Northern Ireland (Elections) (Amendment) (No. 2) Order 2015 — House of Lords, 2015-11-23
Topic: Government Operations
Andrew Dunlop (Conservative, Centre-right): My Lords, this statutory instrument, the Northern Ireland (Elections) (Amendment) (No. 2) Order 2015, makes a number of changes to the legislative framework for Northern Ireland elections. Some are minor administrative points, and I will focus on the two most substantive provisions The draft order makes provision to allow the retention of certain entries on the Northern Ireland electoral register for a further year. Northern Ireland is unique within the UK in that it does not hold an annual canvass to refresh its register. Since 2006, the register in Northern Ireland has been maintained not via a canvass but through a system of continuous registration which relies on cross-checking electoral data against prescribed official data streams. This approach is possible because all electoral registration in Northern Ireland has been individual registration rather than household registration since 2002 Following the last full Northern Ireland canvass in 2013, provision was made to retain some entries on the register where the individuals in question had not returned the canvass form but where the Chief Electoral Officer had no reason to question the validity of their entry. The Electoral Office for Northern Ireland was able to assess the validity of entries for these non-respondents, as all the individuals in question were individually registered and the electoral office’s data-checking facility with both DWP and health service records allows a high level of assurance on people’s current address and other key information. Let me be clear that the entries that relate to these non-respondents were all checked after the 2013 canvass and have been continuously checked since then in response to alerts from other government data sources. The Electoral Office for Northern Ireland receives regular updates of data from a variety of official sources, including the DWP, the Registrar-General and Business Services Organisation. BSO holds all the details of individuals on GP and dentist lists in Northern Ireland. If there is an inconsistency between the data on the register and that received from the other data sources, the electoral office issues chasing letters to the individual and then a final warning. If the individual does not respond, they are removed from the register Of the 112,000 registered electors who did not respond to the 2013 canvass, about 10,000 have been removed from the register and more than 20,000 have been successfully re-registered. Approximately 82,000 voters are therefore affected by the provision we are considering today. The original provision made in 2013 to retain these particular entries on the register was for two years and will expire at the beginning of December this year when the new register is published. However, it was always the intention that the retained entries should not be removed in advance of the next Northern Ireland Assembly elections. Due to the clash of the parliamentary general election and the Assembly election which was originally scheduled for 2015, the date of the Assembly election was postponed until May 2016. That postponement is the reason we need the extension of these provisions for one further year Both the Electoral Commission and the Chief Electoral Officer for Northern Ireland share the Government’s view that the retention of these entries for a further year is desirable in the context of the continuous registration system employed in Northern Ireland. We fully intend that this will be the final provision made to retain non-respondent voters. We propose to introduce digital registration in Northern Ireland in 2016, and in the context of easier online registration and the publicity associated with its introduction, non-respondent voters will be given clear notice that they will come off the register in December 2016 if they do not take action The second substantive provision made by this order is to allow the Chief Electoral Officer for Northern Ireland not to be guilty of an offence if they take steps to fully correct procedural errors made at Assembly elections that would otherwise be a breach of their official duty. Currently, for all Northern Ireland elections, with the exception of those for the Assembly, the relevant legislation provides for the Chief Electoral Officer not to be guilty of an offence if they take steps to remedy in full an administrative error or omission. The order will correct this anomaly and bring the provision in respect of Assembly elections into line with the provisions for parliamentary, European and local elections in Northern Ireland. Although this is an electoral matter, which is therefore not devolved to the Northern Ireland Assembly, it tangentially touches on criminal justice matters. Your Lordships will wish to know that my honourable friend the Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Northern Ireland, Ben Wallace, has written to the Northern Ireland Minister for Justice to inform him of our intentions in this as a matter of courtesy.