---

Northern Ireland (Miscellaneous Provisions) Bill

I am grateful to the Minister for his extensive response to my points. I am not entirely persuaded of the reasons why clause 10 of the Electoral Administration Bill is not being extended to Northern Ireland. We are seeing a repeat performance from the Government: when they introduce primary legislation that is supposed to cover the United Kingdom, Northern Ireland falls behind. Clause 27 of this Bill, which we will debate tomorrow, belatedly extends several provisions of the Serious Organised Crime and Police Act 2005 to Northern Ireland. There is absolutely no reference in clause 10 of the Electoral Administration Bill, as amended in another place, to differences in the body of electoral law in Northern Ireland. Although the Minister has waxed lyrical about the differences in legislation that have been needed to combat electoral fraud in Northern Ireland, and referred to specific difficulties with adapting clause 10 of the Electoral Administration Bill, he has been unable to pinpoint any particular difficulties with simply extending clause 10 in total, or verbatim, to Northern Ireland. Having said that, I am glad that there is consensus among all parties in the House about the need for anonymous registration. Although there can be an edited register at the moment, no voters can have their names withdrawn from the full register in Northern Ireland. Although the Minister gave an assurance that the people of Northern Ireland will be treated with parity of esteem with those in rest of the United Kingdom, he contradicted himself by referring to the extraordinary body of electoral legislation in Northern Ireland. That legislation should not be an excuse for not treating anonymous registration in Northern Ireland on a par with that in Great Britain, and doing so in primary legislation. I accept that if I press the amendment to a Division, however, I will lose. The hon. Member for Belfast, East (Mr. Robinson) made the point well that if we were, by good fortune, not to have the Government out in full force to vote against the amendment, we might fall between two stools and not have anonymous registration introduced in Northern Ireland. That would be a serious error to which I would not wish to put my name, so given the Minister’s assurances, and my hope that he will reflect on the points that have been made, I beg to ask leave to withdraw the amendment.