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8 pm
We are faced with two options: to continue with the present arrangements, which handicap our fellow citizens in Northern Ireland but provide them with the protection that I have outlined; or to sweep away that protection but ensure that people do not lose their franchise in Northern Ireland if they interrupt their three-month residency requirement. On balance, sadly, I would not support the amendment, not because I do not agree with the principle--I agree with almost everything that my right hon. Friends have said tonight--but because the consequences would be a greater disadvantage to our fellow citizens in Northern Ireland.
Ministers must tell the people why we continue to perpetuate the right of citizens of the Republic of Ireland to vote in this country when they owe no allegiance to it or to Her Majesty the Queen and are not even entitled to the protection afforded to all of us who hold a British passport. The situation is anomalous and, I believe, wrong. I do not intend to support my right hon. Friends on the amendment, so I hope that Ministers will do me the courtesy of offering me some reassurance that they will try to engineer a state of affairs whereby we do not
have to handicap our fellow citizens in Northern Ireland in order to provide them with protection against a concerted political assault from citizens of the Republic.
Mr. Mike O'Brien:
I understand the arguments of the right hon. Member for Penrith and The Border (Mr. Maclean) and his desire that the electoral registration system should be as free of inconsistencies across the United Kingdom as is reasonable in the circumstances, but the fact is that special circumstances apply in Northern Ireland, and the three-month residency requirement reflects that. It serves a useful purpose in ensuring that only bona fide registrations are made.
More important, it is well worth pointing out that none of the Northern Ireland parties have asked for the requirement to be removed, even though the Bill would have provided an excellent opportunity to do that. The comments of the hon. Member for East Londonderry (Mr. Ross) reflected that. The working party on electoral procedures had the chief electoral officer for Northern Ireland, Pat Bradley, as one of its members, and he did not recommend removing the requirement. As those most concerned seem happy with the existing position, I see no reason to change it.
Mr. Maclean:
Does the Minister share the view of the hon. Member for East Londonderry (Mr. Ross) that there is a real risk of the register being flooded with people who are not normally resident in Northern Ireland if we do not have the three-month qualification?
Mr. O'Brien:
I am not sure that anyone is arguing that there is a risk of floods of voters coming in, but there is sensitivity to voting issues in Northern Ireland, and the provisions have been law since 1949. The right hon. Gentleman described the rules relating to who can vote and I remind him that in national elections British people, Irish people and people from the Commonwealth can vote, and in local and European elections British- registered voters and Commonwealth, Irish and European Union people can vote.
The right hon. Gentleman described the way in which certain people from the Irish Republic can vote in British elections as an obscenity and an outrage. That obscenity and outrage existed during 18 years of Conservative government and there was not a peep out of him during that whole period. That says enough about the approach that he has taken. I appreciate what is happening today, but perhaps he should not engender more indignation than he can conveniently contain.
The hon. Member for Spelthorne (Mr. Wilshire) also suggested that the rules take away certain people's right to vote. He, too, did not seem to be concerned about the matter when his party was in government. The position has existed since 1949.
Mr. O'Brien:
Will the hon. Gentleman bear with me for a moment?
Given the situation in Northern Ireland, we need to proceed with some care.
Mr. O'Brien:
I will give way, if the hon. Gentleman will please bear with me for a moment.
We would be best advised to proceed with care, and that is the approach that we intend to take.
Mr. Wilshire:
I wanted to intervene only because of the comments that the Minister made about me and my position over the past 18 years. If he can find a moment in a busy day to check the record, he will find that I have been a public and vociferous critic of the way in which Northern Ireland has been treated by all Governments since I have been a Member of Parliament. I did indeed make the same criticisms when my party was in government.
Mr. O'Brien:
If the hon. Gentleman tells me that he has done that, I will certainly accept his word.
Various comments have been made and I do not want to go through them all. You said, Mr. Deputy Speaker, that many of them bordered on being out of order. I am sure that you would have dealt with them had they been out of order. The hon. Member for Aldershot (Mr. Howarth) and others made various comments about Irish voters in Britain and I am sure that the large number of people of Irish heritage who vote in the UK will be well acquainted with his views.
The best contribution was from the hon. Member for East Londonderry, who said that he was a little bit worried that floods of Unionists might come to North Warwickshire to deal with me during the election. I look forward to that, and I will think long and hard about his suggestions as a result of that comment.
I hope that the right hon. Member for Penrith and The Border will withdraw the amendment.
Mr. Maclean:
I am placed in a difficult position, because I had intended to follow my instinct and press the amendment to a vote, and I am not persuaded by the Minister, but I have to pay close attention to the earnest concerns of my hon. Friend the Member for East Londonderry (Mr. Ross).
I want to clarify one point that the Minister mentioned. I think it an awful anomaly that citizens of the Irish Republic should be able to vote in our elections, but the obscenity is not that mere fact but the fact that citizens of the United Kingdom, born and brought up in the United Kingdom, who have perhaps served in the police, the RUC or the armed forces, or as teachers or nurses in Belfast, can lose their franchise if they come to this country for a week's course, for cancer treatment or on attachment for two or three weeks.
I am grateful to my hon. Friend the Member for Spelthorne (Mr. Wilshire) for drawing my attention to the point that, if those people fail to be resident for the whole of the period, they lose their right to be on the register and are disenfranchised, while someone passing through from the Republic of Ireland has the vote. Putting those two together is the juxtaposition: not the fact that aliens have the right to vote, but that British citizens will lose it through no fault of their own. Putting those two together is the obscenity.
I was greatly interested by what my hon. Friend the Member for East Londonderry had to say, which is why I asked the Minister to clarify whether he agreed with him that there is the real risk that, unless we have the three-month qualification, some people from the Republic may--perhaps flood was the wrong word--register
falsely and have a vote to which they are not entitled. The Minister was using a good Home Office brief, with the points to take and some that were to be used only if pressed. He picked his words carefully. He did not say, "Yes, I agree with the hon. Gentleman. Lots of Irish Republican citizens will be flooding the register." He did not use those words but, by the substance of the careful and sensitive words that he used in the present sensitive situation, he was agreeing that my hon. Friend the Member for East Londonderry was right.
Mr. Mike O'Brien
indicated dissent.
Mr. Maclean:
The Government must be agreeing. There must be the risk. That is the only reason why they are maintaining it. Yes, the Government can hide behind the fact that all the parties in Northern Ireland still want the provision. The Government clearly share the view that there is a risk.
I am faced with an awful dilemma. Here we have an injustice--it is an injustice that people in Northern Ireland have to have the residency qualification when the rest of us and aliens from another state do not. However, because the political parties in Northern Ireland see an even greater injustice in the register being flooded by those aliens who may influence their vote, they wish to keep it. Surely the only way to remedy the problem in future is to impose similar conditions on the rest of us in the United Kingdom, so that we can equalise that injustice to Northern Ireland citizens.
I have listened carefully to the Minister, who replied carefully. I would not find his arguments on their own convincing or persuasive--
Mr. O'Brien:
Let the record show that the right hon. Gentleman's interpretation of my comments is not necessarily one that I precisely share. Let my comments speak for themselves in Hansard.
Mr. Maclean:
The Minister's comments will speak for themselves, but I can see the headlines when The Times, The Telegraph and Peterborough write up the essence of the Minister's remarks tomorrow. It will be, "Minister says danger of southern Irish citizens flooding register in north." That is what he said in essence, although he picked his words carefully.
In view of the comments of my hon. Friends the Members for Aldershot (Mr. Howarth) and for East Londonderry that an even greater injustice would be caused to citizens in northern Ireland if the amendment were agreed, I will reluctantly withdraw it, but I urge the Government to remove that injustice by another means.
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