Postponement of Local Elections (Northern Ireland) Order 2009

I thank the noble Baroness for introducing the order. I declare two registered interests that arise in relation to the debate, namely that I am an elected Member of the Northern Ireland Assembly for East Belfast and I am a councillor for the Victoria district electoral area within Belfast City Council. I welcome the order as a necessary intervention to extend the term that local councillors will serve from their election in 2005. I hope that it will fit comfortably within the overall provision for the review of public administration in Northern Ireland, which is currently under way. The new boundaries and reconfiguration of councils in the Province will reinvigorate their image, streamline services and offer ratepayers an efficient model of local authorities that should serve them well into the future. One key request from the Minister for the Environment to the Northern Ireland Office when seeking this legislation was a provision to ensure that vacancies that arise from May 2009, when existing mandates are currently due to end, until 2011, which is the date of extension, would be filled through phased co-option. Northern Ireland political parties and the electorate as a whole seek the end of dual mandates across the existing political institutions, thus increasing representation and allowing individual public figures to dedicate themselves to one primary forum and the issues that are raised at that level. Rather than encourage an unseemly array of local by-elections, and to ensure the maintenance of the political balance as expressed at the previous local government elections, will the noble Baroness confirm that such a provision for co-options is in this legislation? Is it intended? Is it part of the Government’s overall legislative plan? Will she further outline what steps, if any, the Government intend to take for the financial resettlement of long-serving local councillors, many of whom served through very difficult periods and do not wish to be considered for election to the new authorities in 2011?