HL Deb 21 February 1984 vol 448 cc705-11

8.16 p.m.

The Earl of Mansfield

My Lords, I beg to move that the draft District Electoral Areas Commissioner (Northern Ireland) Order 1983, which was laid before the House on 15th December, be approved.

This order, if approved, will provide for the Secretary of State to appoint a district electoral areas commissioner whose function will be to submit to the Secretary of State a report setting out his recommendations for the grouping together in Northern Ireland of district wards into electoral areas; this is necessary for the conduct of local government elections because they are held according to the principle of proportional representation using the single transferable vote system. A brief explanation of the background to this draft order might be useful to the House.

The local government boundaries commissioner, who was appointed under Section 50 of the Local Government Act (Northern Ireland) 1972, is currently carrying out a review of the number, boundaries and names of local government districts in Northern Ireland and the number, boundaries and names of the wards into which each district is divided. However, the grouping of wards into district electoral areas does not fall within his remit. The provisions of the Electoral Law (Northern Ireland) Order 1972, under which the existing district electoral areas were determined, have now been repealed as spent, and the district electoral areas have remained the same since 1973 because there have as yet been no changes to district council and ward boundaries.

The purpose of the draft order which we are now considering is to provide the means by which the wards recommended by the local government boundaries commissioner, when he completes his current review, will be subsequently grouped into district electoral areas, and to establish procedures so that interested parties may make representations on the proposed groupings. Therefore, it may be helpful if I devote a few moments to describing the contents of the draft order.

Article 2 provides for the Secretary of State to appoint a district electoral areas commissioner as soon as practicable after an order has been made giving effect, with or without modifications, to the recommendations of the local government boundaries commissioner. Under the Local Government Act (Northern Ireland) 1972, it is theoretically possible for a local government boundaries commissioner to be appointed at any time to make recommendations in respect of particular districts (and their wards)—that is, otherwise than in the course of the statutory 10-yearly review of local government boundaries. Article 3 of the draft order therefore also provides for a district electoral areas commissioner to be appointed following such a part-review. The first schedule deals with the terms and conditions of the commissioner and provides for the appointment of staff, assistant commissioners and assessors to assist him.

The commissioner will be required to act in accordance with the procedure set out in Schedule 2; this procedure will enable interested parties to make representations on the proposed groupings of wards. It provides for the publication of the commissioner's provisional recommendations, the making of representations in writing during the month following publication, and the holding of public hearings to consider objections to the proposed groupings. After considering the representations made in writing and at any hearings, the commissioner will be required to submit final recommendations to the Secretary of State.

Schedule 3 sets out the rules which the commissioner will be required to follow in making his recommendations. One of these rules requires that each electoral area shall consist of not less than five and not more than seven wards. Notwithstanding the greater latitude in the 1972 provisions, we concluded after very careful consideration that the groups should be limited to five, six or seven wards because such groups produce the most proportional results, but will still allow the commissioner a sufficient degree of flexibility.

Noble Lords may know that the House was to have been invited to approve this draft order at an earlier date, but the debates in this House and in another place were postponed so as to allow time for consideration of representations which had been received. These representations suggested that the district electoral areas commissioner should be empowered to recommend groups of less than five wards in some circumstances. Under the 1972 legislation, although groups of five to seven wards were intended to be the norm, groups of four or eight wards were permissible and are by no means exceptional. However, it is widely recognised by experts in this field that, in practice, constituencies of five to seven seats achieve results which are considerably more proportional than are achieved by smaller groupings. Since there are at present in Northern Ireland a number of district electoral areas comprising four wards, the benefits of proportional representation have not been maximised in past local elections in Northern Ireland.

This draft order is not concerned with the principle of using proportional representation for Northern Ireland local elections; that principle was established in 1972, when Parliament decided that the single transferable vote system should be used for local and Assembly elections in Northern Ireland because it ensures the representation of substantial minorities. The Northern Ireland (Local Elections) Order 1977 provides that this is the system according to which local government elections in Northern Ireland are conducted. The Government believe that in Northern Ireland's special circumstances, it is the right system for those elections.

But as I have said, we are not discussing here the merits of proportional representation. The draft order now before the House provides for the implementation of a system of election which is already established. It is only right that that system should be put into practice in such a way as to maximise its effects, and in our view this is best achieved by restricting the commissioner's discretion so that he is required to recommend groups which will return five, six or seven representatives.

I hope that your Lordships will forgive me for dwelling on that point. I wanted to explain the reasons for the delay in bringing this draft order forward and to make clear that we have considered very carefully the points which were put to us; but we have not been persuaded that our original draft order should be changed.

I will say a word about the remainder of the draft order. Once the district electoral areas commissioner has submitted a report to the Secretary of State, the Secretary of State will be required under Article 5 of the draft order to lay that report before Parliament. It will then be necessary to lay a further draft Order in Council before Parliament in order to give effect, with or without modifications, to the final recommendations contained in the commissioner's report.

The next district council elections in Northern Ireland will take place in May 1985 and this draft order is essential for the conduct of those elections. I beg to move.

Moved, That the draft order laid before the House on 15th December be approved.—(The Earl of Mansfield.)

Lord Underhill

My Lords, I again thank the noble Earl for his helpful explanation of the order. It is clear from what the noble Earl has said that this is an essential provision, a new provision and one which attempts to correct the position of the electoral divisions which have existed now for 10 years. As long as the single transferable vote is considered necessary, particularly in dealing with the local elections in Northern Ireland, we must have proper machinery to determine district electoral areas. I am pleased that the noble Earl has stressed that we are not debating the principle of the single transferable vote. I use that term and not "proportional representation", because I have never regarded STV as being PR. It may provide for a minority representation, but it is not proportional representation.

I hope we shall not again have the discussion which took place in the other place on the ground that: "If it is good enough for Northern Ireland, why don't we have this for local elections throughout the rest of Great Britain?". I think my noble friend Lord Fitt dealt with that, and we all know what happened. The report arising from the 1969 disturbances, which showed that there was discrimination of the minority community, led to the 1972 legislation.

The noble Earl has stressed that the next district elections with which these regulations are concerned is May 1985. In the light of provision for inquiries it is essential that we move fairly quickly. As the noble Earl said, the local government commissioner is now on the process of reviewing the boundaries of districts and the division of the districts into wards. These may not be settled for some months to come because there may be local inquiries. It is necessary to have the review of the district electoral areas after the wards and the local government boundaries have been determined. One cannot have that until the order for the local government boundaries and wards has been approved. The only question I want to ask is, why could the order not merely have extended the powers of the local government boundaries commissioner? Why should there be a separate appointment? The local government boundary commissioner is conversant with all the facts, has been handling the matter for some time, he knows the problems and the area. Why, following the acceptance of the order detailing the new boundaries of the local authorities and detailing the new wards, could not the same man deal with the grouping of wards in district electoral areas?

The regulations provides for the appointment of staff, assistant commissioners and assessors. Surely the same staff, working with the local government boundary commissioner, can do this job. The staff is conversant with the whole position. While it may be desirable to have separate assistant commissioners and assessors, because of the time factor and these people have been engaged on it, it would seem to me that, as far as we can possibly achieve that, the same commissioner could deal with both tasks because one set of information arises out of the other. Having made that one criticism, it is an essential order which we support.

Lord Hampton

My Lords, I too should like to thank the noble Earl for introducing this order. It seems sensible and it is good to know that there is a widely respected candidate for the position of commissioner. I have one question to ask. I note that the boundaries for local and parliamentary elections will not necessarily coincide. Is the Minister entirely satisfied that confusion will not arise, and will any special steps be taken to prevent this? I have listened with interest to all the arguments about proportional representation. I must admit that I am not fully convinced, but I do not propose to take the matter further.

Lord Fitt

My Lords, this order is a necessary corollary to the order we have just discussed, in so far as it will group together a number of local government areas to make effective the principle of STV in elections in Northern Ireland. Without an increase in the number of wards, the idea behind STV, which is to give representation to minorities, would not take effect. I also noticed that when this legislation was going through another place many honourable Members from Northern Ireland objected to it on the grounds that it was a departure from conditions whihc prevail in Great Britain. I do not accept those arguments as valid. I repeat that Northern Ireland is a peculiar place—I underline that—with peculiar people; I am proud to be one of them. But the paranoia and the neurosis which was shown by certain spokesman in another place is sufficient justification for the Minister to promulgate this legislation.

Unlike the Front Bench speaker here this evening, I am not entirely opposed to the creation of a new job in Northern Ireland because far too many people there are unemployed. I warn the Minister that the appointment will be a sensitive one. The names of the applicants and their religions, especially of the successful applicants, will be a debating point among those politicians in Northern Ireland who have up to the present sought to make their own appointments in their own interests and in the interests of their own political parties.

Again, I see that many representations have been made to the Minister not to create new place names for the newly-created local government areas. I should think that that would be a very retrograde step. There are many names in Northern Ireland of local government areas which were abolished in the 1970s; and I recall with a great deal of sentiment the constituency and the ward which I represented in downtown Belfast alongside the dock area, which were known as Dock Ward and the Dock constituency. When STV was introduced the whole thing was changed and they called it "Area G", which meant absolutely nothing to the people who lived there. Some of those local government areas have names which carry a great deal of sentiment and emotion with them.

It may be that Unionist objections to the commissioner being allowed to give names after suitable representations had been made were because of their opposition to the recent changing of the name Londonderry City Council to Derry City Council after a democratic vote had taken place within that council. That may be the reason for their objection. I would certainly be at one with the Minister, for I know that I still speak for a lot of the people of Northern Ireland who are not terribly concerned with the names that they have at the moment, Area G and Area A, which are soulless names which mean nothing. I believe that there are many names in Northern Ireland which would be suitable for the newly-constructed local government boundaries.

The Earl of Mansfield

My Lords, I am obliged to noble Lords who have welcomed the draft order. Perhaps I might briefly respond. The noble Lord, Lord Underhill, took the very pertinent point that the timetable is tight, and in effect he asked. "Why not ask the local government boundaries commissioner to carry out the grouping of wards and, in effect, extend his jurisdiction?" The noble Lord will recollect that I said in my opening remarks that it was not part of his remit. The statutory remit of the local government boundaries commissioner under Section 50 of the Local Government Act (Northern Ireland) 1972 is very specific. It makes no provision for the grouping of wards. Therefore, new provision is necessary, and this is why the legislation takes the form that it does. The noble Lord, Lord Hampton, asked me about boundaries. Obviously, it would be administratively more convenient if district electoral areas were not split between constituencies where that was possible.

The scope for grouping wards so that boundaries of electoral areas are coterminous with those of parliamentary constituencies will be largely dictated by the report of the local government boundaries commissioner, which is yet to be finalised. I think it is inevitable that some areas will be split, particularly when one considers that there are more district council areas than parliamentary constituencies. I understand that the local government boundaries commissioner may recommend some wards, parts of which lie in differing parliamentary constituencies. The matter is contained—and he has very wide discretion, as noble Lords will see—in the third schedule.

The noble Lord, Lord Fitt, had, I think, two points. The district electoral areas commissioner is not going to come about as a result of advertising for applicants. The person who will fulfil this function will be appointed by the Secretary of State, who will consider who is the person that he considers best fitted for the job.

The final point taken by the noble Lord, Lord Fitt, was the matter of the naming of electoral areas. That will be for the commissioner, who will be open to representations on appropriate names. Once his final recommendations have been implemented, there will not be scope for names to be changed. There is a sensitivity about naming places in Northern Ireland at the moment. Of course, as the noble Lord, Lord Fitt, knows, but the House may not, areas have previously been identified by a letter. But the Government had to balance a number of conflicting considerations, and we came down in favour of names rather than letters. I am glad to see that the noble Lord, Lord Fitt, nods his head and agrees. My Lords, I commend this draft order to the House.

On Question, Motion agreed to.

Viscount Long

My Lords, I beg to move that the House do now adjourn during pleasure until 8.40 p.m.

Moved accordingly, and, on Question, Motion agreed to.

[The Sitting was suspended from 8.36 until 8.40 p.m.]