Voter Identification (Amendment of List of Specified Documents) (Northern Ireland) Regulations 2026

Debate between Lord Weir of Ballyholme and Baroness Ritchie of Downpatrick

Monday 14th September 2026 Grand Committee

[Lord Weir of Ballyholme (DUP)]

My Lords, I broadly welcome the three SIs before us. As the Minister has indicated, they fall into two categories: one aspect dealing with the widening of accessibility in terms of voter ID, and the second aspect dealing with the expense limits.

I have said down the years that the use of voter identification has been positive in preserving our democracy. That is not to say that there have not been other problems with electoral fraud within Northern Ireland. One thinks of a particular example, which would probably be most familiar to the noble Lord, Lord Elliott, where a polling station was kept open beyond its hours, which had a material impact on the course of that electoral result. If one looks at the situation as regards postal votes, there have still been elements of electoral fraud done in relation to them, so we are not dealing with a perfect situation. However, broadly speaking, the electoral ID side of it has been beneficial to democracy in Northern Ireland, but it is not always watertight.

To give perhaps one example, during an election a number of years ago, I remember calling at the house of an elderly lady who had requested a lift to the polling station. Obviously, in wanting to make sure that this was not a wasted journey, I said, “Just before we leave, have you got your photo identification with you?” At which point she said, “Hold on a moment, son”, and disappeared into the back room of her house. She emerged about five minutes later with a small photograph of herself. There was nothing else on it, just a photograph of her, and she said, “Look son, you can see it’s me in that photograph”. So, it is not absolutely watertight in that regard, but in most cases it has worked well.

The changes being proposed today seem to make a level of sense in terms of accessibility. Of the four aspects, I welcome in particular the veteran card. We know that while there are other forms of identification, there will be some veterans who are always a bit anxious about what identification they have with them, so this is something which has a positive benefit.

Perhaps I can ask one question of the Minister in relation to this. I may be asking about something which is not to hand but, while I would be supportive of each of the four elements, does the Minister have any breakdown of the numbers that are used in Northern Ireland for each of those? Specifically, is there any indication of the number of people for whom these would be the sole means of identification, so how much are we guaranteeing widening accessibility? It would be useful to have that information, if not now then perhaps in writing.

The second aspect is, obviously, the level of election expenditure. I have come here from the Chamber, where there are major issues about financial support from outside the United Kingdom and talk of crypto millions, et cetera. When we are dealing with local government elections, the kind of money that we are talking about is an awful lot less, but where we have the limits at present is causing real difficulties because they have not been updated for a number of years.

I know going back, for example, to the 2023 election, for the vast bulk of candidates, their only expenditure was on perhaps a piece of canvass material, something that would be given to the Post Office for a postal drop, and maybe some posters. We are not talking about high-tech, extravagant costs, particularly as costs in terms of printing have accelerated, I believe, at a rate beyond that of inflation. I know that in the last local government elections a number of candidates found themselves unable to do all those aspects, particularly some candidates in Belfast where the electorate tends to be larger per DEA than in other areas. They simply had to say as regards a postal drop that they could not afford the printing and remain within limits. That is a particular problem, not simply because it reduces the level of democracy when people are not in a position to obtain that information, but because some unscrupulous candidates falsify the expense that they go to and try to get their material at an artificially reduced level to remain within the limit.

These are very sensible proposals as regards that level of expenditure. It bring us into line with the rest of the United Kingdom in terms of those levels and, from the point of view of candidates from whichever party, or indeed independents, it puts it within a realistic level for next year’s local government elections—so I support the proposals that have been put forward.

[Baroness Ritchie of Downpatrick (Lab)]

My Lords, it is a pleasure to follow the noble Lord, Lord Weir, on this issue. First, I welcome my noble friend Lady Anderson to the Dispatch Box representing the NIO. This the first occasion on which I have had an opportunity to take part in a debate with her on Northern Ireland.

I support these SIs because they underpin trust in the electoral system and the principle of democratic accessibility by ensuring that people have access to the franchise to exercise their vote. I welcome the fact that the number of identification documents has been increased, and I welcome the blue badge, because many people have blue badges, but until now in Northern Ireland they could not use them for electoral identification purposes.

I recall that in 1985 when electoral identification was introduced the noble Lord, Lord Dodds, and I were candidates in the local government elections, him in Belfast, and me in Down, we were told just a few weeks before the election took place that they were going to be subject to electoral identification and documents. At that stage, it was medical cards, then it moved on to allowance, child benefit or pension books—then photographic ID came into play, as the Minister outlined, 20-odd years ago. It is important that we were in the vanguard for identification for eligibility to vote. Obviously, there were very good reasons for that. Political parties, in the main on the constitutional side, demanded that level of support, shall we say, for those who wanted to exercise their mandate.

I recall—and I agree with the noble Lord, Lord Weir, in relation to this issue of electoral fraud—that some agents are particularly adept at undertaking electoral fraud. When I was a candidate in 2017, people told me that they went to vote for me using photographic ID and could not vote because their votes had already been used. Obviously, some mechanism was used deliberately to falsify their identity. I would like to think, as I am sure other noble Lords would like to ascertain, that means have been found to address those issues to ensure that that level of electoral fraud does not happen again.

I welcome the instrument on spending limits in local government. There is another aspect: many candidates in Assembly and local government elections will use videos and social media to convey their messages because, as we know, many young people today use social media to gain information about elections. Therefore, we should ensure that spending limits cover that form of communication. With those few comments and the query on electoral fraud to which I have already alerted the Minister, I support these SIs and look forward to her response.

Supply of Machinery (Safety) (Amendment etc.) and the EU Machinery Regulation (Enforcement etc. in Northern Ireland) Regulations 2026

Debate between Lord Weir of Ballyholme and Baroness Ritchie of Downpatrick

Monday 20th July 2026 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Ritchie of Downpatrick (Lab)]

My Lords, I am very grateful to be able to participate in this debate and I support the statutory instrument coming from the Government, which is one of many statutory instruments that we have already addressed in relation to the Windsor Framework. As the noble Lord, Lord Empey, has said, there will be many more coming down the path to greet us in this Chamber which will already have been examined by the Secondary Legislation Scrutiny Committee.

It is important to point out that, as a supporter of the Windsor Framework, I feel that the new incoming Government, working with the Northern Ireland Executive, need to ensure that the ability provided by the Windsor Framework in terms of trade within the UK internal market and access to the EU single market is fully availed of, and that Northern Ireland businesses are enhanced as a result of it. That area needs to be examined with the Northern Ireland Executive.

On this particular statutory instrument, it is worth pointing out that the Government intend to introduce similar measures to those taking effect in Northern Ireland

“as soon as parliamentary time allows”,

which could allow regulatory divergence between GB and Northern Ireland. I hope that the Minister can advise on that.

I would also like to see accelerated progress on the development of the one-stop-shop by the Cabinet Office to support services for business, including the role of AI in the operation of this one-stop-shop and the UK-EU dynamic database of applicable and future regulation to areas that were proposed by our Northern Ireland Scrutiny Committee in our first report, and also by my noble friend Lord Murphy in his review of the operation of the Windsor Framework. I look forward to answers from the Minister in relation to those issues.

[Lord Weir of Ballyholme (DUP)]

I am not going to deliver a speech, but the noble Baroness and the Minister have spoken about certainty. Does the noble Baroness not agree that certainty would be a lot more enhanced—and I look forward to the Minister’s reply—if we got some form of timescale for whatever is going to be proposed for Great Britain, to bring it back into alignment with Northern Ireland? Also, certainty is massively undermined by the fact that there has not been any level of financial impact assessment on this. We are left with phrases such as “limited impact” and “not particularly practical impact”, but those things are very vague, and we know from previous experience that there was actually a much greater impact than had previously been highlighted.

[Baroness Ritchie of Downpatrick (Lab)]

I thank the noble Lord for his intervention. I agree that there needs to be absolute certainty in relation to the framework, but I come at this as somebody who supports the Windsor Framework and feels that the Government need to work with the Northern Ireland Executive to ensure that access to both markets is fully captured, and it is ensured that businesses can avail of them.