Representation of the People (Northern Ireland) Regulations 2008

My Lords, I welcome the Minister to the government Dispatch Box on his first appearance for Northern Ireland. He joins a great team of players who have attempted to support Northern Ireland in one way or another and who have debated the issues long into the night on many occasions. Let us hope that we do not do that any more. The noble Lord is very welcome. I also thank the Minister for the clear way in which he laid out the statutory instrument linked to the services. It certainly seems straightforward, now that he has told us about it. I definitely support all these changes. We have, in Northern Ireland, the best form of electoral management in these islands, and probably in many other places. We have argued and fought hard to get to where we are—that includes the Government, the joint opposition and those on the Cross Benches from Northern Ireland. We have a very satisfactory situation. This legislation would appear to improve it and sharpen it up. There are one or two areas we need to be careful about, one of which is photographic identification being out of date. If I may say so with the government Chief Whip in her place, I worry that, particularly with women, disguise can very quickly take over. When they are young and beautiful, they have such pictures on their identification. As they age and become more mature, they could pass themselves off as all sorts of people by changing the colour of their hair, the weight that they carry and so on. I am a little nervous about that, and attention needs to be focused on how far we go. I would have liked to see a limit to the number of years that pass before a photograph is deemed out of date.