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This is an incredibly modest piece of legislation that is necessary simply because of what is intended for local government change in Northern Ireland. The changes have been set in motion. The date on which the new local government structure will come into being is broadly known and we want to ensure that there is no unnecessary gap between when the Local Government Boundary Commission reports and when the wards are grouped together into the multi-member constituency areas for the purposes of the election. That is the only purpose of the order. I will sit down on this point: this process was followed on the two previous occasions that a district electoral areas commissioner was appointed—in 1992 and 1984. This is not a new process. I beg to move.
Moved, That the Grand Committee do report to the House that it has considered the District Electoral Areas Commissioner (Northern Ireland) (Amendment) Order 2006.—(Lord Rooker.)
Lord Glentoran: Having said that I had no problems with this order, I would just like an explanation about why, if it is public, the same person will be appointed to be Boundaries Commissioner as well as the—someone prompt me.
Lord Rooker: The District Electoral Areas Commissioner.
Lord Glentoran: Yes. I understand that the two commissioners will be the same person. What is the thinking behind that decision? I declare an interest in that I have known the person concerned extremely well for many years.
Lord Kilclooney: In paragraph 5, the Registrar-General of Births, Deaths and Marriages in Northern Ireland will be substituted by the Registrar-General for Births and Deaths in Northern Ireland. Do we have no marriages left in Northern Ireland? What is the explanation for marriages being omitted?
On the general principle of the same person having two different commission responsibilities—the district electoral area and the local government boundary area—I understand that the Local Government Boundary Commissioner is in the process of deciding the boundaries of the wards. Has he completed his work and when is he likely to report to the Government? I understand that the Government are expediting the work of the District Electoral Area Commissioner. I noticed in the press recently that, at a public hearing in the north-west of Northern Ireland, the people of Strabane, who have always been connected with Omagh, objected because they had been recommended to join with Londonderry. They want to stay with Omagh as they have been for decades. The Local Government Boundaries
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I also wanted to ask about the District Electoral Area Commissioner and his designation of electoral areas. Under this order, he can group between five and seven of the wards together in one electoral area. Since we will now have only seven councils in Northern Ireland, it means that we will have much larger areas than we have been used to. We have 26 councils, as the Minister well knows. Now we will have only seven and they will cover a much greater part of Northern Ireland than previously. I think there are 50 wards in each area. If you group them together in fives, it means a maximum of just 70 councillors in Northern Ireland. If you group them together in sevens, which is possible under the order, it means a maximum of only 50 councillors in the whole of Northern Ireland, if my arithmetic is correct. I am talking about electoral wards, but I said councillors. Let me start again.
If you have five wards grouped together in an electoral area and there are seven district councils, there will be a total of 70 groups only in Northern Ireland. If you have 50 district areas and seven of them are grouped together at a time, that is 49, roughly speaking. If these areas are going to be so big—we already know that the district council areas will be big because there are only seven instead of 26—and if you now put seven wards together in one district area, there will be a councillor, elected by proportional representation, representing a massive part of the council area. I am worried that councillors will not be local to the people in Northern Ireland if they are in a council representing a massive part of Northern Ireland and are also representing a very large part of that council area.
The commissioner needs to be careful that, where possible, he curtails the number of wards being amalgamated to the minimum of five and not the maximum of seven to ensure that there is some locality in representation by elected councillors. I know that the order is being rushed through and I suspect the reasons for it, but the seven councils are apparently confirmed for Northern Ireland. This was disputed by most of the political parties in Northern Ireland—the argument was that it was balkanisation. I did not necessarily accept that argument, even though my own party said it, because Northern Ireland is balkanised in any case, no matter what you do. Whether there are 26 councils or seven, it will be balkanised, and that cannot be avoided.
Lord Rooker: Chickens sometimes come home to roost quicker than you think. I take personal ministerial responsibility for the decision to reduce the 26 councils to seven, along with my ministerial colleagues. We had a very good and long debate on that issue on two occasions in Grand Committee, when the order went through setting up the boundary commissioner. I cannot go down that road today, although I take the point of the noble Lord, Lord
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The Local Government Boundaries Commissioner’s final report is due to be presented on 31 May this year. Parliament has appointed the commissioner to do this job professionally. We do not seek to interfere and I do not want to second-guess the report. A series of public meetings will be held in each of the seven new districts in January and February to allow interested parties to make oral representations on the provisional recommendations which were published in November last year.
The final hearing is expected to close on 9 February. The commission’s procedures require it to take into consideration any representations, and it may subsequently revise its provisional recommendations and publish a final recommendation. The grouping of wards is an operational matter for the district electoral commissioner.
At the moment it is necessary for local government elections to take place in the timescale that will allow new authorities to operate in a shadow form for a period before taking over responsibility on 1 April 2009. It is the intention to have the elections some time before April 2009 so that the shadow authority can take some pretty important decisions about its headquarters, the chief executive and such before the functions are fully transferred.
Lord Kilclooney: Since, as the Minister has confirmed, the Local Government Boundaries Commissioner has not completed his work, and has therefore not been able to confirm the final boundaries of the wards, how is it possible for the District Electoral Areas Commissioner to proceed now to amalgamate wards of which we do not even know the final boundaries?
Lord Rooker: He will not. This order does not do that. The boundary commissioner has to produce his report before the district area commissioner can start work. This order seeks to minimise the gap between those events, with parliamentary process and everything else.
On the point about it being exactly the same individual, Richard Mackenzie will not begin his second role until his first role is finished. The noble Lord, Lord Kilclooney, is quite right about that. On 11 January the Secretary of State announced his intention to appoint Richard Mackenzie CB as the next District Electoral Areas Commissioner. That appointment will be for 12 months on a full-time basis. He is the current Local Government Boundaries Commissioner and a member of the Parliamentary Boundary Commission for Northern
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For the avoidance of any doubt, the District Electoral Areas Commissioner is classified as an ad hoc advisory body. As such, the appointment process does not fall within the remit of the Office of the Commissioner of Public Appointments. On the previous two occasions when a District Electoral Areas Commissioner has been appointed, the practice has been, once the local government boundary commission process was completed, to appoint the existing Local Government Boundaries Commissioner as the District Electoral Areas Commissioner—in other words, the same person at a point afterwards. That occurred in 1992 and 1984, and we are repeating that practice here.
The current boundary commissioner is widely respected, and possesses experience and familiarity with the subject and the necessary considerations to be addressed by the District Electoral Areas Commissioner. That is important now, as it is the wish of Ministers that the District Electoral Areas Commissioner’s recommendations should be brought forward speedily, and that the district electoral areas should be in place for subsequent local elections.
There is no conflict of interest with the two roles being filled by the same person. The appointments are entirely separate. Mr Mackenzie will not be appointed as the District Electoral Areas Commissioner until after he has completed his duties as the Local Government Boundaries Commissioner.
A fair point has been made with regard to wards. The Secretary of State wrote to the leaders of the Northern Ireland parties and the Electoral Commission in October to invite their views on whether or not the existing range of five to seven wards per district electoral area in Northern Ireland should be retained, or changed using this Order in Council. Only one response, in support of retaining the current structure, was received. In the light of that, and of nil responses to a Northern Ireland Office press release on the issue, we decided that the current five-to-seven ward structure should be retained. Parties were given the opportunity to comment on whether they wanted a four to eight structure, but no party chose to oppose the retention of the current five to seven structure.
In a way, we are in the hands of the professional whom Parliament has appointed to do the job. I understand that this is a big change for local government in Northern Ireland—I am not knocking that. It will change the role of councillors in many ways. I pay tribute to the 582 local councillors who, in the past few decades of the Troubles, have been the only elected representatives in Northern Ireland, save for the Assembly. They have carried a massive burden, far greater than their actual powers as councillors justified. In effect, they have the powers that parish councillors have in England but they carried a burden of representative democracy in all those dark years.
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On Question, Motion agreed to.
Northern Ireland Assembly (Elections) (Amendment) Order 2007
6.06 pm
Lord Rooker rose to move, That the Grand Committee do report to the House that it has considered the Northern Ireland Assembly (Elections) (Amendment) Order 2007.
The noble Lord said: Before I start, I want to answer one of the questions I did not answer in the previous debate, because it all goes into Hansard. It relates to the expenses of the Registrar-General for marriages. The change has been made on the basis of advice from the current Registrar-General. I do not know why the title has changed, but I will find out and write to Members of the Committee about it. I should have put that answer on the record earlier, and I apologise for missing it out.
This is quite a technical order, and there is a good reason for it. Its purpose is simply to remove any uncertainty over the definition of election expenses which will apply for the purpose of the Northern Ireland Assembly elections on 7 March.
Assembly elections in Northern Ireland are conducted in accordance with the provisions of the Representation of the People Acts 1983 and 1985 and the Elections (Northern Ireland) Act 1985, which are applied to Assembly elections with both specific and general modifications by the Northern Ireland Assembly (Elections) Order 2001.
Section 27 of the Electoral Administration Act 2006, which was commenced on 11 September 2006, repeals Sections 90A and 90B of the Representation of the People Act 1983, which define the meaning of election expenses. Both sections were applied to Assembly elections by the 2001 order. It replaces these with new Section 90ZA and Schedule 4A, which define a new meaning of election expenses. However, because these are both new provisions, it is unclear if they are automatically applied to Assembly elections by virtue of the 2001 order.
While the practical differences between the definition in old Sections 90A and 90B and the definition in new Section 90ZA and the schedule are minor—the differences are largely of form rather than substance—we do not wish there to be any room for doubt about which definition will apply for the purposes of the Northern Ireland Assembly elections in March. In light of this, we wish to put the matter beyond doubt through an amending instrument which will make it clear that the new definition in
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The order is not controversial: our intention was to make this amendment as part of a wide-ranging order amending the 2001 order to take account of all relevant provisions in the 2006 Act later in the year. However, as the Committee will be aware, the Northern Ireland (St Andrews Agreement) Act 2006, which was passed last November, has made provision for an Assembly election to take place in March. This has compelled us to deal with the matter of election expenses now in a separate order, so that candidates for the March election are in no confusion about the basis on which their expenses will be handled. We have consulted the Electoral Commission on the draft order and it is content.
Many people thought that we did not need to do this because it is fairly obvious how the election expenses will be calculated, but we did not want there to be any doubt. This is something that we would have done later in the year to tidy up the legislation from 2006. However, we did not know at the time that the St. Andrews agreement would bring about the potential for elections on 7 March. This order will put any uncertainty completely beyond doubt. Therefore I beg to move.
Moved, That the Grand Committee do report to the House that it has considered the Northern Ireland Assembly (Elections) (Amendment) Order 2007.—(Lord Rooker.)
Baroness Harris of Richmond: The order may not be controversial, as the Minister said, but the Government have constantly moved elections around in Northern Ireland. A bad precedent was set in 2003 when the process of electoral interference by the Government began and it is to be sincerely hoped that this is the end of it.
Lord Kilclooney: I have two brief points. First, we understand why the order has been introduced. It has been brought forward to be in place before the proposed Assembly election in March this year. If the Assembly election does not take place in March, will these new election expenses apply at a later date at a subsequent Assembly election?
Secondly, I put this down as a marker. I still believe that there is confusion, certainly a grey area, about election expenses in a proportional representation election to the Northern Ireland Assembly. For example, a party could select three candidates to contest the election in the constituency and divide that constituency into four areas. The political party could say, “You will go into area A, the second candidate will go into area B, the third candidate will go into area C and all three of you will share the fourth area D”. There would still be confusion about how the election expenses would be divided. I am not asking for an answer to that, but I am placing it on the record.
Lord Rooker: I will not attempt to answer that because I have not taken part in a proportional representation election. However, political parties are
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The definition of expense provisions in this order will be on the statute book for any future elections. We were going to bring this order forward with a group of other amendments later this year, tidying up loose ends subsequent to the 2006 legislation. We are introducing it now because the St. Andrews agreement proposed the date of 7 March.
I will answer a question that the noble Lord did not ask but I thought he was going to when he stood up. Obviously, we want the election to take place. People are preparing for it. Massive numbers have registered for it—more than 1.1 million. Some 40,000 extra people have registered in the last month, which is really good news. People really intend to cast their votes and make a difference. We want the elections to take place and the political parties will be gearing up for them to take place—as I have noticed even in this House.
Obviously the political parties have asked whether they will be compensated for the expenditure they have incurred if for any reason the elections do not take place. This matter has been raised with the Government and we are currently considering our response. Beyond that I cannot go.
Lord Glentoran: Before the Minister sits down, did he refer to 1.1 million people registering?
Lord Rooker: I do not have the figures in front of me. I think it is 1.15 million. I am informed that 1,115,965 people have registered. We are very pleased with that figure. It represents the highest ever return of registration forms. I realise that there were some doubts about this and I saw for myself the posters in Belfast in early January encouraging people to register. Some 40,849 voters will be added to the register in time to allow them to vote in the Assembly elections as a result of the rolling register. It is excellent news for democracy that so many people have registered.
On Question, Motion agreed to.
Sexual Offences Act 2003 (Amendment of Schedules 3 and 5) Order 2007
6.15 pm
Lord Bassam of Brighton rose to move, That the Grand Committee do report to the House that it has considered the Sexual Offences Act 2003 (Amendment of Schedules 3 and 5) Order 2007.
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The noble Lord said: Before I begin in earnest, I should draw the Committee’s attention to a slight but important error in the Explanatory Memorandum at paragraph 7.6. The last sentence should read,
rather than the “maximum” duration, which is a bit of a difference. However, this does not affect in any way what the instrument seeks to achieve.
The Home Office drew this error to the attention the Joint Committee on Statutory Instruments and the Select Committee on the Merits of Statutory Instruments, both of which were content for this to be corrected but asked that a revised version should appear on the OPSI website—which it does—and that the change be reflected in the final published version of the Explanatory Memorandum.
The instrument seeks to amend the lists of offences in Schedules 3 and 5 to the Sexual Offences Act 2003, which relate to the notification requirements, commonly referred to as the “sex offenders’ register”. In brief, any offender convicted, cautioned or made subject to a finding for an offence listed in Schedule 3 automatically becomes subject to the notification requirements—that is, they go on to the register—subject, in certain cases, to a sentencing or age threshold being met. There is no role for the courts in this process and it is not dependent upon an order from a judge.
A person who has been convicted for an offence listed in Schedule 3 can also be made subject to a foreign travel order where the conditions are met. A conviction, caution or finding for a Schedule 5 offence does not result in automatic sex offender registration because, unlike the offences listed in Schedule 3, the offences in Schedule 5 are not inherently sexual although they could possibly have a sexual motive or connotation. However, where someone is convicted of a Schedule 5 or a Schedule 3 offence, there is discretion for a presiding judge—or a magistrate at a later point—to decide whether the offender poses a risk of serious sexual harm and so make a sexual offences prevention order. The effect of a sexual offences prevention order is to place prohibitions on the offender’s behaviour as well as ensuring that they go on the register.
The instrument seeks to move three offences from the list of offences in Schedule 5, where discretion is afforded to the courts in relation to making an individual subject to the notification requirements, to Schedule 3, where the notification requirements operate independently of any court ruling. The instrument also seeks to add further offences to Schedule 5.
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