Postponement of Local Elections (Northern Ireland) Order 2009

I understand that the Order Paper states that both orders will be debated together. However, I intend to take them separately but consecutively. The purpose of this draft order is to postpone the local government elections that are due to be held in Northern Ireland in May this year. Postponing an election is not something that a Government would wish to propose without very good reason. With that in mind, I hope that the Committee will find it helpful if I set out the background to why the draft order is needed. In 2002, in light of the new tier of political representation brought about by the formation of the devolved Northern Ireland Assembly, the Northern Ireland Executive launched a review of public administration in Northern Ireland. The review was a comprehensive examination of the arrangements for the administration and delivery of public services in Northern Ireland, covering almost 150 bodies, including the 26 district councils there. The review group reported in respect of district councils in 2006 and recommended a move from 26 to seven district councils. That was accepted by the then Secretary of State for Northern Ireland, who at that time had responsibility for those matters because the Assembly and Executive were suspended. Following restoration in 2007, the Executive, having resumed responsibility for policy in relation to the review, opted for an 11-council model, and legislation was introduced in the Assembly in 2008 to implement that. During the passage of that legislation, the then Minister for the Environment in the Executive received a number of questions from Assembly Members on whether the local elections scheduled to take place in 2009 would still take place in light of the proposed restructuring. As elections are an excepted matter under the Northern Ireland Act 1998, responsibility for policy in relation to elections rests with the Secretary of State, and in April 2008 the Minister for the Environment wrote to the Secretary of State requesting the postponement of the elections until the 11-council model had been implemented fully. The Secretary of State agreed that it would make sense for the next elections to be held in respect of the new council model, rather than have elections to the 26 councils, which would shortly no longer exist. However, he recognised that a number of steps needed to be taken before the new 11-council model could be fully implemented. In particular, new council wards and districts would need to be drawn up, and district electoral areas would need to be grouped for the purposes of proportional representation, which is used for all local government elections in Northern Ireland. Legislation would also be required to give effect to recommendations resulting from any boundary review process. Following discussions between the Northern Ireland Office and the Department of the Environment in Northern Ireland, the Secretary of State was advised that it would be appropriate for the elections to be postponed for two years. For that reason, on 25 April 2008, the Secretary of State announced publicly that he would seek to postpone the elections until 2011. The announcement was generally well received as an exceptional but justifiable step in the circumstances. There were no objections from the political parties in Northern Ireland, and the Electoral Commission has also expressed its support for the postponement. Article 2(2) of the draft order, therefore, amends Section 11(1) of the Electoral Law Act (Northern Ireland) 1962, so that the next local government elections in Northern Ireland will be held in 2011 and subsequent elections will take place every four years thereafter. The effect of Article 2(3) of the draft order is to disapply Section 11(1A) of the 1962 Act, which would have provided for the next election to take place on the first Thursday in May of 2011. Instead, we intend to bring forward a further order in due course that would set the actual date of the election. There are two key reasons for this taking this approach. First, although we expect the implementation of the new 11-council model to have been completed in advance of May 2011, we cannot be absolutely sure of the actual completion date at this time. Members of the Committee will no doubt be aware that it is difficult to be precise about how long a boundary setting or electoral area grouping process might take, particularly when inquiries are held and recommendations are challenged. We therefore cannot rule out the possibility that the implementation process will be completed either earlier or later than when we currently envisage. Secondly, the Committee will be aware that Assembly elections are also scheduled to take place in May 2011 and that both Assembly elections and local government elections in Northern Ireland are held under the single transferable vote form of proportional representation, or PR-STV. Members of the Committee will be aware that counting in PR-STV elections is complex and we would wish to have detailed discussions with the Chief Electoral Officer and Electoral Commission in relation to a possible combined poll before providing for this in legislation. For these reasons, we will bring forward a further order to set the date of the next election when we have a clearer idea of how the implementation of the move to 11 councils is progressing; and when we have had detailed discussions with the Chief Electoral Officer and Electoral Commission on the possibility of a combined poll, if required. However, although there are good reasons for not setting the date of the next election at this time, we believe it is important to signal that local elections will not be postponed indefinitely and that the next elections will indeed take place during 2011. For this reason, Article 2 sets out explicitly that the next local election year in Northern Ireland will be 2011. Article 3 of the draft order makes the necessary consequential amendments to ensure that the terms of office of existing members are extended and that any vacancies arising between now and 2011 are filled in the usual way. Before the draft order was laid, the Northern Ireland Office consulted with the Northern Ireland departments to ensure that postponing the date would not result in any adverse, unintended consequences for them. The Department of Agriculture and Rural Development informed us of the need to make consequential provision relating to appointments to the Drainage Council, which are linked to local election dates. Article 4 of the draft order therefore provides for appointments to the council to also be extended to 2011. I again stress that any decision to postpone any elections for any length of time should not be made lightly. I am, however, confident that the current proposed postponement is an exceptional, but justifiable, step under the circumstances, and I hope that the Committee will agree. I beg to move.