That the Grand Committee do report to the House that it has considered the European Parliamentary Elections (Northern Ireland) (Amendment) Regulations 2009.

Relevant Document: 7th Report from the Joint Committee on Statutory Instruments

My Lords, the purpose of these regulations is to ensure that the legislative framework governing European elections in Northern Ireland is fully up to date. The Committee will have noticed that this is a long and complex statutory instrument, and I hope it will be of assistance if I set out the legislative background to these regulations and why they are needed.

The conduct of European elections in Northern Ireland is currently governed by the European Parliamentary Elections (Northern Ireland) Regulations 2004. The regulations apply similar provision to European elections to those that apply to parliamentary elections, with the necessary modifications to take account of the different voting systems. Similar regulations governing the conduct of European elections are in force in Great Britain.

Since 2004, a number of changes have been made to the legislation governing parliamentary elections in the UK, most of which are provided for in the Electoral Administration Act 2006. In the light of those changes, it has been necessary to update the legislation relating to elections to other legislatures. The Committee may recall that we updated the law regarding elections to the Northern Ireland Assembly earlier this year. Regulations updating the law governing European elections in Great Britain and Gibraltar were also recently approved by this House, and the regulations before us today will make the necessary updates for European elections in Northern Ireland.

When we updated the law relating to Northern Ireland Assembly elections earlier this year, the Government also took the opportunity to make a number of possible changes specific to Northern Ireland following a full public consultation last summer. As many of the proposals included in the consultation could also be applied to European elections, we again consulted with key stakeholders on whether such changes should be brought forward for European elections. As a result, a number of changes discussed in the earlier consultations have been included in these regulations, and it will no doubt assist the Committee if I briefly explain these proposed changes.

The first relates to suspension of the count. Currently at a European election the returning officer may suspend the count between 7 pm and 9 am, but only if the election and counting agents agree. In a PR STV system, counting rarely finishes before 7 pm and agreement can usually be reached to suspend the count until the following day if it appears that it will last long into the night. However, in a number of constituencies in the 2007 Assembly elections, agreement to suspend could not be reached. Counting in an STV system is complex, and it is important both for the welfare of counting staff and the integrity of the count for it to be suspended at a reasonable time. It is for that reason that Parliament recently approved an automatic suspension of the count at Assembly elections at 11 pm unless there is agreement between the agents and the returning officer that it should continue. These regulations would make the same change for counting at European parliamentary elections.

Under the 2004 regulations, candidates for the European Parliament must have their nomination papers subscribed by two electors, as proposer and seconder, and 28 other electors. During the consultation, there was widespread support for the view that this places an undue administrative burden on those seeking to be candidates and on those responsible for verifying that the subscribers are genuine. The regulations before us today would bring Northern Ireland in line with the rest of the UK by removing the requirement that a candidate’s nomination paper at European elections be subscribed.

I thank the noble Baroness for that very clear and concise presentation of what, at first sight, looks like a pretty horrendous provision. As she explained, in fact, it makes a lot of changes to a number of Bills. We have been regularly legislating for elections in Northern Ireland over the past five years, and I believe that now we have probably come ahead of the field in Europe. We have as sound and good a system as anywhere, and it is certainly better than the rest of the United Kingdom on all fronts; that is for sure. I am happy about that.

The recent changes seem to be down to good sense. On removing the 30 people who have to vouch for a candidate, it is understood that the fact that the candidate has to put up £5,000 is probably a big enough deterrent to stop him playing the fool as a candidate and messing up the election. The question of releasing information is probably a concern in Northern Ireland more than in other parts, because there are two, three or four parties, or sometimes eight, and everyone assumes that the officials are biased and are going to help one party more than another, and so on. That certainly happened from time to time in elections in Northern Ireland. The parties wanted to know how many voting papers had been released, and sometimes they were told and sometimes they were not. It may have depended on which party wanted to know and which did not, or on what the presiding officer felt at the time. Now, under the present legislation as a result of this instrument, as I understand it, the senior presiding officer will decree that this information will be released twice during the day, at 11 o’clock in the morning and 4 o’clock in the afternoon, and in all the polling stations at the same time and in the same manner I hope. I am getting nods from behind the Minister. That has to be a plus.

This is a good order. I thank the officials for briefing me beforehand, when I was able to ask a number of questions. This is a long order, and we have had a lot of electoral law recently. Are there any plans to consolidate all the amendments and different electoral legislation for our little province into one statute? It would be very handy for all those concerned with managing elections. I support this statutory instrument.

I, too, thank the noble Baroness the Lord President for introducing this. Our concern about the legislation is about the timing. It is a complicated order, coming quite close to elections. We understood that it was government policy not to make legislative changes for elections within six months prior to a polling day, yet we are being asked to pass this less than two months before the publication of the notice of the election.

Like others, however, we welcome this order, which makes sensible provisions to improve the conduct of European elections in Northern Ireland. We particularly welcome the provisions regulating the release of information by presiding officers on the number of ballot papers issued on election day and by allowing the returning officer to direct how and when that information will be released. This provides clarity to presiding officers, party officials and all those involved in the running of election day in Northern Ireland.

We also welcome the introduction of smart passes and photographic provisional driving licences in the lists of documents to verify a voter’s identity on election day. While it is important to have in place proper protection against electoral fraud in Northern Ireland, we must do all we can to ensure that no one is disenfranchised. The order should be helpful in both those respects.

I, too, thank the noble Baroness the Lord President for introducing this instrument. I welcome the decision to hold the suspension of the count at 11 pm. For Northern Ireland Assembly district council elections, that makes sense. I also agree that it is right to abolish the need for the subscription of nomination papers; the idea that you had to have a proposer, a seconder and 28 others seems to be over-elaborate, and this is a useful change.

The Government have insisted that the broad thrust of this legislation is to bring Northern Ireland’s electoral legislation fully into line with the rest of the United Kingdom. The proposal, which has a lot of common sense behind it, that there should be a regulation for the release of information by presiding officers on the number of ballots issued during the day, and that guidance should come from the chief electoral officer essentially controlling that, in a way takes Northern Ireland away from the UK model. I understand that the Electoral Commission had some concerns on that score, and I would be grateful if the Minister would comment on that point. It is not that I have any serious reservation about the proposal, which seems to be a wise one, but it slightly conflicts with the broader logic of government policy in this respect.

The point has also been made that it is government policy that legislation affecting elections should not be introduced less than six months before an election. This seems to be an exception, even if one accepts that in this case the legislation is basically sound.

I have one final query, which relates to an issue that arose some weeks ago when the Minister was putting through the legislation that she referred to earlier with respect to the Northern Ireland Assembly elections and by-elections. This is slightly outside the remit of the legislation that we are considering today, but it is intimately connected with her answer to me on that day and to a lacuna in this legislation. I asked her to defend the arrangement that by-elections would not be held in the case of Assembly elections. I was enormously convinced by her reply, which is that in the case of Northern Ireland, for a number of reasons, a by-election could produce a distorting outcome.

That is even more so in the case of a European election. Should a nationalist republican—who would in all likely circumstances be elected as one of the three candidates—be run over by the proverbial bus and we had a by-election, which, as I understand it, is the current regulation, it is almost certain that there would then be a unionist victory in the by-election. The sensitivity that the Minister displayed, rightly, in her reply to me in the case of the Assembly elections, for the way in which by-elections could lead to a distorting result and an unfair outcome, is even more marked, potentially, with respect to European elections.

That is outside the scope of these regulations, extensive though they are. I would like to have a sense that the Government are aware of the difficulty; that is really all that I am asking for this afternoon. There is a potential problem on this score. I thank the noble Baroness for introducing the statutory instrument, which is essentially sound and viable.

I thank noble Lords for the broad support that has been expressed. I agree that Northern Ireland is certainly ahead of the field in many aspects of elections, and it is a delight to be associated with being ahead of the field. I am grateful to the noble Lord for explaining the importance of the release of information, especially in a Northern Ireland context. I understand that there is a sort of conflict with logic here, if I might put it like that, because we are bringing Northern Ireland into line with the rest of the United Kingdom, but not in respect of the availability of information. It is best for Northern Ireland; although it is not logical, we cannot always be logical if we want to serve democracy in the best way. In the way in which we are introducing this part of the regulation, we want to best serve democracy in Northern Ireland.

Consolidation of all the orders and regulations that have been introduced over the past five years is a very attractive idea, and I will take it back to the department. I am sure that it will wish to act on that if it is at all possible, but it would be an enormous amount of work. The noble Baroness, Lady Garden, is right to be concerned about timing. We would not wish to have been in a position where we were introducing these regulations so close to the European elections. However, we have been working closely and sharing drafts with the Electoral Commission and the chief electoral officer at a very early stage in the drafting. That has allowed electoral administrators to put together the necessary guidance for the election. I do not think that there will be significant practical implications for the election. It was better for us to take time over ensuring that the regulations were right rather than acting swiftly, so I am glad that we took more time than perhaps might have been expected.

Going back to the point made by the noble Lord, Lord Bew, about the importance of not favouring one side over the other in Northern Ireland, I emphasise that we will review this after the elections with the Electoral Commission, and we will come back to it.

The by-elections and the lacuna are being dealt with, as I understand it, in the Political Parties and Elections Bill, so the noble Lord should express his concerns when that Bill is taken through this House.

With that, I thank noble Lords for their support. This set of regulations is dense but relatively simple. They are extremely important in ensuring that the June elections in Northern Ireland will be administered successfully, so they are an important contribution to nurturing democracy.