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Northern Ireland Draft Bill 2012-13

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Northern Ireland Draft Bill 2012-13 Northern Ireland draft bill 2012-13 Standard Note: SN/PC/06559 Last updated: 13 March 2013 Author: Oonagh Gay Section Parliament and Constitution Centre This Note sets out the main provisions of the Northern Ireland (Miscellaneous Provisions) draft Bill published on 11 February 2013. The draft Bill is being given pre-legislative scrutiny by the Northern Ireland Affairs Committee, beginning on 25 February 2013. Their report is expected to be published by the end of this session. The draft Bill: • Gives the Secretary of State power to make transparent the declaration of donations to political parties in Northern Ireland from September 2014; • Abolishes the practice of double-jobbing, whereby Assembly Members also sit in the House of Commons; • Modifies the way in which the Justice and Policing Department is allocated to a minister under the d’Hondt process; • Improves electoral registration procedures, • Amends the Secretary of State’s power to designate bodies in respect of equalities legislation. The draft Bill does not alter the number of seats in the Assembly, or set the date of the next election to it. The Electoral Registration and Administration Act 2013 has postponed the first review of Parliamentary constituency boundaries under the Parliamentary Voting System and Constituency Act 2011 to 2018. The review was expected to reduce the number of Assembly seats, as well as Westminster seats, since the boundaries are co-terminous. The draft Bill also does not consider the particular make-up of the Northern Ireland Executive, whereby ministries and chairs of committees are allocated by the d’Hondt formula and there is no government or opposition in the usual Westminster sense. General background on political developments in Northern Ireland is set out in Standard Note 6518 Political Developments in Northern Ireland January to December 2012. This information is provided to Members of Parliament in support of their parliamentary duties and is not intended to address the specific circumstances of any particular individual. It should not be relied upon as being up to date; the law or policies may have changed since it was last updated; and it should not be relied upon as legal or professional advice or as a substitute for it. A suitably qualified professional should be consulted if specific advice or information is required. This information is provided subject to our general terms and conditions which are available online or may be provided on request in hard copy. Authors are available to discuss the content of this briefing with Members and their staff, but not with the general public. Contents 1 Introduction 3 1.1 NIO Consultation Paper August 2012 4 1.2 Pre-legislative scrutiny 6 2 Transparency in political donations 7 2.1 Background 7 2.2 Northern Ireland (Miscellaneous Provisions) Act 2006 8 2.3 Proposals for change 10 2.4 Draft Bill 11 3 Dual mandates 12 3.1 Background 12 3.2 MLAs with dual mandates 13 3.3 Other MPs with dual mandates 14 3.4 The draft Bill 14 4 Allocation of post of Minister of Justice 15 4.1 Background 15 4.2 The draft Bill 17 5 Electoral registration and administration 17 5.1 Registration 18 5.2 Overseas voters 19 5.3 Absent voting 20 5.4 Electoral offences 20 6 Statutory duty to designate public authorities 20 7 Evidence Sessions 20 Statistical Appendix 22 2 1 Introduction The Belfast (Good Friday) Agreement of 1998, followed by a referendum in both Northern Ireland and the Republic of Ireland and a subsequent Northern Ireland Act 1998 created a devolved Assembly and Executive in Northern Ireland. This resumption of devolution replaced nearly three decades of direct rule from Whitehall and Westminster. The Northern Ireland Act 1998 created three types of legislative and executive functions. Powers exercised in Northern Ireland are transferred; powers exercised at Westminster and Whitehall are excepted, and there is an intermediate set of reserved powers which can be transferred to Northern Ireland at some stage in the future, with consent, using an Order in Council procedure. There were some initial suspensions of the Assembly as elements of the Agreement and the legislation came under strain. Further legislation followed in the Northern Ireland (St Andrews Agreement) Act 2006 and the Justice and Security (Northern Ireland) Act 2007. The latter enabled the reserved powers of justice and security to be devolved to Northern Ireland under a new policing and justice department. Devolution was restored on 8 May 2007, after elections to the Assembly in March 2007. Power over policing and justice was transferred in April 2010 and the Alliance party leader, David Ford, became the relevant minister. There were elections to the Assembly in May 2011. In the Northern Ireland Assembly, Chairs and Deputy Chairs of committees and Executive Ministers are assigned using the d’Hondt formula. This means that membership of the Executive is an automatic entitlement of electoral strength, determined by the application of the D‘Hondt divisor which allocates seats on the basis of the highest average (the number of seats each party wins at an Assembly election is divided initially by one and thereafter by one more than the number of seats won, until all seats are allocated). This system is unique and resulted from the need to ensure that all major parties in Northern Ireland took part in power-sharing. The consequence is that there is no concept of an Assembly Opposition and that parties and MLAs are locked into a designation of nationalist, unionist or other. The passage of the Fixed-Term Parliaments Act 2011, fixing the date of the next general election to May 2015 led to a change in the date of elections to the Scottish Parliament and the National Assembly for Wales from 2015 to 2016. However the position in Northern Ireland was left open, as negotiations were continuing within the Assembly about the appropriate electoral cycle. The issue of the size of the Assembly has been under discussion for a couple of years. There is pressure to reduce the numbers of MLAs and also the number of Executive departments, given the population of Northern Ireland which is under two million. Section 33 of the Northern Ireland Act 1998 provides that each Westminster constituency in Northern Ireland returns 6 members, creating an Assembly of 108 MLAs, elected under the Single Transferable Vote. There was no provision in the Parliamentary Voting System and Constituencies Act 2011, which amended the Rules for Redistribution to reduce the size of the House of Commons to 600 Members, to decouple the Northern Ireland Assembly seats from those for Westminster. 3 The Boundary Commission for Northern Ireland announced at the commencement of the 2013 review that Northern Ireland would have 16 constituencies, a reduction of two.1 This would have meant a consequential reduction in the number of seats in the Assembly from 108 to 96. However, under the Electoral Registration and Administration Act 2013, the first review of Parliamentary constituency boundaries under the PVSC Act which would reduce the number of constituencies to 600 has been postponed from 2013 to 2018. There are no provisions in the draft Bill to reduce the size of the Assembly but the Government stated that The consultation responses indicate that there is a general desire to reduce the number of seats to improve the efficiency of the Assembly and provide better value for money to taxpayers. We will continue to engage with the Northern Ireland political parties to seek an outcome on this matter which commands broadly based support and which could therefore be included in the Bill.2 The Assembly and Executive Review Committee of the Assembly was established as part of the St Andrews Agreement. It is required to review and report on the operation of Parts III and IV of the Northern Ireland Act 1998. Part III deals with Executive Authorities and Part IV deals with a range of areas including Assembly Elections and Assembly Proceedings. It has published reports reviewing the number and allocation of departments among other topics. In 2012 it published reports on reducing the number of Northern Ireland departments and on the number of Assembly seats.3 The Committee’s current inquiry is into the operation of government and opposition. A research paper from the Assembly research service Opposition, Community Designation and D’hondt published in December 2012 sets out some useful background on the current issues.4 1.1 NIO Consultation Paper August 2012 In August 2012 the then Secretary of State for Northern Ireland, Owen Patterson, issued a consultation paper on measures to improve the operation of the Northern Ireland Assembly. The main topics discussed were: • Reducing the number and distribution of constituencies in Northern Ireland to 96; • Extending the term of the Northern Ireland Assembly to five years, beginning with the current term; • Phasing out dual mandates; • Moving to a more traditional model, with a Government and Opposition5 Teresa Villiers was appointed Secretary of State for Northern Ireland in September 2012, following the August 2012 Government reshuffle. 1 Library Standard Note 6225 gives further details of the boundary review in Northern Ireland 2 Publication of draft legislation Northern Ireland (Miscellaneous Provisions), Cm8563, February 2013, p8 3 See Committee page at http://www.niassembly.gov.uk/Assembly-Business/Committees/Assembly-and- Executive-Review/Reports/ for details 4 Research and Information Service Briefing Paper 189 5 Consultation on measures to improve the Northern Ireland Assembly August 2012 Northern Ireland Office 4 The NIO consultation closed on 23 October 2012 and consultation responses are available from the NIO website.6 The summary of responses published in February 2013 concluded that there was broad support for a reduction in size and for phasing out dual mandates, with more variety of opinion expressed on the date of the Assembly election and length of the term, and moving to a Government and Opposition model.
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