Representation of the People (Northern Ireland) Regulations 2008

My Lords, this point has been discussed in the other place and I am not able to offer any encouragement. One situation I know of concerns my mother-in-law, for instance, who does not choose to keep a valid passport. However, because a passport is such a useful identification document, she uses that as a source of identification. I do not think that it is an unreasonable burden on a presiding officer to be presented with a validly issued document and take the judgment, ““Does this person look like their photo?”” It is very clear that, should the presiding officer take the view that they do not look like the photo, he is to deny them a vote. We do not want to encourage the use of out-of-date ID. However, removing the requirement makes practical sense. If electors can be satisfactorily identified from the ID they present, we do not believe that they should be disenfranchised. We believe that presiding officers will have sufficient time and capacity to make that decision. I am afraid that I cannot offer any warmth on the possibility of a time limit. I move on now to the issue of young people. There are some concerns about the process. As I understand it, the chief electoral officer will be able to ask schools about children coming within the bound. He will then dispatch people to schools with the key data already on appropriate forms in order to allow the young people, in a very straightforward way, to provide the information to allow them to get on to the register. The chief electoral officer gathers information only for the purposes of voter registration and maintaining the integrity of the electoral register. Details of names and addresses are, of course, included on the full electoral register. National insurance numbers, which will be collected, are used only to verify an individual’s identity and are kept confidential. The chief electoral officer is required to abide by data protection legislation and comprehensive data handling protocols. It is clearly an offence for the chief electoral officer or any of his staff to disclose improperly that information. I thank the noble Lord for bringing up the point of service personnel. It is clear that it concerns Armed Forces only as, apparently, defined in Section 14 of the Representation of the People Act 1983. The noble Lord, Lord Bew, asked a number of questions, including where the 11 days have come from. Frankly, that just brings it into line with the UK. I do not know whether other criticisms may have influenced officials in that, but our principal motivation was to bring it into line with the UK. I do not believe that there is a Birmingham input to this, but if there is I shall write to the noble Lord. Essentially, it has been explained to me that there was a morass of good legislation already sitting there, and the only significant differences from simply drawing it together have been outlined in my speech. I thank the noble Lord, Lord Laird, for his welcome and I will of course seek his advice from time to time. I hope that I have successfully covered the issue of age of photographs and have gone as far as the Government feel able to go on the matter. I agree with him, not having a wide knowledge but having gone through the details, that Northern Ireland has the best quality voter registration system in Europe. The noble Lord, Lord Brooke, mentioned that we have known each other for some time. He pointed out the mistakes made in the past during previous consolidations and sought an absolute assurance that we have made no mistakes this time. My Chief Whip whispered an aside that I should give the noble Lord that assurance. The trouble is that, being a realistic sort of person, I know that it is extremely difficult to prove a negative. I have every reason to believe that officials have taken great pains to ensure that there are no careless errors. He asked me why it has taken so long to get from 2006 to 2008. All I can say is that the history of this material suggests that it grinds wondrous fine. To be fair, we are seeing the fruits tonight, but these things do seem to take a long time in Northern Ireland. The noble Lord also commented on the quality of information. Again, I do not believe that there is a Birmingham dimension to it, but I shall not comment on Great Britain voting crimes. It is right that the parties have worked together to produce a high quality system. I commend the regulations. On Question, Motion agreed to.