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Northern Ireland (Miscellaneous Provisions) Bill

I am delighted that the right hon. Member for North Antrim enjoys such good health and am sure that the sneeze indicates only that there is a little breeze in the Chamber at the moment. Clause 3, which is on the timing of the canvass, causes me considerable concern. I reflect on the happy time when I became a Member of the House in 2001. The first piece of primary legislation relating to Northern Ireland in that Session was the Electoral Fraud (Northern Ireland) Act 2002. In March 2001—not so long ago—the Government presented to Parliament a command paper, Cm 5080, entitled ““Combating Electoral Fraud in Northern Ireland””. On the first page, the Government spelled out their responsibility in light of the fact that there was perceived—it certainly existed, so it was not just perceived, but unacceptable—electoral malpractice in Northern Ireland. The Government spelt out their responsibility in paragraph 4 of the Command Paper: "““The responsibility of the Government is two-fold: to protect the democratic exercise of the franchise and to combat abuse at the poll . . . where the threat of fraud is reduced, the credibility of the poll will be enhanced, and . . . this should encourage more people to exercise their right to vote.””" We have abolished the annual canvass in clause 2, and clause 3 proposes that a canvass should be held every tenth year. That period can be modified—a subject to which I shall return—but as the Government have gone to the trouble of publishing a Command Paper and the Electoral Fraud (Northern Ireland) Act 2002, which only went on the statute book four years ago, they should take care to achieve the right balance between preventing or eradicating electoral fraud—it is a serious crime to deprive someone of the franchise—and ensuring that people are not discouraged from voting by making it too difficult to register on an annual basis. The Government have got the balance wrong in clause 3, which extends the period between canvasses to 10 years. However, in exceptional circumstances—and this is what concerns me most in a close reading of clause 3—a canvass under section 10 of the Representation of the People Act 2003 must be conducted in 2010 "““unless the Secretary of State makes an order providing that the requirement in this paragraph does not apply””" and every tenth year following 2010. The Chief Electoral Officer for Northern Ireland is independent of Government. He has a heavy burden of responsibility, and I pay tribute to the work that he undertakes with his team. Clause 3(2) states that he may make a recommendation in favour of a canvass in the interim "““for the purpose of meeting the relevant registration objectives””," which can be summed up as combating electoral fraud or simply ensuring that the register is up to date. However, the Secretary of State can issue a diktat—I do not welcome this trend and I do not look forward to the emergency legislation that will be published tomorrow—so that, having considered the recommendation, he can notify "““the Chief Electoral Officer that he is satisfied that the public interest requires a canvass to be conducted for that purpose.””" Even if the chief electoral officer, who has ultimate responsibility for electoral law and the canvass in Northern Ireland, requests a canvass before 2010, the Secretary of State can maintain that that is not in the public interest. When would it not be in the public interest to act as recommended by the chief electoral officer? I may have misread clause 3, but it appears that the Secretary of State could, by his own hand, make an order to delay the canvass until as late as 2016. That is completely unacceptable, given the efforts in the 2002 Act, for which I am enormously grateful, to tackle robustly the serious problem of electoral fraud. I urge the Government not to allow electoral fraud to return to the system by delaying the canvass for such a long time. Amendment No. 27 proposes that the annual canvass should be held every fifth year, although some people believe that it should be held every fourth year.