My Lords, I thank the noble Lord, Lord Shutt, for introducing these two orders. They take me back 40 years, to almost the middle of the last century, to when I was the Minister at Home Affairs responsible for elections in Northern Ireland. At the time, we had irregularities in elections in Northern Ireland. Some people would say, "Vote early and vote often. It works well". But that does not exist today, far from it. I can well recall standing in an election in South Tyrone as a Member of Parliament at the time. We noticed a lot of applications for postal votes all going to an address in the Republic of Ireland. We were very worried about this because a nationalist candidate had done it. I said that there was only one answer, and that was to take the entire election team to the Republic of Ireland to be photographed in the front of the house that was getting all those postal votes, and to get the photograph into all the media. We did that. We invaded the Republic, had a photograph taken of us with our rosettes, and the publicity meant that the postal votes were never exercised. I must say that I am glad to see in one of the orders before us today that postal votes will be delivered only to the address on the electoral register. That abuse is finally going to be ended.

I can say with no embarrassment whatever that today Northern Ireland has the best postal voting controls in the United Kingdom. It is now areas in England, such as Birmingham, where cheating is taking place. So far as the electoral laws in Northern Ireland are concerned, there are many that could now be extended and put into practice in the United Kingdom. This should be looked at by the electoral authorities in Great Britain.

The Chief Electoral Officer for Northern Ireland and his staff are to be congratulated on the control and efficiency of elections today. We are now debating the Assembly elections to be held on 5 May 2011, and as the noble Baroness has just said, there may be a third vote in the form of a referendum arising from the Parliamentary Voting System and Constituencies Bill. That would mean three elections in one day. Incidentally, that Bill will mean fewer Members of Parliament in another place, and since the Northern Ireland Assembly has six MLAs for each constituency, it would suggest that there are going to be fewer MLAs in Northern Ireland as well. I do not know whether the Minister will wish to comment on that because it strays slightly from the two orders before the House.

We are probably going to have three elections on the same day, and that will be slightly confusing. It will take a lot more time for a voter to exercise three separate ballots in the polling station. Will there be three separate ballot boxes in the polling station, and will the three ballot papers be of different colours, although I hope not green, white and orange?

I note that the notices about the elections can be reproduced in languages other than English. Of course, Chinese is now the second most spoken language in Northern Ireland after English, but I presume that this measure is also intended for the large number of European citizens who have come to live in Northern Ireland, especially Polish, Lithuanian and Portuguese people. Will the decision to use these languages-Chinese, Portuguese and so on-be left to the local returning officer or will it cover the whole of Northern Ireland?

The purpose of the orders is to establish consistency of electoral procedures at all elections in Northern Ireland. This is common sense and is to be welcomed. I recall a period when voting in parliamentary elections commenced in Northern Ireland at 7 am but devolved and local government elections commenced at 8 am. It was all very confusing.

I have a slight query about the fact that disclosure of information regarding ballot papers is to be under the direction of the returning officer. Very often on polling day the media-such as the BBC, local newspapers and daily papers-especially in Belfast, want to know how the polling is going: is there apathy or is there going to be a good turnout; is there an interest in this election? A restriction by the returning officer on telling the press and the media how the election is going could be a deterrent to people voting because they may not get prompted during the day that there is a big turnout and that they should go out and vote.

Do we still need polling agents inside our polling stations? They can be a problem because they leave some stations to give information to outside people as to who has or has not voted. These persons then visit the voter who has not voted and requests them to vote. Such a visit can be quite intimidating. There is still a danger in the practice of people inside polling stations passing information to outside bodies-and I need not go as far as to tell your Lordships who those outside bodies can often be.

The location of polling stations has to be regularly reviewed as new urban housing is developed from time to time. I understand that there was a recent consultation about the selection of polling stations and their locations. Here I declare an interest as chairman of a media group in Northern Ireland. How was this consultation made known to the public across Northern Ireland? Was it advertised in the weekly papers? How many individuals-not political parties-responded to the consultation?

The main issue arising today is the postponement of the proposed reform of local government and the reduction in the number of existing district councils from 26 to 11. There is a stalemate in the Northern Ireland Assembly on this issue so, sadly, there will now have to be elections in the existing 26 district councils even though they are out of date. Regrettably the Northern Ireland Assembly has a record of stalemate and inaction: not only has local government reform been halted but the proposed sports stadium fell through; the extension of the Belfast City Airport runway fell through; Ryanair withdrew last month with the loss of 1,000 jobs; the planning application for a large John Lewis's store was not proceeded with after three years; and the replacement of the 11-plus examination is at stalemate after four years. This is a very poor record for the Northern Ireland Assembly and does not encourage people to vote. It is therefore a good idea to have the three elections on the same day. It might help to achieve a better turnout for the Northern Ireland Assembly election than would otherwise have been the case.

How will the chief electoral officer alert the public to the various elections? There was a very reduced turnout in the last European election in Northern Ireland and I had warned in a Grand Committee that this would probably happen. The advertising of elections in Northern Ireland needs to be reviewed. The selection of newspapers such as the News of the World or radio stations such as Classic FM-which I personally like-is not the best way to inform a cross-section of Ulster society. Closer attention must be given to the advertising of elections.

The best way to make contact is through the network of weekly newspapers and commercial radio stations across Northern Ireland-I have already declared my interest. Those who live in Belfast are inclined to think that there are three daily newspapers and that that is sufficient. The Belfast Telegraph has a circulation of 55,000; the Irish News, 50,000; and the News Letter, 26,000. This is in sharp contrast with the circulation of the Morton weekly newspaper group, of 65,000, or that of the largest weekly group, Alpha, with a sold circulation of 85,000.

With 26 district councils in Northern Ireland, the Telegraph would not sell more than 2,000 newspapers in the area of Down District Council, for example, whereas the locally owned family newspaper group there, the Down Recorder, sells 12,000. There is no doubt that it is wiser to advertise in the local paper in Downpatrick. The same applies to most other towns in Northern Ireland. In Dungannon, for example, the Tyrone Courier sells 15,000 newspapers, and in Ballymena the Ballymena Guardian sells 10,000. Those figures should be compared with the fewer than 2,000 sales of the Telegraph in each of those district councils. The advertising policy for elections requires a review by the Chief Electoral Officer.

The same argument applies to radio stations. RAJAR gives the listenership figures for all radio stations. It confirms that, instead of Classic FM, Cool FM, Downtown and the six radio stations of the Northern Media Group are the most listened-to radio stations in Northern Ireland.

I once again welcome the two orders. I wish the Chief Electoral Officer every success, because it is quite a challenge to have three elections in one day.