ELECTORAL LAW (NORTHERN IRELAND) ORDER 1973

HL Deb 15 May 1973 vol 342 cc742-5

6.2 p.m.

LORD WINDLESHAM rose to move, That the Electoral Law (Northern Ireland) Order 1973, be approved. The noble Lord said: My Lords, I beg to move the second Order standing in my name. I should make clear that this Order relates only to the elections to the district councils in Northern Ireland to be held on May 30. Its provisions do not affect either the elections to the Northern Ireland Assembly, which will follow at the end of June, or to any Westminster elections. The Order before your Lordships provides for postal voting facilities and hours of polling on the same basis as for the Border Poll. It also gives candidates standing at these elections the right to send election addresses post free, and authorises the Chief Electoral Officer of Northern Ireland to prepare a polling station scheme for the elections. Postal voting is dealt with in Article 3. The extensive postal voting facilities granted for the Border Poll were widely welcome and there were few complaints of irregularities.

During the debate on the Motion for the approval of the Northern Ireland Border Poll Order the noble Lord, Lord Shackleton, said that he hoped that there would be adequate publicity for postal voting. In the event, the Government undertook a comprehensive publicity campaign and we are involved in a similar commitment for these elections. It seemed to us sensible to provide the same facilities to vote by post at the local elections later this month and for the election for the new Assembly in June. Anyone on the register of electors who can satisfy the returning officer that he is the person he says he is, and who has an address in the United Kingdom, can get a postal vote.

Article 4 deals with the right of candidates to send election addresses post free. As noble Lords will be aware, the elections are to be held to 26 new district councils the boundaries of which were drawn up by an independent boundary commissioner following the acceptance of the recommendations of the Macrory Review Body on Local Government. In the light of the numbers of electors and the geographical area covered by each candidate, and because of the exceptional conditions which, unfortunately, still prevail in parts of Northern Ireland, the Government consider that it would be fair to allow for free postage for election addresses in the same manner as for Parliamentary elections. Article 5 enables the chief electoral officer to prepare a polling station scheme designating the polling stations to be used in these elections. There are over 500 wards—I think the figure is 526 in all—for local government purposes and the chief electoral officer has been able to designate nearly 600 polling places on the basis that the electors should be inconvenienced as little as possible. Article 6 reproduces, for the purpose of these elections, the hours of polling which applied at the Border Poll; that is, 12 hours, from 8 a.m. to 8 p.m. My Lords, I think that is all that needs to be said by way of introduction to this Order. It is a brief one and, as I have said, it is confined only to the elections for the district councils on May 30. I beg to move.

Moved, That the Electoral Law (Northern Ireland) 1973, be approved.—(Lord Windlesham.)

6.6 p.m.

LORD SHACKLETON

My Lords, we welcome this Order. It is only very recently that we debated the electoral law to set up the Assembly, or to provide for the elections to the Assembly, and although this Order relates to local government elections our general discussion on the previous occasion covered many of the points which arise on this Order. Therefore I do not propose to do more than take one or two minutes to discuss it. As I understand what the noble Lord, Lord Windlesham said, the provisions for the local elections are virtually the same in respect of the postal voting as for the Border Poll. I wonder how many people actually applied for a postal vote on the last occasion; that would give some idea of how many would apply on this occasion. But perhaps that is rather a "fast question" and I would not press it.

May I take the opportunity to say that I am exceedingly grateful for the way in which the noble Lord, Lord Windlesham, wrote to me, and no doubt to others, after we had debated the matter, and gave information which clarified points which were not clarified in the debate. The noble Lord answered so many other points on the last occasion that I am now raising only one or two matters which are possibly of general interest. Clearly, there is a good deal of urgency and it will be as bit of a rush to get out polling cards, and so on, in time. I have no doubt that the Government are doing everything they can, as was apparent from the remarks of the noble Lord. I do not know whether previously there were any serious difficulties about people not receiving their polling cards. As the noble Lord expected, there have been complaints about rush; however, the Government have no option but to proceed, so long as the procedure is reasonably satisfactory.

It is interesting to note that election addresses are to be post-free. This is quite an exceptional provision, and I think a valuable one. I hope the election addresses will all be delivered and not just dumped. There is to be a quite striking increase in the number of polling stations, if I understood the noble Lord correctly. My only regret is that the hours of the poll are rather shorter than have been decided on for the Assembly elections. Probably it is less important in local government elections, certainly in England where the polls are so much smaller. None the less, I note that the polling stations are to be opened only until 8 p.m., although the Government have heeded the request and the argument of the noble Lord, Lord Monson, and some other noble Lords and have given an extra half hour. Clearly this is a very important election. It is not just another local government election. It is another opportunity for re-establishing democracy in Northern Ireland. We hope that people will take full advantage of the opportunity and that the elections will go off peacefully.

6.9 p.m.

LORD WINDLESHAM

My Lords, I should like to thank the noble Lord, Lord Shackleton, for his welcome to this Order. As he said, we had a fuller debate on the Northern Ireland Assembly Bill which covered a number of the same matters—postal voting, the number of polling stations and so on—and we have therefore been over the ground comparatively recently. The noble Lord, Lord Shackleton, asked about the number of applications for postal votes in the Border Poll. The figure of applications was approximately 160,000 out of an electorate, from memory, of round about 1 million. About 80,000 people actually used their vote. As the noble Lord said, the timetable is undoubtedly tight. That we accept, but it was necessary to fit in these three elections, the Border Poll, the local government election and the election for the new Assembly, before the July season of holidays, marches, traditional parades and demonstrations, and before the August general holiday period. It is important to maintain that timetable.

It has been encouraging that a great deal of interest has been shown by political Parties in organising themselves, nominating candidates for the local government elections, as well as for the Assembly, and this degree of interest is a heartening development in trying to win people's interest and attention towards representative political institutions. The noble Lord was quite right in what he said about the number of polling stations. I believe there will be in excess of 200 more polling stations than there were at the time of the Border Poll.

On Question, Motion agreed to.