CEO will be able to request information under the regulations are district councils; the Registrar General of Births and Deaths in Northern Ireland; the Northern Ireland Central Services Agency; the Northern Ireland Housing Executive; and the Department of Work and Pensions. The DWP is cited instead of the Northern Ireland Social Security Agency because it centrally holds the information that will be requested by the CEO. The DWP is cited in the existing regulations and this system works well.
The regulations do not require bodies to disclose information which came into their possession before these regulations come into force, although they are not prevented from doing so. This is because we do not have the power to give the regulations retrospective effect. In addition to this, we wished to ensure that the CEO did not receive old information. Regulation 1(4) will ensure that the CEO receives information which is relevant and appropriate and not out of date. Of course, before these regulations come into force it is open to the CEO to use his existing powers to obtain information. These regulations have been developed in conjunction with the CEO to ensure that they will enable him to exercise his powers as effectively as possible on the ground. He and his staff are entirely committed to using the new powers contained in these regulations to preserve the high level of accuracy that has characterised the electoral register in Northern Ireland as a result of the improvements brought about by the Electoral Fraud (Northern Ireland) Act 2002, while increasing its comprehensiveness. They will also enable him specifically to target traditionally unrepresented groups, to ensure that as many people as possible in Northern Ireland from all social and economic groups are registered to vote.
It will be for the CEO to determine the operational steps which he will take to do this. He has the knowledge and experience necessary to determine how the powers contained in these regulations should be used to produce the best results. I know that he intends to be very proactive and is keen to begin exercising his new powers as soon as possible. I hope that noble Lords can agree with the regulations, and I commend them to the House. I beg to move.
Moved, That the draft regulations laid before the House on 29 March be approved. 15th Report from the Statutory Instruments Committee.—(Lord Evans of Temple Guiting.)
My Lords, I thank the Minister for bringing this statutory instrument to your Lordships’ House today. In principle, we support it. There has been considerable debate and work over the past six or seven years on the electoral situation in Northern Ireland, particularly the rules and regulations of the electoral register. As far as I can make out—I spoke to officials about this—the instrument consists purely of further amendments to update and improve what is already an excellent system.
I have one question for the Minister. In a debate on the Northern Ireland (Miscellaneous Provisions) Act 2006, we discussed how often we were going to force electors to re-register. It was then once every year, and it is now once every 10 years. Does that still stand? I would like to think so.
Having said that, the present order certainly improves the detail. The officials and departments in government responsible for elections in England, Wales and Scotland—recent elections have been a total shambles for the democratic process—could learn a lot of lessons from the electoral processes, and their rules and regulations, in Northern Ireland. A great deal of thought has been given to them. The spotlight was on Northern Ireland for all sorts of reasons, because of the great saying “Vote early and vote often”, dead people voting, people not yet born voting and the like. That has been 99.9 per cent cured. One’s national insurance number is now on the register, photographic evidence of who you are is necessary and so on. I know that the Government refused to have national insurance numbers on the British registry, and think that they were wrong. Having said that, which I appreciate probably has little to do with this particular statutory instrument, I support the regulations.
My Lords, I, too, thank the Minister for introducing the statutory instrument. Broadly speaking, we support it. I cannot help observing that—apart from the hybrid noble Lord, Lord Glentoran, who is in some manifestations a Briton and others an Ulsterman—there are no Members in your Lordships’ House from Northern Ireland. I would have expected at least one or two of them to be here.
I also concur with what the noble Lord, Lord Glentoran, said about the clean way that elections now take place in Northern Ireland. Both our Benches supported and pushed through the insurance number provision which with hindsight—and certainly in comparison with Scotland—shows how valuable that was. Also, as a result of their long experience of rigged and now clean elections, the good people of Northern Ireland can understand how to vote, whatever the system. Other regions of the United Kingdom have a lot of catching up to do.
However, I have one question, which was also asked by my honourable friend in another place, the Member for Argyll and Bute. Today, the Minister addressed the issue of there being no retrospective provision for information gathered before these regulations. However, under the present provision, the authorities can respond to a request from the CEO, first, to provide the information; secondly, to inform the registration officer that the information is not held; and, thirdly, to request further time. My honourable friend asked whether there should not be a fourth option to say that the authorities have the information, but are not giving it because it was acquired before the regulations came into effect. It seems to me that that is a logical addition to the other three responses, and it would have been tidier if that provision had been made. Can the Minister say why it has not been included? However, we support the regulations.
My Lords, I am grateful to the noble Lords, Lord Glentoran and Lord Smith of Clifton, for welcoming this order. I confirm that the noble Lord, Lord Glentoran, is correct about the 10-year period. Both noble Lords made some very interesting points about the electoral process in Northern Ireland, and I am sure that they will be noted.
In answer to the noble Lord, Lord Smith of Clifton, we judged that the fourth option was not necessary. The powers are permissive, and it would not have added anything to include that fourth option.
On Question, Motion agreed to.