REPRESENTATION OF THE PEOPLE (NORTHERN IRELAND) (Hansard, 25 July 1962)

§ The Joint Under-Secretary of State for the Home Department (Mr. C. M. Woodhouse)
I beg to move, That the Representation of the People (Northern Ireland) Regulations, 1962, dated 6th July, 1962, a copy of which was laid before this House on 12th July, be approved. These Regulations concern a rather narrow point, and I shall try to be as brief as possible in my explanation of their purpose. I think they can best be described as consequential upon consolidation of the electoral law of Northern Ireland which has recently been carried out by the Parliament of Northern Ireland in the Electoral Law Act, Northern Ireland, 1962.
It has been found convenient for a number of years to combine together in the case of Northern Ireland the register of electors to this Parliament at Westminster, electors to the Parliament of Northern Ireland at Stormont and electors to local authorities in Northern Ireland. This practice is governed on the one side by legislation of the Parliament of Northern Ireland, and on the other side by regulations made under our Representation of the People Act, 1949.
Our own regulations are the Representation of the People (Northern Ireland) Regulations, 1950, as amended by subsequent regulations. Regulation 5 of the 1950 Regulations provides that in every year in which the register of electors to the Northern Ireland Parliament and to local authorities in Northern Ireland is prepared under the provisions of Section 13 of the Elections and Franchise Act, Northern Ireland, 1946, which is, of course, an Act of the Northern Ireland Parliament, the register of electors for that year to the United Kingdom Parliament shall be combined with that Northern Ireland register. The 1946 Act of the Northern Ireland Parliament has, however, been largely repealed and the Northern Ireland law has been consolidated in the Act to which I referred, the Electoral Law Act (Northern Ireland), 1962.
Because of the repeal in large measure of the 1946 Act, we wish now to amend our 1950 Regulations in order 1635 that the registers of electors to the United Kingdom Parliament may continue to be combined with the Northern Ireland registers which will now be published each year under the new Northern Ireland Act of 1962.

§ Mr. John Diamond (Gloucester)
The hon. Gentleman speaks of the 1962 Act as a consolidation Measure. Is he using that term in the same technical sense as we use it here, namely, to mean the grouping together of existing Acts without any variation in them?

§ Mr. Woodhouse
I believe that to be so in substance. I could not say that it is so verbally throughout, but I think that that is the fact.
For the sake of completeness, I should add that we wish to combine additionally the electors lists—which are, as it were, the preliminary draft of the electors registers—and also the corrupt and illegal practices list in respect of United Kingdom elections with those prepared and published annually under the Northern Ireland Act of 1962 to which I referred.

§ Mr. Michael Foot (Ebbw Vale)
The Under-Secretary of State, on whose promotion the House congratulates him, has among his duties that of looking after Northern Ireland. We must, of course, bear with him if he has had so many matters on his mind that he has not been able to examine this part of his duties with the care which, I am sure, he has devoted to all the others in the time the has been in the Department.
The hon. Gentleman's introduction of these Regulations could be misleading. He said that we are dealing with a rather narrow point and that these Regulations are consequential upon an Act which had been passed in the Northern Ireland Parliament at the beginning of this year, the Electoral Law Act (Northern Ireland), 1962. When he was interrupted by my hon. Friend the Member for Gloucester (Mr. Diamond), he said that, as far as he knew, this could be described generally as a consolidation Act. It would, therefore, be natural for hon. Members to take it from the hon. Gentleman that this was a purely formal matter and that the Regu- 1636 lations should go through without anyone paying very much attention to them. Also, of course, the time at which the Regulations are brought forward would add to that impression.
I take quite a different view of the Regulations. It is not my fault that they must be discussed at this hour of the night, nor is it your fault, Mr. Speaker. It is the Government's decision that we should discuss these Regulations at a very late hour, but they are very important Regulations nevertheless affecting, in one sense, the whole democratic structure in Northern Ireland. For the Under-Secretary of State to suggest—I do not blame him, for the reasons I explained—that the Measure which was passed through the Northern Ireland Parliament was nothing more than a consolidation Measure is to mislead us, albeit unintentionally, in a most monstrous fashion.
The Measure to which these Regulations refer was discussed at very great length in the Northern Ireland Parliament. I assume that every hon. Member present tonight, if not the hon. Gentleman at the Home Office, has read the debates. I have the reports of the debates. There are stacks of them. The Northern Ireland Parliament had long debates on the precise Measure to which these Regulations are related. It had all-night sittings and debates that went on night after night. It had a Guillotine imposed. Before the Guillotine was imposed, the closure was operated in a manner which would make the Patronage Secretary here green with envy. Indeed, I hardly like to reveal this part of my discoveries because it might put ideas in his mind.
If one reads what happened in the Northern Ireland Parliament in discussing the Clause to which these Regulations refer, one sees that very often the Government Chief Whip in the Northern Ireland Parliament would move the closure after a matter had been discussed for a matter of ten minutes.

§ Mr. Speaker
Will the hon. Member be good enough to assist me in explanation of the ground upon which he urges that these matters arise on discussion of the Regulations?

§ Mr. Foot
Yes, Mr. Speaker. The Minister was asked by my hon. Friend the direct question whether the Electoral 1637 Law Act (Northern Ireland), 1962, to which the Regulations in approximation apply, was a consolidation Measure.

§ Mr. Speaker
Two problems arise. One is whether we are discussing these Regulations applying in approximation to that law. The other is whether our rules of order are governed by questions asked of the Minister by an hon. Member. Neither of them appears to me to be right.

§ Mr. Foot
The spokesman for the Home Office said that the Regulations that we are discussing refer to the Electoral Law Act (Northern Ireland), 1962, which was a consolidation Measure. If the House accepted the view of the Home Office that the Act which was passed through the Northern Ireland Parliament was a purely consolidation measure, we would be ready to agree with the view of the Home Office. I was indicating, however, that it was a most controversial Measure and, therefore, the Regulations that we are asked to pass may also be controversial. Indeed, no other Measure passed through the Northern Ireland Parliament in recent years has been as controversial as the Electoral Law Act (Northern Ireland), 1962. to which the Regulations are directly related.

§ Mr. Speaker
It may have been a most heathenly controversial Measure, but what seems to me to arise on the Regulations—and I will hear the ban. Member on the subject—is two quite easy questions, namely, whether these electoral lists should continue to be combined and jointly published and whether the preparation of the corrupt and illegal practices list should be made under a single set of regulations. I do not see how any other issue arises.

§ Mr. Eric Fletcher (Islington, East)
Surely, Mr. Speaker, we are entitled to consider whether the Regulations should be made; and in considering that, we must consider whether they are reasonable. Surely, in considering whether the Regulations are reasonable, to bring them into conformity with an Act passed in Northern Ireland, we are entitled to consider the circumstances in which the Northern Ireland Act was passed and the degree of controversy surrounding it.

§ Mr. Speaker
I do not think so. Of course, the House can consider whether the Regulations are reasonable or desirable. What seem to me to be the grounds on which we can discuss them are the two questions which I have already posed.

§ Mr. Foot
The question whether the Regulations are reasonable and appropriate is exactly the matter to which I was proposing to direct my remarks, but I was making what I considered to be a legitimate preliminary comment that when these matters were discussed in the Northern Ireland Parliament, so far from the Measure to which the Regulations relate being regarded as a consolidation Measure, it was regarded as a Measure which concerned the whole democratic structure of politics in Northern Ireland.
I understand that it is not right for us in this House to discuss the same matters which were discussed in the Northern Ireland Parliament, but I would draw attention to paragraph 1 of these Regulations. It says: The register shall, so far as practicable, be combined with the register of parliamentary electors or, as the case may be, the register of parliamentary and local electors prepared and published under section 28 of the Electoral Law Act (Northern Ireland) … One of the matters I wish to discuss, and which I should have thought would have been exactly in order, is whether we should relate our Regulations here to the law under the Electoral Act in Northern Ireland, which was one of the matters which in fact aroused the greatest controversy when discussed in Northern Ireland. Nothing, I should have thought, could be more in order than discussion whether we should pass Regulations which accept in effect the decisions made by the Northern Ireland Pariament on the local electors, and the Minister said himself—

§ Mr. Stratton Mills (Belfast, North)
Perhaps I could help the hon. Gentleman, who, I think, has misread the Regulations. The idea is merely the same as that in this country, that the various electoral registers should be in the same document and that they should be made at the same time for purely administrative simplicity. There is no question, in accepting the Regulations, 1639 of making the local Government and Westminster Government electors identical. It is simply that the lists are put inside the same cover.

§ Mr. Foot
I am sure they are not identical. That is one of the greatest complaints. I am sure the hon. Member knows that. There is no identity at all between the register of local electors and of those voting to send the hon. Gentleman to this House. That is one of the biggest grounds of complaint. The hon. Gentleman knows that very well. I hope he is not going to use his position here to try to deceive innocent Members of this House who do not realise the facts. But some of us are aware of what does happen in Northern Ireland. Of course there is no identity. That is one of the main reasons why the debate went on in the Northern Ireland over a long time and the Guillotine was imposed.
As I said earlier, I should have thought it was a legitimate preliminary comment that what we are discussing here tonight is a matter regarded as of the gravest importance in Northern Ireland by a large number of people—shall we say? —one-third of the population. The hon. Gentleman does not deny that figure. It is a matter of great importance to them, and therefore I am thinking it would be quite wrong for this House to allow this question to go through without discussion, and if in fact the speech of the Under-Secretary had passed without comment, the speech in which he said we were just dealing with a consolidation Measure, and if that had been the news going across to Belfast tomorrow, we should have been laughed out of court. I am sure the hon. Gentleman would not like that to happen. So I was just making a preliminary comment, as I said.
I must say that I have not studied the affairs of the Northern Ireland Parliament in such detail for quite a time, and I am absolutely shocked at the way in which the Measure dealing with the whole conduct of elections in Northern Ireland should have been debated—

§ Mr. Speaker
Order. In no conceivable fashion imaginable can what happened in the Northern Ireland Parliament in relation to that Measure as a 1640 matter of procedure be in order in discussion of these Regulations.

§ Mr. Foot
No. I have been led astray by what the hon. Gentleman said—that this was a purely consolidation Measure. I leave that at once.
As I said earlier, one part of the Regulations we should examine most carefully is that paragraph I have already quoted. This is one of the reasons why such strong objection is taken to the Electoral Law Act, with which we are supposed to co-ordinate these Regulations, because the local register, as the hon. Gentleman the Member for Belfast, North (Mr. Stratton Mills) has indicated, is quite different from the national register in Northern Ireland. There are large numbers of people who are deprived of the right to vote in local elections in Northern Ireland even though they have the right to send Members of Parliament to this House.

§ Mr. Stratton Mills
On a point of order, Mr. Speaker. Am I right in my understanding of what you have ruled as to the width of discussion on these Regulations? Is it correct that the only point arising for discussion is not the merits or otherwise of the electoral laws in Northern Ireland, but purely whether one should combine the list for the Westminster elections in the same book as for local government elections and the Stormont elections?

§ Mr. Speaker
What I have said, and I am sure it is right, is that the issue before the House is on—leaving out the "corrupt" and what-not list—whether two lists should be combined, and I do not regard as relevant to that the methods, or the alleged improper methods, by which a certain Statute was secured its passage through the Northern Ireland Parliament.

§ Mr. Archie Manuel (Central Ayrshire)
Further to the point of order, Mr. Speaker. With regard to the point raised by the hon. Member for Belfast, North (Mr. Stratton Mills), I see in the document the words: The register shall, so far as practicable. Can we debate the meaning of those words or their limitation? It is very strange to us in that the reference is to its being "practicable" to combine 1641 the register. So it is not exactly a combination of the register but only "in so far as it is practicable to combine the register". This is a great limitation and should be probed thoroughly in order to discover why.

§ Mr. Speaker
The hon. Member's view is interesting, but I do not feel that the practicability of combination of the two registers is in any way related to the procedure by which the Northern Ireland Statute came upon the Northern Ireland Statute Book.

§ Mr. Foot
Mr. Speaker, you rebuked me earlier for discussing the methods by which this Measure was passed through the Northern Ireland Parliament, and although I thought it was a perfectly legitimate point for me to make, as a result of your Ruling I have abandoned that part of my argument and I was proceeding to a further part of the argument.
I said that one of the major complaints about the whole situation in Northern Ireland—thus has nothing to do with what was discussed in the Northern Ireland Parliament—is the distinction between the registers for those who can vote in local elections in Northern Ireland and those who can vote in the elections either to the Stormont Parliament or to this House. Then the hon. Gentleman interrupted me. He and his hon. Friends may be able to stop debate in the Northern Ireland Parliament, but I hope they cannot do it here.
It is a fact, I am sure—the hon. Member did not interrupt me to deal with the facts—that only about two-thirds of the electorate in Northern Ireland are able to vote in local elections. In the City of Belfast there are 81,000 people who can vote for candidates for the Stormont Parliament or for this Parliament but cannot vote in local elections. In the City of Derry there are some 8,000 electors who are able to vote in national elections but are denied the right to vote in local elections. How can anybody defend such a principle?

§ Mr. Stratton Mills
On a point of order, Mr. Speaker. I should be glad to discuss every aspect of partition between the North and the South of Ireland with the hon. Gentleman, but 1642 with regard to the limitation of debate on these Regulations, is not the hon. Gentleman going very much wider of the point in dealing with the merits once again?

§ Mr. Speaker
I thought that in that passage, exceptional as it may be, the hon Gentleman was legitimately arguing why there should not be a combination of the two lists, which is rather different from the note on which he started.

§ Mr. Foot
I am most grateful to you for your Ruling, Mr. Speaker. I never mentioned anything about partition. I was discussing the situation of citizens of this country for whom we are responsible who are denied rights in Northern Ireland which they would have if they lived in this country. The hon. Gentleman, Who no doubt gets elected to this House by boasting of his allegiance to the British flag, ought to try to incorporate into the laws of Northern Ireland more of the laws of this country.

§ Mr. Speaker
Order. The hon. Member keeps putting me in a difficulty. The question of whether it should be incorporated into the law of Northern Ireland is another matter. We are discussing that the two lists, so far as practicable, shall be combined.

§ Mr. Foot
I have been led astray again by the hon. Gentleman, but I will now stick strictly to your Ruling, Mr. Speaker.
I thought that when I was discussing the distinction between the two registers I was on very firm ground, and I could quote further examples of how, in fact, large numbers of people in Northern Ireland are denied rights which they would obviously have in this country. Moreover, at the same time as large numbers of people in Northern Ireland are denied the right to vote on these local registers there are other people there who are given plenty of votes on the register. In local elections, as the hon. Gentleman knows very well, large numbers of people in Northern Ireland have seven or eight votes because they have a business vote, a company vote.
All the arrangements which we made under our laws for setting up new registers in 1946 and 1947 when we overhauled local government in this country 1643 and all the measures which we put through for establishing universal suffrage in local elections in this country have not been adopted in Northern Ireland. Domestic servants are excluded in Northern Ireland and people who are employed in many places do not have votes. That may astonish some hon. Members, but it is true. At the same time there are large numbers of people who have seven or eight votes. The hon. Gentleman does not deny that.

§ Lieut.-Colonel R. G. Grosvenor (Fermanagh and South Tyrone)
Can the hon. Gentleman substantiate that fact?

§ Mr. Foot
Of course I can.

§ Lieut.-Colonel Grosvenor
The hon. Gentleman would do a great service if he could substantiate it categorically.

§ Mr. Foot
I will substantiate it only too gladly. I have here the report of the Parliamentary debates in which the whole of this law was discussed in Northern Ireland. Mr. Speaker would rule me out of order if I went into the details of that discussion. The facts were never denied. Statements were made by spokesmen in the Northern Ireland Parliament that many company voters, as they are called, had seven or eight votes, and that was never denied by the spokesmen of the Northern Ireland Government. If the hon. and gallant Member for Fermanagh and South Tyrone (Lieut.-Colonel Grosvenor) can produce to me from the report of the debates, which I am sure he will have studied, evidence that this fact was ever denied by spokesmen in the Northern Ireland Parliament I shall be glad to withdraw.

§ Lieut.-Colonel Grosvenor
The hon. Gentleman will realise that I am asking the question.

§ Mr. Hugh Delargy (Thurrock)
Will the hon. and gallant Gentleman deny this?

§ Mr. Speaker
Order. We shall get into difficulties if we have interventions upon interventions.

§ Mr. Delargy
The hon. and gallant Gentleman has raised a point. I merely ask whether he will deny that there are 1644 persons in Northern Ireland who have more than one vote.

§ Mr. Speaker
Here is the difficulty, and it is a perfectly sensible one. I am sure the hon. Member will agree with me. Perhaps the hon. and gallant Member will speak and when he does he will be able to intervene upon him. What is the difficulty about the process of debate is the permitting of an intervention upon an intervention. I am sure that will be understood.

§ Mr. Foot
The hon. and gallant Member fox Fermanagh and South Tyrone challenged me, I am sure in good faith, to substantiate my statement. I have read the debates on this matter which took place in Northern Ireland—which is more than he has done—when this question of people having seven or eight votes was raised. The allegation was made time and again and never denied by the Government there. Indeed, Government spokesmen gloried in the fact. They argued that not only did this happen but that it was right to happen, because this was one way to attract industries to Northern Ireland.

§ Mr. Stratton Mills
On a point of order, Mr. Speaker. I apologise for pressing you on this matter, but I feel that the hon. Member for Ebbw Vale (Mr. M. Foot) is going much beyond the bounds of these Regulations. I submit that the only point on which he can address the House is on the question of whether the registers should be combined. Yet he is discussing at great length the whole question of the composition of the Northern Ireland Parliament and of the local government side of the register. I submit that this is definitely not relevant.

§ Mr. Speaker
The question is whether the register should continue to be combined. I agree that the limits are delicate, but obviously criticism of the contents of one element of the to be combined list is just within the limits. Nothing would be more tedious or out of order than to discuss the debates in the Northern Irish Parliament underlying the Act which gives rise to the present contents of the register alleged to be defective. But the line is delicate. I hope that we can get on.

§ Mr. Stratton Mills
Further to that point of order, Mr. Speaker. I submit quite strongly that we cannot discuss the composition of Stormont and the local government side of the register. With respect, I suggest that you have given a slight edge by which the hon. Member for Ebbw Vale can discuss these things.

§ Mr. Speaker
The question is Whether the lists should continue to be combined. If one of them is vicious, then that is an argument in flavour of not continuing the combination. That is the limit.

§ Mr. Foot
You have made my speech much more eloquently than I could have done, Mr. Speaker. You say that if the system of local registers is vicious then obviously that is a ground—

§ Mr. G. B. H. Currie (Down, North)
It would be interesting, in considering this matter, to know whether the hon. Member for Ebbw Vale is expressing the official view of the Labour Party or merely a part of it.

§ Mr. Foot
The hon. Gentleman should know that I am speaking for myself, and it would be a good thing if he did that for a change. It seems that the only object of interventions by hon. Members from Northern Ireland is to try to stop other people from speaking.
You said, Mr. Speaker, that if the system of local elections and the register of local electors was vicious, this was obviously ground for not continuing it. I would have thought it perfectly proper for me to cite, as evidence of why I thing it is indeed vicious, the fact that a large number of people in Northern Ireland, in debate on the electoral law Which were of such length that the guillotine was imposed and the closure was moved—

§ Mr. Speaker
Order, That is precisely what I said was out of order. I wish the hon. Member would remember that.

§ Mr. Foot
I understand that it would be proper for me to go over the arguments that took place in the Northern Ireland Parliament. But you said quite clearly, Mr. Speaker, that there is the question of whether the register of local 1646 electors in Northern Ireland is vicious, and surely that is a matter for argument. Some hon. Members disagree and say that it is a perfectly proper system. I am trying to sustain the view that it is vicious, to use your own word.

§ Mr. Speaker
I am not doing more than discharging my duty. Whatever happened in the Northern Ireland Parliament in relation to the passage of the Act which constituted the lists, the procedural matters, such as the Guillotine, cannot be relevant to this debate.

§ Mr. Foot
I do not wish to be over-persistent in the matter, but if the question is whether the way in which they register local electors is evidence or not, surely it is proper to cite the evidence on one side or the other. I should have thought that among the evidence which could be cited—even though you rebuke me for saying so, apparently, Mr. Speaker, I still think so—is what many people in Northern Ireland think, and particularly as other people from Northern Ireland who sit as Members of this House are not speaking for the people of Northern Ireland tonight.
A large number of people in Northern Ireland are very concerned about this matter. They think that they are being robbed of their rights. They are denied the right to vote in local elections. All these people—

§ Mr. Speaker
Order. All that may be perfectly right and true. But the Regulations which we are debating relate to whether the two existing lists shall continue to be combined.

§ Mr. Foot
I should have thought that when we are deciding whether to approve the Regulations and agree to combine them, and whether to vote on the matter, we are entitled to discuss and consider the views of the people in Northern Ireland on the subject. As is perfectly evident from what has happened in the debate, the spokesmen from Northern Ireland have come here eager to suppress debate rather than to engage in it. The Measure was passed through the Northern Ireland Parliament in circumstances which I will not describe, because to do so might cause me to become out of order. I should have thought it perfectly proper for hon. 1647 Members on this side of the House to say that we are going to vote on opinions held by a large number of people in Northern Ireland, including those who are disenfranchised, and will continue to be, if we give our approval to these Regulations. This House still retains a considerable responsibility for what happens in Northern Ireland. We have representatives from that country who sit in this House—

§ Mr. Speaker
Order. I am not following the hon. Gentleman and I am trying to do so. He will correct me if I am wrong. The alleged disfranahisement —I am trying to use a neutral expression —does not arise from the question, aye or no, should these lists continue to be combined. It arises, as I understand the argument of the hon. Gentleman, upon some Statute passed by the Northern Ireland Parliament. The issue on these Regulations is whether the existing lists shall continue to be combined.

§ Mr. Foot
Yes, Mr. Speaker. But this Act which was passed by the Northern Ireland Parliament a few months ago so far from being a consolidation Measure was one which perpetuated what had gone on before that time, and when many people in Northern Ireland are saying that the whole electoral law in Ireland should be reconsidered. They debated all these electoral matters, and therefore if, when we are asked to give our opinion on two registers which will conform to the Act which was passed in Ireland, we allowed this to go through and accepted the view of the Minister, the news which would go to Northern Ireland tomorrow would be that the British House of Commons approved what had been done. There is not the slightest doubt that the view of many people in Ireland, and of the newspapers, would be that, despite all the disturbance in the Stormont about this matter, the British Parliament had accepted it without anyone thinking that it was of importance. In that sense, we are deciding whether we shall approve the consolidation of the two registers, and therefore I think that we are entitled to discuss whether we approve of many of the items included in the Act which—

§ Mr. Speaker
Order. That really is not so, and the whole debate will get 1648 out of order unless I persist in interrupting the hon. Gentleman, although I regret the necessity for doing so. The point is, shall these two lists continue to be combined? Suppose the House decided that they should not be combined by disapproving these Regulations. Whatever the defect of disfranchisement of which the hon. Gentleman speaks, it would remain. The combination of the lists does not affect that factor. That is the difficulty.

§ Mr. Fletcher
With great respect, Mr. Speaker, surely we must be able to contend that the Northern Ireland list is open to such objection, is so defective and so vicious, that our United Kingdom list ought not to be combined with it?

§ Mr. Speaker
Yes. I do not mind that in the least, but the idea that the merits or demerits of the disfranchisement can be discussed is wrong, because it will remain whether the House approves or disapproves of these Regulations. That is the distinction.

§ Mr. Foot
There are other grounds, to which I will turn now, on which I believe that we should not agree to the Regulations. We cannot pass these Regulations without giving in some measure approval to the form of the register which they have accepted in the Northern Ireland Parliament. There are other grounds of objection apart from the disfranchisement of people in local elections. Hon. Members may not be aware of the many differences in the electoral system which they have in Northern Ireland. They do have poll cards sent out by the Post Office, as we have in this country. This system was introduced in this part of the United Kingdom to ensure that more people would be able to vote at elections, which is very directly connected with the registers. They do not have that in Northern Ireland. Attempts were made there to try to get the system introduced. They were all rejected by the friends of hon. Members opposite who represent Northern Ireland in this House.
In many cases they are now allowed to use schools for public meetings in Northern Ireland. They introduced Measures that try to obtain that. That was also denied. There are many other differences. Under their rules they still 1649 have university votes. Queen's University returns Members representing 3,000 voters each, although the average for the whole country is about 18,000. Attempts were made to change that. It was changed in this country, but not in Northern Ireland, not even by those in Northern Ireland who boast of their efforts to maintain the British way of life. They talk about the British way of life, but they do not incorporate into their system the British electoral method.
There is another ground on which I object to the registers. This is more important than any of the other points which I have raised. These registers refer to particular boundaries of constituencies. In the Act to which these Regulations are related and to which the registers are related the boundaries of the different constituencies are laid out. The boundaries are such that in local elections and in national elections the will of the Irish people is grossly distorted. Numerous cases can be cited. Derry City has a two-thirds Nationalist population, but owing to the way in which the register is organised, which we are partly discussing, the Unionists are in control. The same applies in Omagh in Tyrone and in Eniskellen in Fermanagh. [HON. MEMBERS: "Where?"] Eniskellen. Hon. Members opposite have never heard of it. Perhaps I cannot pronounce the words right, but I have the facts correct. Hon. Members opposite want to suppress this. The facts, which they want to conceal, are that under this form of register— hon. Members opposite laugh about it— in great townships and cities in Northern Ireland, although the majority of people are Nationalist in their outlook, they can never get a majority in their own cities. This is an outrage, but hon. Member opposite laugh at it.

§ Mr. Speaker
Order. It may be an outrage. It may not be. How will that be affected by approving or disapproving of these Regulations?

§ Mr. Foot
I think that I can answer that very simply, Mr. Speaker. If we were to throw out these Regulations tonight it would have a very big effect in Northern Ireland.

§ Mr. Speaker
Whatever they are, to change the constituents of the Northern Ireland register, they are wholly in- 1650 effective. I am not trying to be tiresome to the hon. Gentleman but trying to present to him the effect of the Regulations.

§ Mr. Stratton Mills
On a point of order, Mr. Speaker. I apologise for being persistent, but I ask you once again to look at your Ruling that the alleged "viciousness" in the Northern Ireland electoral law gives an opportunity for this matter to be discussed under these Regulations, because if one does that the whole field can be discussed.

§ Mr. Speaker
I think that the hon. Gentleman is night to that extent. It depends on the class of viciousness ome is discussing. If the lists were not in accordance with Northern Ireland law and were vicious in that respect, the argument would at once be valid. That is the difficulty. But the issue before the House is whether or mot we approve of these Regulations, and a state of affairs left unaffected by the approval or disapproval is a matter out of order. That is the difficulty about it all.

§ Mr. Delargy
On a point of order, Mr. Speaker. You mentioned Northern Ireland law, but we are not here concerned with Northern Ireland law; we are here concerned with British law.

§ Mr. Speaker
I am so sorry—the hon. Gentleman corrects me with complete accuracy. I meant statute law enacted in the Northern Ireland Parliament.

§ Mr. William Ross (Kilmarnock)
Perhaps you could help us, Mr. Speaker, in relation to the limitations under the Regulations which we are asked to approve. To take "Preparation of the register", we are asked to approve in paragraph 1 (1) these words: … All claims for registration and all objections to any person's registration shall be made within the time and in the manner prescribed by, and shall be dealt with in accordance with the provisions of the said Act of 1962 … To ask us to approve that without examining the provisions of that Act is Surely asking far too much.

§ Mr. Speaker
I do not think so. All these Regulations ask is whether or no the two lists shall continue to be combined, that is all.

§ Mr. Foot
Then I wonder why, in that case, Mr. Speaker, the matter should ever have arisen, if it was so purely technical as that. I am told that I raised it, but that is not the case. Why is it that these Regulations are brought before the House at all? It is because in Northern Ireland they have passed a new Act, which the Minister thought to be a purely consolidation Act until I informed him otherwise. He now learns that it is a much bigger affair. As a result, we are asked to pass these Regulations, so we are surely entitled to decide with some care whether or not we should give our approval. But if we find that the registration is conducted in a manner that we in this part of the United Kingdom would find deplorable, surely we are entitled to make our protest and, if we wanted to, say to the Minister, "Take back your Regulations and discuss the matter with the Northern Ireland Parliament," which is exactly the main point I shall try to press on the House.
I do not blame the Minister because, in particular, we know that there have been some rather drastic changes, but that is what happened, and it directly relates to the Regulations. Following the passage of the Act in Northern Ireland, representations were made to our own Home Office. The Nationalist members—and, I think, some others— presented a memorandum to the Home Office asking it to reconsider the Regulations under the Act. I do not know whether the Minister recalls that, or has been informed about it by his officials, but he should find out about it, because I am informed that soon after the passage of the Act, a month or two ago, prior to the introduction of these Regulations, representations were made by the minority in Northern Ireland to the Home Office, asking it to set up some form of inquiry, or to consider the whole question before proceeding to draft the Regulations to be presented to this House.
What did the Home Secretary, who is now the Deputy Prime Minister, do? According to my information—and I would be glad to have this confirmed or denied—no reply was sent to this memorandum. The Home Office merely referred the matter to the Stormont Parliament to deal with. It is just as if repre- 1652 sentations were made to the Home Office from, say, Leicester, Orpington, Bradford or Stockton saying that something was wrong with an election and the Home Office passed the matter on to the Conservative Central Office. About the same process would be involved. As I say, according to my information that is what happened.
Do hon. Members opposite feel strongly about this? They may do, but the people in Ireland feel even more anxious. Hon. Members opposite have the right to vote. Should not the people of Ireland have the same right? This anomalous position arises; a person in Northern Ireland may stand for Parliament in London if he is a member of the Sinn Fein Party, but he is not allowed to stand for the Stormont Parliament or even to vote. While hon. Members opposite may feel very strongly about this, I can assure them that the people of Ireland feel even more strongly. They have justice in saying that they should have some say, for although it is possible for a Catholic to be President of the United States, he could never be a leading citizen in Derry City.
Hon. Members opposite must not think that they feel so passionately about Ulster. The people there have rights. It is because their rights are not represented in this House and because no voice is raised from Ireland to speak for them on the benches opposite that some of us are acting in this way. After all, they have many other problems in Northern Ireland. There are many other distinctions between Northern Ireland and the rest of the United Kingdom. They have a much heavier rate of unemployment. They badly need their electoral rights.
We must, therefore, ask the Home Office to explain why no reply has been made to the representations made by the minority in Ireland, representations sent to the Home Office following the passage of the new law. We must also ask the Home Office to remove these Regulations in view of what has been said, in view of what others will say and in view of our deep concern over what is happening in Northern Ireland. The Home Office should reconsider the matter and discuss the whole question with the Northern Ireland Parliament, 1653 because there is no doubt that they would wish to be in on the discussions.
Some of us want these Regulations repealed tonight because we want the people of Ireland to know that we are dissatisfied with what is happening there. We must let them know that we are not content—certainly not content with a situation in which in a Parliament 20 out of the 39 Unionist Members in Northern Ireland are invariably elected unopposed. Why should they care about registers? [HON. MEMBERS: "Oh."] That is true. And they also arrange boundaries. The whole system is manipulated by a power which I do not say is dictatorial—I would not compare it with what happens in Spain, Portugal or some countries in the East—but which is bad enough.

§ Sir Harmer Nicholls (Peterborough)
Mr. Herbert Morrison, now Lord Morrison, altered our boundaries.

§ Mr. Foot
If the hon. Member studies the matter he will find that as a result of him altering our boundaries the Labour Party lost the Election of 1951.

§ Mr. Speaker
Order. We seem to be getting a long way from the combination of these two electoral lists.

§ Mr. Foot
The hon. Gentleman who interrupted me need not think that the operation and manipulation of boundaries in Northern Ireland is a laughing matter. Anybody who has studied the matter knows that the boundaries on the registers have been manipulated to sustain in power a single party rule. I ask the House and the Home Office to consider this matter very seriously, and I ask the people of Northern Ireland, including those who have almighty powers with their guillotines in the Stormont, to recognise that whatever they may do, there are some people who will raise these matters in this House, even though it is very rarely done by the so-called representatives of the Irishmen.

§ Mr. John Diamond (Gloucester)
I may have misunderstood the situation, but, as I read these Regulations, we are dealing with a simple point as to whether certain registers should continue to be combined—that is to say, either to be printed on one piece of paper and to 1654 have marks made against individual names to denote whether they shall be included for all three parties or, as the hon. Member for Belfast, North (Mr. Stratton Mills) has indicated, combined by being bound together in one bound volume.
I seek to address arguments to demonstrate that the continuation of this procedure has led to difficulties. I would illustrate very shortly what those difficulties are, and I hope to convince the Government that it would be unwise to continue this system of combination because of the difficulties to which it has led. It is precisely because we are continuing the system that I think I am entitled to address these arguments.
As my hon. Friend the Member for Ebbw Vale (Mr. M. Foot) has made clear, the lists are different in the sense that some (people are entitled to vote on one list and those people are not entitled to vote on another list. On the first list of local elections the system might be described as less than democratic because any number of people do not have a vote at all. On the list for the Stormont Parliament the system may be described as something more than democratic because many people have more than one vote. Some of them, as my hon. Friend has demonstrated and proved, have eight.

§ Mr. Currie
Rot.

§ Mr. Diamond
I apologise for the noise which was being made as you were talking the Chair, Mr. Deputy-Speaker. I was pointing out that there are two separate lists on the first of which—the local authority list—many people do not have a vote at all, and on the second list —the Stormont Parliament list—many people have more than one vote, some as many as eight votes.

§ Mr. Currie
Would the hon. Gentleman be so kind as to give an illustration to the House? Can he cite some individual case where the elector has eight votes?

§ Mr. E. Fernyhough (Jarrow)
Would my hon. Friend give way?

§ Mr. Diamond
Perhaps it would be more convenient if I were to deal with one intervention at a time. The last thing I want to do is to cause difficulties 1655 with the Chair owing to the fact that there has been a slight misunderstanding as to the extent of this debate. However, as opposed to the hon. Member who just intervened, I take the view that considerable regard should be had for authoritative statements in the Stormont Parliament.

§ Mr. Currie
rose—

§ Mr. Diamond
Might I finish my observations, or is the hon. Member seeking to delay the proceedings?

§ Mr. Currie
No.

§ Mr. Diamond
Since the hon. Gentleman has asked a question, perhaps I might answer it. I attach considerably mere weight than he does to the authoritative statements in the Stormont Parliament. In that Parliament the allegation is made and repeated that individuals have more than one vote. There are many examples in the Act, if I may be allowed to read the Act to which the Regulations refer. I can read the list of the different circumstances under which a person can have a vote. There are many instances. They are referred to in the Schedules to the Act and under Section 28. I am sure that the hon. Member is just as familiar as I am with the Electoral Law Act (Northern Ireland), 1962.

§ Mr. Currie
Eight votes?

§ Mr. Diamond
These statements having been repeatedly made in the Stormont Parliament and accepted, that is fairly good evidence, good enough for me. One can envisage under the law circumstances in which a person could have more than eight votes. That merely depends on how many different constituencies in which he has property.

§ Mr. Currie
Will the hon. Gentleman give an example of an individual who, to his knowledge, has eight votes?

§ Mr. Diamond
No, I cannot give an example of an individual because I do not know of any particular individual by name who has eight votes. I am dealing with the matter in a much broader and more responsible way by referring to the number of votes which a person could have under the Electoral Law Act (Northern Ireland), 1962, and the number of votes which it is admitted in the Stormont Parliament he could have.
1656 I do not know why hon. Members opposite are so touchy about it and why they keep seeking to restrict the debate. It is an extremely important matter.

§ Mr. Currie
I merely want the truth to be stated.

§ Mr. Diamond
No, I will not give way. The hon. Gentleman has his chance to intervene. I noticed that when the opportunity came for him to intervene he did not seek to rise. Apparently, he has nothing to say but merely wants to interrupt other people's speeches.

§ Mr. Peter Walker (Worcester)
Who is being touchy now?

§ Mr. Diamond
Hon. Members apposite seem to regard this matter with more jocularity than same of us do. If the hon. Member for Down, North (Mr. Currie) seeks to catch your eye in due course, Mr. Speaker, no doubt he will be given his opportunity.
What we are concerned with is the fact that, by combining two registers, we have created difficulties in the past, and those difficulties are likely to continue if we go on with the same process. The argument is as simple as that. I shall illustrate it with one or two examples.
On one list a man may have a vote and on the other list he may not have a vote. Let us consider the position of an elector to the Stormont Parliament He wants to vote in a local authority election. If he had a separate list, he would examine that separate list and ascertain whether he had or had not a vote in the local authority ejection. However, because it is a combined list, he does not seek to do this. There are any number of people who are entitled to vote but who do not do so. I am not seeking to examine the grounds on which votes are granted but merely to consider whether such votes as are granted are, in fact, exercised. A mam who is entitled to vote does not exercise his right to vote because of the confusion arising from the combination of the lists.
What are some of the results of such a person refraining from exercising his right to vote? The local elector is unable to put pressure on his local representatives. Fundamentally, of 1657 course, that is the way in which one puts pressure on elected representatives. One does not do it merely by saying to a local councilor, "Will you please do this". One does it by asking him to do something and then adding, "If you do not, please remember that, when your time comes for re-election, I shall not vote for you". As a result of the combination of the lists, a man is denied the knowledge that he has a vote and he is denied the opportunity to put pressure on local councilors.
What are the consequences of this denial? Circumstances in Northern Ireland are not what they should be. Local councilors are not made as fully aware as they should be of, for instance, the state of unemployment in Northern Ireland. They acre not made as fully aware as they should be that, during the past ten years, unemployment there has averaged 8 per cent. The elector cannot bring pressure to bear upon his local authority representative because of the combination of the list.
Not sufficient activity takes place in order to encourage the economy of Northern Ireland. There is the further difficulty that the Under-Secretary of State well remembers from a previous incarnation, a difficulty which still exists and which is likely to continue for many subsequent incarnations unless something is done and every opportunity is taken to bring the matter to the notice of the Government. As a result of the circumstances Which I have described, local authority representatives are not made sufficiently aware of the critical situation in Northern Ireland in certain respects. In Belfast, for example, local councillors are not made sufficiently aware of the fact that there is a large firm there by the name of Short's which is on the point of folding up because the Government over there—

§ Mr. Deputy-Speaker (Sir William Anstruther-Gray)
Order. I am reluctant to interrupt the hon. Member, but I do not think that he is entitled to go into such detail as he appears to be doing.

§ Mr. Diamond
Of course, I accept immediately what you say, Mr. Deputy-Speaker. I have given one example, and one only, of the general thesis I was propounding, which depended on the 1658 simple argument that we ware making a mistake by combining the lists, and it is about combining the lists that the Regulations exist. I hope, therefore, that I shall not offend unduly. I have quoted one example only and I turn immediately to the second point.

§ Mr. Peter Kirk (Gravesend)
Before the hon. Member does so, can he explain to me, not knowing the details of the Northern Ireland position, how it differs from the position of people in this country who have local government votes in constituencies in which they do not reside and do not have Parliamentary votes? There are instances of that in a number of constituencies and it seems to be much the same thing.

§ Mr. Diamond
I am grateful for the hon. Member's intervention. He is asking me to explain the difference in Northern Ireland and here. The difference is that Northern Ireland has unemployment permanently at the rate of 8 per cent.—[Interruption.]—I have been asked a question and, presumably, I will be allowed to answer it as the question was allowed to be put.
The difference between Northern Ireland and here is that in Northern Ireland, as a result of the combination of the registers and the lack of expression, therefore, of voters to which they are entitled, there exists a state of affairs of unemployment at 8 per cent. which is accepted and continued year after year, whereas here, in any area such as Northern England or Scotland, if the unemployment gets to half that figure we spend days debating that topic. That is the difference between the two countries.

Mr. Carrie
rose—

§ Mr. Diamond
I cannot give way.

Mr. Carrie
Give way.

§ Mr. Diamond
The hon. Member, who invites me to give way, has just come into the Chamber and is not aware of the interventions—

§ Mr. Deputy-Speaker
Order. Only one hon. Member can address the House at once.

§ Mr. Fernyhough
On a point of order, Mr. Deputy-Speaker. Could we have 1659 your assurance that if any hon. Member from Northern Ireland would like to speak in the debate, you will call him?

§ Mr. Deputy-Speaker
The House knows the rule perfectly well. Hon. Members rise and take their chance of catching the eye of the Chair.

§ Mr. Diamond
I take it, Mr. Deputy-Speaker, that the rule still applies that if an hon. Member does not rise, you do not call his name and require him to speak. Northern Ireland Members opposite have not risen whilst there was an opportunity to speak. They have risen only so long as there was not opportunity to speak and another hon. Member was on his feet.

§ Mr. Currie
The hon. Member will not give way to them.

§ Mr. Diamond
I turn to the second leg of the argument, namely, that the combination of the two lists leads to difficulties for those on the other list and not on the first one—that is to say, those who would want to vote in a national election but are on the local authority's list and, because the lists are combined, do not go out and seek a separate list to see whether they are entitled to vote and, because they do not seek a separate list, know that they are not entitled to vote on the local authority's list and, therefore, deny themselves the right to vote on the major or nationalist. Indeed, they deny themselves once, twice, thrice, four, five, six, seven or even eight times according to the number of votes to which they are entitled under the Act, which it is not our province to discuss, but merely to take note of the results.
Therefore, we get the situation that there exists in Northern Ireland a lack of adequate political representation because people do not exercise their votes as a result of the combination of the lists. As a result of the combination of the lists and people not exercising their votes, they are not able to put proper pressure on their Parliamentary representatives. Every Member of Parliament here knows that when a constituent comes and asks a question and invites one's co-operation, he may finish by saying, "I hope you will do this for me. Remember that I am a 1660 constituent and have the power to vote for you. "But how does one react to a constituent who says," Will you please do this for me although it will be very awkward for you and land you in a lot of difficulty? Will you do it for me, bearing in mind that whether you do it or whether you do not do it it will make not the slightest difference to the voting at the next election because I, who am asking you to do this, have no vote"?
Therefore, we have the situation in Northern Ireland of continuing unemployment, which is continuing at a rate which is intolerable by any standard other than a Northern Ireland standard —utterly intolerable. We get the situation where hon. Members who are supposed to be looking after their constituents and the rate of unemployment in Northern Ireland are not subject to the proper—I repeat, proper: not an improper—proper pressure to which every Member of Parliament ought to be subject by the fact that if he does not look after his constituents properly and see they have work he will not be re-elected at the next election.
As a result of the compilation of these two registers and the lack of clarity which follows from their compilation and the continuation of the system as before, we get a continuation of the situation we have had over the last ten years, where anything up to 10 per cent. or more of those who are seeking work in Northern Ireland find themselves unable to get it and unable to exert appropriate political pressure which would result in their obtaining it. Therefore, these being the circumstances, the results flowing directly from the operation of the system of combing these lists, which I am sure is a proper thing to discuss in a debate limited by the Regulations before us, I hope very much that all of us are going to voice our opinions and do our best to see that these Regulations do not go through and do our best to see that the people of Northern Ireland have representatives who are prepared to see they do get work and that Short's, for example, does get more orders.

§ Mr. Stratton Mills (Belfast, North)
We have listened to a pretty little series of sermons from Gloucester and Ebbw Vale this evening about these Regulations. As I tried to demonstrate on 1661 points of order when Mr. Speaker himself was in the Chair, the point here is a very narrow one indeed. Although I do not quarrel with the Chair's Ruling, I would be reluctant to follow the full width of debate taken by the two previous speakers on the whole subject of Northern Ireland electoral law, but I hope that by saying that I shall not debar myself from just one or two comments inside the rules of order.
In the Stormont election of 1953 I was an election agent, and I can testify to the very great complications which one had in dealing with the law spread over many Statutes and over many regulations. I can assure the hon. Member for Ebbw Vale (Mr. M. Foot) that the 1962 Act was a Measure of codification. I think I am supported in my view by this, that though the hon. Gentleman had the Act with him this evening he was unable to point out one new point in the Act to demonstrate that it was not a Measure of codification. I will certainly give way if he or any other hon. Member wishes to oppose my point on that. No? It looks as though both sides of the House accept what I say.

§ Mr. Diamond
As I was invited to intervene I would ask the hon. Gentleman a question. If that Measure was, as he says, merely a matter of codification— which in this House under our rules we cannot debate at all—and if it was purely a consolidation Measure, as the Under-Secretary said it was, would the hon. Gentleman kindly explain why nevertheless the debate on it went on for a very long time and why it was so extremely controversial?

§ Mr. M. Foot
Since the Hon. Gentleman insists it was a consolidation Measure, would he comment on the statement of the Minister of Home Affairs, who, introducing the Bill on Second Reading, said at the conclusion of his speech, having gone through each part of the Bill, It will be quite clear to hon. Members that this is in very large measure"—

§ Mr. Deputy-Speaker
Order. I understand that that is quoting from what the Minister said in another Parliament. Am I correct?

§ Mr. Delargy
That is surely what we are discussing.

§ Mr. Deputy-Speaker
Following Mr. Speaker's Ruling, I am anxious that our debate should be confined to citing arguments why, or not, these two electoral lists should continue to be combined, and it seems to me that we are in danger of going far beyond that quite simple argument.

§ Mr. Delargy
On a point of order, Mr. Deputy-Speaker. The very simple issue before us tonight is to approve of something which was done in another Parliament. Why, therefore, can we not discuss what was done in that Parliament?

§ Mr. Foot
rose—

§ Mr. Delargy
Mr. Deputy-Speaker, I put a point of order to you.

§ Mr. Deputy-Speaker
I did not reply because I did not think it was outside the proposition which I put forward as to what I believed to be in order. We are discussing whether or no two electoral lists should continue to be combined and published together in one bound volume.

§ Mr. Manuel
On another point of order, Mr. Deputy-Speaker, arising from the position in which the House now finds itself. The hon. Member for Belfast, North (Mr. Stratton Mills) threw out a challenge, which you allowed, regarding codification. The challenge has been offered and now we cannot answer it. You ruled it out of order after the hon. Member had offered it.

§ Mr. Deputy-Speaker
It may be that I should have intervened a minute or two earlier. I accept responsibility for that. But let us get off that and back to what is in order.

§ Mr. Diamond
Further to the point of order, Mr. Deputy-Speaker. May I address an argument to you to illustrate that your Ruling was, as usual, exactly correct in allowing the hon. Member for Belfast, North (Mr. Stratton Mills) to throw out a challenge? Before you came into the Chair—you would not be aware of this unless somebody told you —the Minister, in introducing them, made it clear that the Regulations referred to the Act, which he said once or twice he thought was a consolidating Measure. It is most material to the consideration of these Regulations 1663 whether the Act was a pure piece of codification, because that would rule out all sorts of arguments as to whether it was the sort of Measure one would imagine it to be having regard to the fact that it was fought, and fought very heatedly, in the Northern Ireland Parliament. With the greatest deference, I would say how wise I thought you were in allowing the challenge to be made by the hon. Gentleman as to whether this was or was not a consolidating Measure.

§ Mr. Currie
Further to the point of order, Mr. Deputy-Speaker. Surely it is completely out of order for us to discuss in this Parliament what has taken place, or the manner in which a debate has been conducted, in the Parliament of Northern Ireland?

§ Mr. Deputy-Speaker
That is what I believe to be so.

§ Mr. Stratton Mills
rose—

§ Mr. B. T. Parkin (Paddington, North)
Will the hon. Member give way, since he issued a challenge?

§ Mr. Deputy-Speaker
A point of order?

§ Mr. Parkin
Not a point of order, Mr. Deputy-Speaker, because I do not think a point of order arose out of what the hon. Gentleman said, for he did not seek to prove that this was a consolidation Measure but threw out a challenge to any hon. Member on the Opposition benches to say whether there was any new point in the Act which has just been passed. Surely it would be in order for some of us to take part in this discussion on the ground that we objected to the time of the House being taken to approve these Regulations issued by a British Home Secretary because there is no new point, on the ground that we are asked to spend the time of the House endorsing a Measure which makes no contribution whatever to the reform of the procedures for electing people to a Parliament in Northern Ireland which might contribute something to solving the economic problems of that area in respect of which we in this House have a great deal of responsibility but very little power?

§ Mr. Stratton Mills
With respect, I think that I can differentiate between a point of substance and a pure debating point under which category the last intervention would come.
I will deal with the point of substance made by the hon. Member for Gloucester (Mr. Diamond). He suggested that if this was as I said, a consolidating Measure, then why was it in order to have it debated in Stormont. While risking your displeasure, Mr. Deputy-Speaker, I would merely say that being a small Parliament one allows much wider degrees of latitude in procedure. If any hon. Member wished to discuss the codification of any Measure then it would be—

§ Mr. Deputy-Speaker
Order. I am sure that the hon. Member is allowing himself to go out of order in discussing in detail how the Parliament of Stormont operates.

§ Mr. Stratton Mills
Yes, I confess, Mr. Deputy-Speaker, that I may be out of order, but I was tempted by the hon. Gentleman opposite. I repeat what I said, that this is in substance a codification Statute, and the fact that the hon. Member for Ebbw Vale produced no evidence to dispute the point was, I think—

§ Mr. M. Foot
I am most grateful to the hon. Gentleman for giving way after he has challenged me three times to say that I could not produce the evidence. The Minister made it clear that it was a very large Measure and said that he would provide hon. Members with details about it. Likewise, he continued by saying that hon. Members might find points of detail in the Bill which could be amended and which would make the law more workable, upon which one hon. Member shouted out "You bet". That does not sound to me as if it were a codification Measure.

§ Mr. Deputy-Speaker
Order. We shall got into difficulties if we proceed on those lines.

§ Mr. Stratton Mills
With respect, I do not think that the entertaining intervention of the hon. Gentleman has moved me from my essential paint, that this is in large measure a matter of consolidation. If the hon. Gentleman 1665 examines the Statute he will see that this is true. He has produced no con-orate example of any substantial alteration of the law as a result of this Measure.

§ Mr. M. Foot
When the hon. Gentleman says that there was no substantial change in the law, in many respects, of course, that is true, but the reason is that the majority in the Stormout voted down one Amendment after another.

§ Mr. Stratton Mills
I am very glad to see that the hon. Gentleman has at last changed his ground on this point.

§ Mr. Ross
If the hon. Gentleman knows anything about consolidation Measures he will know that they can-not be amended. He will be aware that the Title to the Bill which he is discussing is: An Act to Consolidate with Amendments So it is an amended Bill and a new Bill.

§ Mr. Stratton Mills
I said earlier Chart it was in substance a consolidating Measure, and, if there are any major Amendments, not one of them has been brought out in the debate, and I still stick to my ground on that point.
I make one other point. The hon. Member for Ebbw Vale attempted to prove that this was a major change in legislation by—

§ Mr. Deputy-Speaker
Order. This is not the point. Gould the hon. Member direct his remarks to the Regulations that we are now debating?

§ Mr. Stratton Mills
I confess, Mr. Deputy-Speaker, that I am falling into my own trap. I am unable, therefore, to answer the point put earlier by the hon. Member for Ebbw Vale.
The only other matter was one permitted by Mr. Speaker, when he said that the question could be mentioned as to whether the attachment to the list of —to use his phrase—of a "vicious" electoral law for the Stormont Parliament or local government tainted these Regulations. Interesting allegations have been thrown across the Floor of the House about electoral practice in Northern Ireland. Any statistician worth his keep can always prove what he wishes to. For example, during the war, an Australian Minister said that 1666 tank production there had increased during the previous six months by 100 per cent. An opposition member pointed out in reply that this statement was quite true, but that in the six months prior to that only one tank had been produced while in the current period two tanks were manufactured.
One can use figures to demonstrate virtually anything. The various examples which have been given across the Floor of the House can cancel each other out. The most powerful point of all, Which I ask the hon. Member to remember, is that in the 1959 elections for the Westminster Parliament, held under Statutes passed by this House with boundaries fixed by the Speaker's Conference, Ulster Unionist Members were returned for all twelve Northern Irish seats.
No matter what mathematical confusion the hon. Gentleman may raise, the election demonstrates the political allegiance of Northern Ireland. The continued combination of the electoral registers in one document is a useful administration measure merely continuing present practice, but owing to codification of the previous law it has been necessary to bring in these Regulations, which I welcome.

§ Mr. M. Foot
Since the hon. Member has paid such tribute to the way in which he and his colleagues are elected to this House, will he say why he does not advocate the same system of elections for local government in Northern Ireland? Why does no member of the Unionist Party in Northern Ireland advocate the same register for local government as there is for this Parliament? There are three registers—a residents' register, a company register and a property register. It is that we are objecting to. Why not one register?

§ Mr. Stratton Mills
In his constituency the local government register and the Parliamentary register are by no means identical. Admittedly, in Ireland, both North and South, we move at a slightly slower pace in these matters than does this side of St. George's Channel, but he will find that it was only in 1944 that the local government electoral law in this country was altered.

§ Mr. Foot
It was changed then, indeed. We in this part of the United Kingdom believe in universal suffrage. We believe that it is an extremely important matter. We want to know why the hon. Member, who is content that he should be elected by universal suffrage to this House, should not operate the same principle in local elections in Northern Ireland. Why does he not have the guts to advocate there what he is advocating here?

§ Mr. E. Fernyhough (Jarrow)
It was interesting to listen to what the hon. Member for Belfast, North (Mr. Stratton Mills) had to say. Many of us know that under the present circumstances there will always be twelve Unionist Members returned for the twelve seats in this Parliament. We know that the results of the elections are a foregone conclusion, just as they are for the elections behind the Iron Curtain, because the results are manipulated in quite the same way—

§ Mr. Deputy-Speaker (Sir William Anstruther-Gray)
Order. The hon. Member is going further than he is entitled to go in presenting his argument relating to these Regulations.

§ Mr. Fernyhough
But, Mr. Deputy-Speaker, the hon. Member for Belfast North made great play with the fact that twelve Northern Ireland Unionist Members are returned for the twelve seats in this Parliament. Some of us happen to believe that there are special reasons for that. Quite frankly, we think that it is because the same kind of democracy does not prevail in Northern Ireland as prevails in this country. The reason why we are arguing against these Regulations is that they were forced through the Ulster Parliament by the use of the guillotine and the gag. The Ulster Government did not want them discussed or the voice of the minority heard. Some of us believe that that voice has a right to be heard and that if it cannot be heard in Ulster the only other place where it can be heard is in this Parliament which has to sanction Regulations which were bludgeoned through the Stormont

§ Mr. Walker
How does the hon. Gentleman reconcile that argument with 1668 the fact that in the recent Stormont elections the Labour Party took part and its candidates declared that they would win? There was no complaint then by the Labour Party.

§ Mr. Deputy-Speaker
Order. I do not think that the debate should proceed further on that line. I do not see how the question of whether these two lists should continue to be combined can be affected by what the hon. Member is seeking to argue.

§ Mr. Fernyhough
The hon. Member for Worcester (Mr. Walker) was trying to enlighten me about what happened to the Labour Party candidates in the recent elections in Ulster—[Interruption] —I am sure, Mr. Deputy-Speaker, that you would call these muttering, unintelligent hon. Gentlemen opposite, if only they would rise from their seats in a courteous manner.

§ Lieut-Colonel Grosvenor
Will the hon. Member for Jarrow (Mr. Femnyhough) tell the House whether he is referring to the Irish Labour Party or the British Labour Party?

§ Mr. Deputy-Speaker
I cannot see how that makes any difference. The question is whether these two lists should continue to be combined. Arguments about the Labour Party in Ireland or the Labour Party in the United Kingdom seem to me to make no difference at all.

§ Mr. Fernyhough
They make this difference, that because of these electoral registers, because there are votes for property owners and for university people, because there are people whose names are on the registers when they should not be, because there are other people whose names are not on the registers when they should be, we get twelve Unionist Members in this House.

§ Mr. Stratton Mills
I think that the hon. Gentleman will find that in the Westminster elections the Northern Ireland constituencies are governed by the Representation of the People Act, 1949, and have exactly the same sort of lists and registers as apply in the constituency of the hon. Gentleman.

§ Mr. Fernyhough
We have one list—

§ Mr. Stratton Mills
So do we.

§ Mr. Fernyhough
No, the hon. Member does not. That is what all the argument is about. That is what these Regulations are about—whether the lists should be combined. All we want to ensure is that the same measure of democracy shall apply in Northern Ireland as in this country. Nobody believes, and nobody ever will believe, that there is the same measure of democracy. People have only to go there and witness what takes place in the elections, the intimidation and victimisation, to know full well that it would not be tolerated here.

§ Mrs. Patricia McLaughlin (Belfast, West)
On a point of order. [HON. MEMBERS: "The hon. Lady has not heard a word of the debate".] Is it in order for the hon. Member to make remarks about the way in which well governed and orderly elections in Northern Ireland are conducted?

§ Mr. Deputy-Speaker
There has been a tendency for the whole debate to get out of order. I hope that it will not continue in this vein.

§ Mr. Fernyhough
Never in my life have I seen hon. Members so touchy. What have they to hide? What is it they do not want revealed? Why should they be so anxious and concerned? Why do not they take part in the debate and give us the proper picture if the picture we are giving is not the true one? The truth is that they have something to hide. They want to maintain a system which is unfair to the vast majority of people in Ulster. Some of us are determined that, although hon. Members opposite never speak for the minority, we shall raise our voices on every possible occasion.

§ Mr. Peter Kirk (Gravesend)
I intervene in the debate as one who has not only not got a drop of Irish blood but no Scottish or Welsh blood either, I am glad to say. I speak as an Englishman and. therefore, with possibly a more detached view of the whole situation. I am drawn to my feet by the lack of ingenuity of the hon. Member for Gloucester (Mr. Diamond). I asked him why it was right to combine the local government and Parliamentary electoral lists in this country but apparently not right to do so in Northern Ireland. He 1670 replied to me that the unemployment rate in Northern Ireland stands at 8 per cent., but in this country it is a good dead less. That is not a very satisfactory answer.

§ Mr. Manuel
The hon. Gentleman did not see the connection.

§ Mr. Diamond
What my hon. Friend the Member for Central Ayrshire (Mr. Manuel) has said is probably the right answer. I was trying to make a very simple argument. Perhaps the hon. Member for Gravesend (Mr. Kirk) did not hear the whole of it. Under these Regulations it is proposed to continue a certain practice. As this practice has in the past led to certain defects, if we continue it it is likely to lead to defects in the future

§ Mr. Kirk
That argument does not hold water. The system does not lead to any defects in this part of the United Kingdom. Here the two lists are combined, and the results as regards employment, which is apparently what worries the hon. Member for Gloucester, are excellent. If he is worried about the unemployment rate in Northern Ireland, he should look for a solution elsewhere. It does not lie in opposing the combination of the local government and Parliamentary electoral registers. That argument cannot be followed to any great degree.

§ Mr. Diamond
I am not aware of any other Regulation on the Order Paper which permits this discussion.

§ Mr. Kirk
That is why I suggest that the hon. Member is chasing a hare which does not exist. I have studied the Act with great care. When the hon. Member referred to Section 28 he was in fact calling in aid Section 30 and Part III of the First Schedule, relating to certain company qualifications in Northern Ireland. Company qualifications, though admittedly not as extensive as those set out in Part III of the First Schedule, exist under the British electoral law with regard to local government elections.
The hon. Member for Jarrow (Mr. Fernyhough) made an impassioned plea about university votes, but the universities have votes in local government elections in this country. The University of 1671 Oxford returns twelve members to the Oxford City Council. The University of Cambridge returns ten members to the Cambridge City Council—two less, showing that it is a less important university, but otherwise the principle is the same.
I cannot understand why hon. Members opposite suggest that, although the principle which we adopt here of combining the lists is right, it is wrong in Northern Ireland.

§ Mr. Manuel
Do I take it that in his own constituency the hon. Gentleman would accede to a combined list that cut out a vast number of the people there who now have the right to vote in local elections? That is the crux of the whole question of the combined register.

§ Mr. Kirk
I am sure that the hon. Gentleman has studied with great care Part III of the First Schedule of the Electoral Law Act (Northern Ireland), 1962—I have. It does not cut out anyone—[Interruption.] Mr. Deputy-Speaker, a lot of hon. Members opposite complain of those who interrupt them not standing up to do so, but that is what they are doing. I do not object because the hon. Member for Central Ayrshire (Mr. Manuel) has a louder voice than I, but if he has studied Part III of the First Schedule of the Electoral Law Act (Northern Ireland), 1962, as I am sure he has, he will have seen that it does not cut out anybody but includes a lot of people—that is all—and a lot of the people in the constituency of Gravesend are included in the local government register. The local government register includes peers of the realm, to which I object, because the only peer of the realm in Gravesend happens to vote for the Labour Party—

§ Mr. M. Foot
I am sure that the hon. Gentleman would not wish to misrepresent the situation. I understand his argument to be that the system of local elections is the same in Northern Ireland as it is here, according to his reading of the Act. I am sure that he would not wish a misrepresentation of that nature to go forward. There is no dispute in Northern Ireland that the system there is different from the system here. If he looks at the Act which he 1672 says he has studied so carefully, he will see that there there are three forms of registration, including company registration and registration on a residential qualification.
Those forms of registration are very different from those in this country, and they do exclude a number of people from voting who would be able to vote under British electoral law. That is not denied by anyone in the Northern Ireland Parliament, but it is defended on the ground that it is quite proper that there should be extra representation for business votes. If anyone reads the debates he will realise that there cannot be any dispute about this. Whether people think it right or wrong, on the facts there cannot be any dispute about that. What happened in this country was that at the end of the war we had our Local Government Act which established universal suffrage in local elections, but for some reason or other that was not done in Northern Ireland—

§ Mr. Deputy-Speaker
Order. I draw the attention of the hon. Member for Ebbw Vale (Mr. M. Foot) to the fact that he has already exhausted his right to make a speech and that only a short intervention is not out of order. The hon. Member was going beyond what the length of an intervention should be.

§ Mr. Foot
I apologise for the length of the intervention, Mr. Deputy-Speaker, but I am sure that the hon. Member for Gravesend (Mr. Kirk) will now agree Chat those are the facts.

§ Mr. Kirk
With the greatest possible respect to the hon. Member, I cannot see in Sections 28, 29 or 30 of the Act we are now discussing anything that excludes anybody. It is merely that Section 30 includes a lot of people to whom he objects. As I understand it, it is almost more liberal than ours. The primary qualifications in the First Schedule contain a number of things with which I would not necessarily agree—

§ Mr. Diamond
The hon. Gentleman criticised me for not having read the First Schedule, which I have, but which I interpret differently and, with all deference, I think that my interpretation is the correct one. If the hon. Gentleman 1673 will look at Part III of the First Schedule he will read that: A person must …on the qualifying date be residing in the area as the occupier of a dwellinghouse, or as the spouse of such an occupier … That excludes anyone other than the husband and wife in the house. A servant is excluded. That is but one example.

§ Mr. Kirk
That is going back to the position in this country before the Local Government Act, 1948, but my point is that in England, Scotland Wales we have a number of electoral lists that are combined, and the objection here appears to be to combining lists. That is the only objection. The great plea of the hon. Member for Gloucester (Mr. Diamond) was that no one would go to the lists to see if he had a local government vote, but the same applies in this country to a peer of the realm. He is not going to know in which constituency he will vote. He may have seven or eight estates and must search the electoral registers to discover where he is registered—in exactly the same way as someone coming under Part III of the Act must search the registers.
For that reason I suggest that a lot of the arguments about unemployment in Northern Ireland, much as we all regret it—although we can be certain that our Northern Ireland colleagues are doing all they can to rectify the position—are beside the point. We are only concerned with the question of whether Northern Ireland should follow the practice operating in the rest of the United Kingdom. That is the only point before us, and since the practice works well here I hope that Northern Ireland, in its wisdom, will see fit to follow us.

§ Mr. Hugh Delargy (Thurrock)
I had not intended to speak in this debate. There has been much laughter and frivolity on the part of hon. Members opposite, and we have just heard the hon. Member for Gravesend (Mr. Kirk) deliver a cheap, fifth form speech. He is normally so serious. This is, after all, a serious debate, for there is a minority in Northern Ireland who are being badly treated. The Regulations under discussion concern them, and because there is no one here elected from that province to speak on their behalf we must feel indebted to my hon. Friend the 1674 Member for Ebbw Vale (Mr. M. Foot) for having spoken up for them. Should the time ever come when no one in this House will stand up and speak on behalf of any minority we might as well pack up and go home.
Meanwhile, all we have had from hon. Members opposite who are supposed to represent these people are sneers and laughter. I can see one hon. Member opposite laughing now. I do not know which constituency he represents. In fact, I do not think I have seen him before. I realise that there are not sufficient hon. Members here tonight successfully to vote on behalf of the people about who I am speaking. If we voted we would be defeated, just as these people in Northern Ireland will be defeated. The result of our defeat would be laughter and sneers from hon. Members opposite. Are they satisfied with that? Are they satisfied, as the hon. Member for Gravesend did, merely to quote this or that Section of an Act? That hon. Member should be ashamed of himself.
How many true Ulster Unionists are in the House at present? I can see three, possibly a fourth—and one of them came in five minutes ago. Another of them sneered when my hon. Friend the Member for Gloucester (Mr. Diamond) and the hon. Member for Ebbw Vale spoke about certain persons in Northern Ireland having more than one vote. Will one of the Ulster Unionists now present stand up and deny that there are people in Northern Ireland who have more than one vote?
Moments ago there was a lot of laughter and frivolity. Now that I have asked that question there is none. I am waiting for one of them to deny that some people have more than one vote. I will willingly give way if one of them will volunteer. There is no volunteer. They do not care about minorities. Surely I am asking a legitimate question? I should like an answer.

§ Mr. Stratton Mills
About which elections is the hon. Member speaking? Is he referring to the Westminster or Stormont elections.

§ Mr. Delargy
For any election; for Westminster or for your rotten rump of a Parliament.

§ Mr. Deputy-Speaker
That is an improper remark.

§ Mr. Delargy
I did not understand you correctly, Mr. Speaker. What was improper in the remarks I have used in Parliament, in Westminster?

§ Mr. Deputy-Speaker
The hon. Member used offensive language of another Parliament, and I am sure that he would not wish seriously to continue on that line.

§ Mr. Delargy
I have not been asked by the Chair to withdraw. If Mr. Deputy-Speaker asks me to withdraw, I shall do so. I do not want to.

§ Mr. Deputy-Speaker
It would be better if the hon. Member did withdraw.

§ Mr. Delargy
Simply and solely in response to your Ruling, Mr. Deputy-Speaker, I will withdraw. But I repeat, can any Ulster Unionist or anybody else tell me whether or not it is a fact that persons have more than one vote in any election in Northern Ireland? If not here, why should it be so in Ireland? There is great silence from the benches opposite.

§ Mr. B. T. Parkin (Paddington, North)
The hon. Member for Graves-end (Mr. Kirk) sought to make a great point out of recommending my hon. Friend the Member for Gloucester (Mr. Diamond) to look elsewhere for a remedy for the unemployment situation in Northern Ireland than in these Regulations. That struck me as about on a par with one of the more fatuous interjections from the benches opposite when an hon. Member asked if the speech of my hon. Friend the Member for Ebbw Vale (Mr. M. Foot) represented the policy of the Labour Party.
What is important to say at the moment is that this document containing these Regulations represents the policy of Her Majesty's Government, presumably, since it has at the end a very important signature—"R. A. Butler, One of Her Majesty's Principal Secretaries of State." Since 6th July he has carried out a consolidation measure of his own, and that is a matter which was not debated at the time, although 1676 perhaps it will be debated tomorrow. He is now the First Secretary of State, but he still retains the general oversight of this problem. The Home Secretary has the responsibility for dealing on our behalf with matters concerning the affairs of Northern Ireland. It is the Home Secretary, not anybody on the other side of the Irish Channel, who has presented us tonight with this document for which he requires the affirmative Resolution of this House. That is why I think it is our duty to stay here and deny that affirmative Resolution, if we can, on the ground so ably indicated by the hon. Member for Gravesend that this is a waste of time.
Whenever I see Northern Ireland mentioned on the Order Paper of the House of Commons I say to myself, "This is it. Now they will introduce the Measure. Now Her Majesty's Principal Secretary of State has devised something to deal with these dreadful problems of unemployment and imbalance of industry in Northern Ireland. Now Her Majesty's Principal Secretary of State has begun to give to the problems of Northern Ireland some of the intelligent research and careful preparation that are given to the economy of the Common Market. Perhaps we are going to have as lengthy a debate, as substantial a Measure and as important a change in economic policy."

§ Mr. Deputy-Speaker
Order. It would be better if the hon. Member would confine his speech to what is in fact before us now.

§ Mr. Parkin
I was about to say, Mr. Deputy-Speaker, that when I look more carefully I am disappointed. I find that all we are asked to do on this subject is to approve a Motion to implement a Measure which by general consent contains not one item of reform even in the electoral system, let alone in the rest of the matters on which Her Majesty's Principal Secretary of State ought to have been exercising his mind. It is rather a long time since this debate started. It is a matter of considerable regret to us all on these benches that the time which is available now under this heading could not have been devoted to something more practical and constructive, and if it were possible I should like to stay here to move 1677 that this Motion be read this day six months. That is the way to treat it. That is how we should treat a trivial piece of legislation introduced on Second Reading which we thought did not meet the situation and was unworthy of Her Majesty's Government. I regard these Regulations as unworthy. I am sorry that the time of the House has been wasted in discussing them. I wish that it were possible to postpone their adoption for six months to give the Government time to introduce a useful and constructive Measure concerned with Northern Ireland. It is for that reason that I have stayed here tonight to oppose these Regulations.

§ Mr. Archie Manuel (Central Ayrshire)
I did not intend to enter the debate, but I feel that I must try to correct the hon. Member for Gravesend (Mr. Kirk) who deliberately tried grossly to mislead the House. The hon. Gentleman said that he was familiar with the Act and with the Regulations relating to it, and, in answer to the point which I put to him, he claimed that the same electoral freedom for local government electors obtained in Northern Ireland as obtained in his constituency. The hon. Gentleman regaled the House with his knowledge of the Electoral Law Act (Northern Ireland), 1962, but does he know what is provided in Section 29 (5) of it? That subsection gives the lead to what governs certain aspects of voting in local government elections in Northern Ireland, as the hon. Member for Belfast, North (Mr. Stratton Mills) knows. I see the hon. Member for Gravesend looking it up now, although he is supposed to know all about it.
We should not tolerate in this country any such provision as is contained in Section 29 (5). I am speaking of local government elections only, and I am not dealing with Parliamentary elections at this point. The subsection provides: A person registered as a local elector in two or more local government electoral areas may vote at the election of the local authority for each such area notwithstanding that such elections are synchronised. If a man has property in ten or twelve places, not just eight, he could, despite the synchronising of polling arrangements, vote in all ten or twelve elections. This is a property right of voting which we have discarded.

§ Mr. Currie
On a point of order, Mr. Deputy-Speaker. Is it relevant to discuss these matters relating to local government in Northern Ireland on the issue before the House?

§ Mr. Deputy-Speaker
Yes, so far as it is relevant to the argument as to whether or not the two lists should continue to be combined.

§ Mr. Manuel
Thank you, Mr. Deputy-Speaker. I was trying to keep in order and refer to the combination of the lists. I could have brought in the position of companies and so on, tout I was dealing just with the two lists. I accept what the hon. Member for Bedfast, North said about the registration of Parliamentary electors, and I am dealing only with the combination of the lists.
There is no hon. Member opposite, no matter where he comes from or what constituency he represents, who would justify such a state of affairs as is permitted by the subsection which I have read out. I am gravely disturbed that the hon. Member for Gravesend should have tried so grossly to mislead the House, saying that he had knowledge of the Act and asserting that the situation in his own constituency was the same as is provided therein.

§ Mr. Kirk
What I said was that the lists in my constituency have been combined as they are in Northern Ireland. That is so. The hon. Gentleman cannot deny it. It is true in his constituency, too.

§ Mr. Manuel
I do not want to be unkind about this, but I intervened during hon. Member's speech and asked whether he suggested that the provisions governing local elections in his constituency were the same as those in Northern Ireland. He replied to that question, and that is what he must answer for now.

§ Mr. Kirk
HANSARD will show.

§ Mr. Stratton Mills
Perhaps the hon. Gentleman could help me on this question. In England, if one has property in one town and property in another town, can one vote in both?

§ Mr. Delargy
Of course not.

§ Mr. Manuel
The 1948 Act, passed by the Labour Government, altered all that. Advantage used to be taken of 1679 that position. A person now has to declare in which local government area he will record his vote. Surely, everybody knows this.

§ Mr. Delargy
The hon. Member for Gravesend (Mr. Kirk) does not.

§ Mr. Manuel
Therefore, a person has only one vote.

§ Mr. Eric Fletcher (Islington, East)
I do not think that when the Minister moved the adoption of the Regulations he could have imagined that they would lead to such a prolonged and interesting debate, lasting over two hours. I cannot help feeling that if the debate has taken far longer than the Minister expected and has proved more controversial, to some extent he has only himself to blame.
The Minister was at fault when, in his opening remarks, he referred to the Act of the Northern Ireland Parliament as being a consolidating Measure. Quite obviously, it was much more than a consolidating Measure in the sense in which we understand that term here. It was an Act of the Northern Ireland Parliament which probably codified the law and made a number of amendments and changes in the existing law and, as we have heard, involved a great deal of controversy. Part of this debate has been due to the fact that the Minister rather suggested to the House that the Statutory Instrument that we are considering was merely the result of a consolidating Measure in Northern Ireland, which it is not.
The debate has at least shown to the Minister what depth of feeling there is in this House with regard to affairs in Northern Ireland which has enabled the House, when an opportunity arises within the rules of order, to give vent to its dissatisfaction with so many things that are occurring in Northern Ireland. It has also been significant that we have had such noisy interjections from those Members from Northern Ireland who sit on the benches opposite.
On the merits of the Regulations, the Minister will now probably realise that he has not made a very convincing case for them. Looking back, I hope he will realise that he has not said anything to 1680 convince the House that there is any merit in our agreeing that there should be a combined list with regard to the franchise both for the Northern Ireland Parliament and for this Parliament.
It appears that there are such wide discrepancies between our ideas of what a proper franchise and a proper democratic system should be and the ideas that prevail in Northern Ireland that there are considerable objections and inconveniences in having a combined list. On reflection, therefore, the Minister may well come to the conclusion that it would be much better, in the interests of ail concerned, that there should be a separate list for the electoral roll under which Members are elected to Parliament at Westminster under a system of franchise which we recognise and know and have evolved over the centuries into a basis of universal franchise as compared with what appears to us to be a totally different franchise system operating in Northern Ireland, where, it would appear, for various reasons some people have no votes and others may have six, seven or even eight votes. If this is the fact—and it has not been seriously disputed—I cannot for the life of me see what is the advantage in continuing to combine the registers.
I should have thought it, in those circumstances, a most inconvenient arrangement, and if there is objection to that in this House, not having what we would regard as the normal democratic register based on a sensible franchise, but mixed up with some other register, which may suit Northern Ireland—or the majority in Northern Ireland; it does not suit the minority who are not represented here, and so cannot speak for themselves—I would think that the Minister might well think, in view of the attacks made in this debate on the Electoral Law Act of Northern Ireland—which attacks are as nothing to the attacks made on the Act in the Parliament of Northern Ireland— that it is not very sensible to ask this House to allow a register on which Members are sent here to be mixed up with some other register which we do not understand and which, apparently, the Minister did not understand when he proposed this Motion to the House. He thought that it was based upon some consolidating Measure in Northern 1681 Ireland and was merely restating the existing law without any controversy or any objection.
Now we know the facts are so totally different, and as I understand there cannot be any urgency about the matter, I would suggest to the Minister that he may think it worth while to withdraw this Motion so that he and the Principal Secretary of State—as he was: he is even more so now, I understand—can consider what action should be taken.

§ Mr. Woodhouse
With the leave of the House to reply briefly to the debate, I can assure the hon. Member for Islington, East (Mr. Fletcher) that the course of the debate was by no means so different from what I had imagined. Although this is the first time I had appeared at this Dispatch Box on matters affecting Northern Ireland, I am not a complete novice in the affairs of Northern Ireland, and I have listened to the discussion with the same profound interest with which I listen to all discussions on all matters concerned with Ireland whether North or South. Having for the last seventeen years now had my second home on the Border—and at the risk of being accused of gerrymandering I will not say on which side of the Border—the affairs of Ireland have occupied my mind a good deal of time, and I did not come to this debate so entirely unprepared as hon. Members may have thought.
I do not think it true to suggest I misled the House in referring to the Act in question as a consolidating Measure. I did not, of course, mean that it was a purely scissors and paste document in Which every single word came directly out of a previous Act. It is a consolidating Measure with amendments, and that is how it is described in the Preamble to the Act. In this debate a vast and fascinating range of subjects has been dealt with—fascinating to me and, I hope, fascinating to other Members—but I do not think the House would seriously wish me by way of reply to re-enact the debates in Stormont at 1682 an earlier date, or to venture into a debate on what the hon. Member for Ebbw Vale (Mr. M. Foot) called the whole democratic structure of Northern Ireland. I think that that would certainly be ruled out of Order.
So far as this House is concerned, it is true, as I said at the beginning, that we are concerned with a narrow point. It has been widened in debate, but fundamentally it is a narrow issue, and that is whether or not we are to continue with the practice which was in use before the 1962 Act—in other words, since 1950—of combining these registers about which we have been debating. I feel bound to say that nothing I have heard in the debate, interesting though it was, has persuaded me that the defects of the registers, if any—

§ Mr. Manuel
If any?

§ Mr. Woodhouse
I leave that an open question—follow in any way from the practice of combining them, or that those defects would be removed by separating them. I would therefore ask the House to approve the Regulations.

§ Mr. Fernyhough
Would the hon. Gentleman just comment on Regulation 24?

§ Mr. Speaker
The hon. Member will require the leave of the House to speak again.

§ Mr. Fernyhough
I should like the hon. Gentleman to comment on Regulation 24, which deals with illegal practices.