My Lords, I thank the Minister for bringing this statutory instrument to your Lordships' House today. In principle, we support it. There has been considerable debate and work over the past six or seven years on the electoral situation in Northern Ireland, particularly the rules and regulations of the electoral register. As far as I can make out—I spoke to officials about this—the instrument consists purely of further amendments to update and improve what is already an excellent system.

I have one question for the Minister. In a debate on the Northern Ireland (Miscellaneous Provisions) Act 2006, we discussed how often we were going to force electors to re-register. It was then once every year, and it is now once every 10 years. Does that still stand? I would like to think so.

Having said that, the present order certainly improves the detail. The officials and departments in government responsible for elections in England, Wales and Scotland—recent elections have been a total shambles for the democratic process—could learn a lot of lessons from the electoral processes, and their rules and regulations, in Northern Ireland. A great deal of thought has been given to them. The spotlight was on Northern Ireland for all sorts of reasons, because of the great saying "Vote early and vote often", dead people voting, people not yet born voting and the like. That has been 99.9 per cent cured. One's national insurance number is now on the register, photographic evidence of who you are is necessary and so on. I know that the Government refused to have national insurance numbers on the British registry, and think that they were wrong. Having said that, which I appreciate probably has little to do with this particular statutory instrument, I support the regulations.