Electoral Law Act (Northern Ireland) 1962 (Amendment) Order 2009

My Lords, the orders before us today relating to elections in Northern Ireland make small but important updates that are necessary to further assist the overall restructuring of local government in Northern Ireland. Noble Lords will be aware that the number of district councils in Northern Ireland is being reduced from 26 to 11. For this reason, this House agreed to the postponement of local elections in Northern Ireland until 2011 to allow time for the new local government wards and boundaries to be redrawn. The draft Electoral Law Act (Northern Ireland) 1962 (Amendment) Order 2009 will postpone preparation of the next draft polling station scheme in Northern Ireland until 2010 to take account of the changes to wards and boundaries that I have referred to. Noble Lords may be aware that the purpose of a polling station scheme is to designate suitable buildings as polling stations in electoral wards. By virtue of Section 65 of the Electoral Law Act (Northern Ireland) 1962, the next draft scheme is due to be prepared and published in 2009. I am sure that noble Lords would agree that it would make sense for the next polling station scheme to be based on the new local government wards. The legislation to implement the new ward boundaries has not yet been approved by the Northern Ireland Assembly. I understand that it is anticipated that this legislation will be in force by the end of 2009. However, this would provide little or no time for a draft polling station scheme to be prepared and published in 2009, as currently required by law. The draft order would therefore postpone publication of the next draft scheme until 2010 and for subsequent schemes to be published every four years thereafter. I turn to the draft District Electoral Areas Commissioner (Northern Ireland) (Amendment) Order 2009. The Local Government Boundaries Commissioner recently submitted his final recommendations on proposed new wards and boundaries to the Minister for the Environment in the Northern Ireland Executive. The next step in the process requires the District Electoral Areas Commissioner, or DEAC, to submit recommendations to the Secretary of State on the grouping of wards within electoral areas for the purpose of holding local government elections under the proportional representation/single transferable vote system. The conduct of the DEAC review is governed by the District Electoral Areas Commissioner (Northern Ireland) Order 1984. This legislation has not been substantially updated since 1984 and some minor amendments are required to bring the DEAC’s procedures into line with the current procedures for other such reviews. The first concerns the period for making representations. The DEAC is required to publish provisional recommendations, and to hold public inquiries in respect of them, if representations are received from either 100 electors or a district council. However, paragraph 1 of Schedule 2 to the 1984 order provides for representations to be made within one month of the publication of the recommendations. I am concerned that this would not allow sufficient time for the relevant parties to make objections, particularly given the widespread changes that will need to be made as part of the current review. The draft order, therefore, extends this period to eight weeks, which is in line with the procedure followed by the Local Government Boundaries Commissioner. Secondly, the 1984 order requires the DEAC to publish a notice setting out his provisional recommendations in newspapers circulating in the district. However, because of the wide-ranging nature of the current review, it is likely that the recommendations will be very detailed and could involve the production of large-scale maps. It would therefore be both costly and unwieldy to publish them in full in local newspapers. The draft order therefore provides the commissioner with the option of either publishing a notice setting out his recommendations or simply providing details of when and where the recommendations may be inspected, or both. This is also in line with the procedure followed by the Local Government Boundaries Commissioner. Finally, as the number and boundaries of councils are due to change, it is important to clarify that it is existing councils most affected by any changes that can compel an inquiry, not the new 11 district councils that will come into being after the next local election. The draft order therefore provides that the objection of any council that will, in whole or in part, be incorporated by or incorporate the successor council will be sufficient to secure a local inquiry. I hope that noble Lords will agree that these orders make small but important changes that are essential to ensuring the successful restructuring of local government in Northern Ireland. I beg to move.