rose to move, That the Grand Committee do report to the House that it has considered the Parliamentary Constituencies (Northern Ireland) Order 2008.

The noble Lord said: The purpose of this order is to give effect, without modification, to the recommendations made by the Boundary Commission for Northern Ireland, which were received by my right honourable friend the Secretary of State for Northern Ireland in September last year. The report was laid before Parliament on 31 March this year with this order, in line with the Parliamentary Constituencies Act 1986.

The commission’s report recommends that Northern Ireland should retain its 18 constituencies, with modifications recommended to the boundaries of 12 of them. In line with the statutory rules for the redistribution of seats, the recommendations seek to balance improvements in electoral equality with the preservation of community ties.

Extensive consultation has been carried out in relation to those recommendations. The commission published its provisional recommendations as long ago as spring 2004. The representations received on those recommendations led the commission to hold three public local inquiries, all of which took place in September 2005. The commission accepted the recommendations of the local inquiries wherever practicable, and, in doing so, acknowledged the importance of preserving community identity.

Following on from those local inquiries, the commission published its revised recommendations in May 2006. These recommended that Northern Ireland should have 18 constituencies with revisions made to the boundaries of 12 of them. Those became the commission’s final recommendations to the Secretary of State and he has accepted them without modification. Therefore, subject to Parliament approving the order before us today, the new constituency boundaries will take effect upon the dissolution of Parliament prior to the next general election.

I thank the Boundary Commission—that is, the chairman, Mr Speaker; the deputy chairman, Mr Justice Coghlin; his fellow commissioners, Mrs Joan Ruddock and Mr Dick Mackenzie; and their advisers and secretariat—for its work. I am satisfied that the Northern Ireland Parliamentary Boundary Commission has carried out its work thoroughly and that all affected parties have had the opportunity to raise any concerns that they may have had, although they may not always have liked the answers. Having been on the receiving end of Boundary Commission inquiries myself over 27 years, I realise the sensitivities of boundaries for elected Members of Parliament. They probably are the rawest aspect of their role, particularly when their boundaries are being changed by someone else. Nevertheless, we have an independent rule and a set of recommendations from the commission that have been accepted without modification. I commend the order to the Committee and I beg to move.

Moved, That the Grand Committee do report to the House that it has considered the Parliamentary Constituencies (Northern Ireland) Order 2008. 17th report from the Joint Committee on Statutory Instruments.—(Lord Rooker.)

I thank the Minister for bringing this order before us. As he said, there is little to say once a Boundary Commission has ruled. I once tried, as a consultee, to contest a ruling when it was trying to lump a whole lot of wild countryside into an urban authority. My complaint had no effect and the said urban authority has never caught up in managing the countryside. There we are. I am concerned that we have increased the number of MPs from 12 to 18 but I do not think that is a matter for this debate—it is the way life is. We are already overgoverned and this makes us even more overgoverned. I support the order.

I, too, thank the Minister for introducing this order. I have two comments to make, one by way of a question. First, can the Minister give me guidance on the extent of coterminosity between the Northern Ireland Assembly seats and the parliamentary constituencies? Is this a criterion which the Boundary Commission bears in mind? Secondly, although the noble Lord, Lord Glentoran, commented on the number of Westminster seats in Northern Ireland, and said that this is not an appropriate occasion on which to raise this question, there are very few appropriate occasions on which to raise it. Bearing in mind, thank goodness, that we now have a sustained devolutionary settlement in Northern Ireland with the working of the Assembly, to what extent is Northern Ireland overrepresented in Westminster compared with, say, England?

I thank the Minister for outlining this mostly non-controversial order. I join him in thanking the people who worked on the Boundary Commission for the good work that they did and the time they put in. I have a couple of questions. Is it possible to get the number of electors in constituencies; for example, Foyle, Newry and Armagh? The Minister referred to community identities as one consideration and numbers as another. Those are two very important considerations, but which has precedence? Is it community identities or numbers? It seems to me that some areas were taken out of Foyle because it was said to be too big but, if I read the matter correctly, areas were added to Newry and Armagh, which makes it considerably bigger. Is that issue being looked at under community identities because it makes that constituency disproportionately big? When were changes made previously? I listened very closely to what he said about whether Northern Ireland is over-represented in the House of Commons. If I understand the situation correctly, we now share equal representation with people in Scotland, who, as part of an agreement of 1801, were overrepresented even before they got their devolved Parliament. We broadly agree with the order.

I take this opportunity to congratulate the chief commissioner, Richard Mackenzie, and the other staff in the commission on their work in bringing forward the review of the parliamentary boundaries in Northern Ireland. Arriving at the final recommendations is an exhaustive process which takes considerable time, especially if you consider that the provisional recommendations were announced in April 2004 and the review was announced in 2003. During this exercise there has been good co-operation with the Electoral Office for Northern Ireland, the Valuation and Lands Agency, the Statistics and Research Agency and, of course, the Ordnance Survey. I particularly welcome the recommendation to retain the 18 parliamentary seats in Northern Ireland. Of course, some difficulties arose from the postponement in the appointment of a local government boundaries commissioner and the uncertainties about the proposed restructuring of local government in Northern Ireland. Therefore, I particularly welcome the Northern Ireland Assembly’s recent agreement to the review of public administration resulting in the rationalisation of the current 26 local councils to 11.

It is difficult to comment on the 12 constituencies in which the changes have been made. I do not intend to do that, but I refer to Belfast, which has undergone some demographic changes over a number of years. It is important, however, that the natural boundaries of Belfast are reflected in the boundaries of the constituency. I welcome the fact that the commissioner has taken into account that the system is to be built on the wards.

Finally, my noble friend Lord Morrow and I welcome the revisions, and so support the order.

I hesitate to take up 30 seconds of the Minister’s time, but will he be kind enough to confirm that there are no major changes to the particular geographical areas, or wards, in the schedules? I seem to remember when I served in what is now the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs—in my time, it was called the Ministry of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food—that a matter of 100 metres or so of boundaries could affect the water supply and other aspects of the environment as well as restrictions on particular areas.

I draw the Minister’s attention to line 3 of paragraph 2 at the bottom of page 5. Am I right in thinking that Audley’s Acre in South Down, the county constituency, is not a complete island but is in the vicinity of a particular area, which I think was known as Audley’s Castle or Audley’s Point, at the south end of Strangford Loch by Strangford village? Will he confirm that it is there and not an island elsewhere? Certainly from my memory and from reading about these wards, I do not think that there should be any major differences or shake-up. I do not want to waste his time or that of the Committee. If he has the answer, wonderful: if not, perhaps he could write to me. I thank him.

On the latter point, before I receive any advice, we are talking about complete wards, so whatever the boundaries are, Audley’s Acre is a complete ward. It is what it says. The wards have boundaries. The order says,

“the following wards of Down local government district”,

and mentions the names of the wards. Audley’s Acre is therefore a complete ward. Whatever it is, it is already an electoral building block, as it were. There are no divided-up wards.

I hope that I can answer all the questions that I have been asked. I should add that we will have taken a number of these questions in the elected place. The commission was required to adjust the boundaries of between 16 and 18 constituencies, and it has chosen 18. The electoral quota is not being considered at present. The quota used in this review for Northern Ireland was 61,000—or 60,999, to be precise. The quota for England and Scotland is about 70,000, and the quota for Wales is 56,000. The boundaries are looked at every eight to 12 years. They are more or less within the quota—less than minus 10 per cent and no greater than plus 15 per cent. There will be big and small—that is unavoidable—but there must be a range. There is nothing way out.

I think that the noble Lord, Lord Glentoran, made a slip of the tongue. Some minor changes have been made to 12 of the 18 existing constituencies, but the number of constituencies has not changed; it remains at 18. In answer to another question, the constituencies were last reviewed in 1995.

There is no problem with coterminosity with the Assembly. There will be six Assembly seats per Westminster constituency, and they will be designed to fit into the arrangements there. There is therefore a degree of coterminosity. In other words, no Assembly Member will cover more than one Westminster constituency, which is quite important.

The noble Lord, Lord Laird, asked about Foyle. We can produce statistics for this. The electorate for Foyle will be 60,823, and the electorate for Newry and Armagh will be 68,730. So, the figure is just over 10 per cent greater, but it is not a massive difference—certainly not like the differences that there can be in England.

A local government review is underway and if ward boundaries change, there may be an interim review at some time to tweak them; but by and large, once agreed today, because the House of Commons has agreed the order, these will be the boundaries for the next general election to the Westminster Parliament. There is no equivocation whatever about that; everyone knows exactly where they stand, they know exactly what the electorates are, they know where the boundaries are and so they can go campaigning. There is always an uncertainty for Members of Parliament until the orders have been approved. I think that I have covered all the questions.

I am still trying to work something out. As I understand it, areas were taken out of Foyle, because it was seen to be too big. Areas were put into Newry and Mourne, which is now some 8,000 electors larger than Foyle. Obviously the areas were not moved from one to the other, because they are at different ends of the country. However, I return to the point on which the Minister may wish to comment—which is more important, numbers or community identities? I am trying to discover why areas were put into Newry and Armagh, while areas were taken out of Foyle. The reasons may not be the same in Foyle as those for Newry and Mourne.

I am not here to second-judge the independent Boundary Commission. Its report has been accepted without modification by the Secretary of State. The commission’s report and the public inquiries are a matter of record and they explain the position, on balance. It is not the case that a Minister or anyone else can argue that this was judged on numbers, rather than communities. One has to strike a balance between them and that is what the Boundary Commission has done. It can justify its decisions. Those decisions have been accepted by the Secretary of State and, I hope, by Parliament, so the electorate knows that it was not the politicians who fixed the boundaries—it was the independent parliamentary Boundary Commission.

On Question, Motion agreed to.