Representation of the People (Northern Ireland) Regulations 2008

My Lords, I, too, congratulate the noble Lord, Lord Tunnicliffe, on taking on the role that he has. He and I have known each other in a previous capacity, largely in relation to the local Underground. That experience is not entirely irrelevant to Northern Ireland at some stages in its history. I wish to raise three issues, one in relation to each of the instruments, and then to make a final wind-up comment about the first one. On the Representation of the People (Northern Ireland) Regulations, which the Minister correctly identified as consolidation, I and one or two other noble Lords present in the Chamber will remember consolidations carried through on terrorist legislation relating to Northern Ireland where it was discovered, 18 months after the consolidation had been taken through, that carelessness in the consolidation had led to certain potential crimes being eliminated as crimes for a period of about 18 months. Then someone suddenly spotted that the manner in which the consolidation had occurred had, in a sense, instead of consolidating the legislation, removed it from the balance. I hope that someone, somewhere, has gone through this consolidation to make sure that it is copper-bottomed. It will be extremely embarrassing for the Government if it ever turns out not to be. It will also be inconvenient for both Houses of Parliament, because we will suddenly be asked to carry through legislation in 24 hours in order to cover the gap. Is the Minister confident that the legislation is copper-bottomed? On the service voters order, the Explanatory Memorandum states: "““Having consulted with the Electoral Commission and other interested stakeholders the Government decided to exercise its delegated powers and extend the registration period based on ""such service qualifications to three years. The 2006 Order made this change for Great Britain. This Order will now bring Northern Ireland into line with the rest of the UK””." My question is simply whether there is any particular reason why it has taken two years to bring Northern Ireland into line with the rest of the UK. On the political parties order—