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Northern Ireland (Miscellaneous Provisions) Bill

Thank you, Mrs. Heal, and I thank the hon. Member for Montgomeryshire (Lembit Öpik) for trying, but perhaps he should stop digging—[Interruption.] Someone says, ““While he’s ahead””, but I am not quite sure what he was ahead of. Nevertheless, I accept that he was trying to take us away from the concept of a 10-year cycle and to propose something more reasonable. I think that most hon. Members accept that proposition in good faith, so the hon. Gentleman did not really need to explain his proposal. If people are asking when the election is to be held, I think that we will know whether the Assembly is up and running or not. There was a period in Northern Ireland when there was an election every year. We need a good register in which the community can have confidence. I am very concerned about clause 3(1)(a), which proposes that a canvass must be conducted in 2010, "““unless the Secretary of State makes an order providing that the requirement in this paragraph does not apply””." Why would the Secretary of State want to take such a power into his hands? Whenever I read proposals such as this, they lead me to believe that the Secretary of State could lay himself open to the suspicion that he was meddling with the register for political purposes. That would not be a good idea. Will the Minister think again about conferring that power on the Secretary of State?