A law to delay this year’s local authority elections was pushed through both branches of Tynwald on Thursday.

Concerns over the impact of the coronavirus pandemic prompted Infrastructure Minister Tim Baker to seek a postponement.

The elections, which were originally meant to go ahead last year, had been put back to April 22 this year.

Now they’ll be held on July 22.

Members unanimously backed the legislation when it went through all three readings and the Legislative Council in one day.

A number of options were discussed in the chamber, such as pushing the elections back to coincide with the House of Keys ballot scheduled for September, or perhaps even later.

There was an effort to stand the Legislative Council down while members have more time to scrutinise the Bill.

Douglas Central MHK Chris Thomas said the proposed new date of July 22 would affect those who may have been considering standing for central government later on in the year.

The former Policy and Reform Minister said that in 2016 there was a lack of candidates and suggested one reason for that was that the election took place just five months before the House of Keys election. In 2012 when the local authority elections were after the Keys election they attracted more candidates.

This, however, was rejected by Mr Baker who said Mr Thomas was ’in danger of becoming a wrecking ball with really profound implications’ when action needed to be taken.

’I do recognise that this legislation has been put together at pace because, whilst we don’t currently have an emergency proclamation in place, we are in, effectively, an emergency with the pandemic situation,’ he said.

The Bill has now gone through all three readings and before LegCo, and it is now awaiting Royal Assent before the legislation becomes officially active.