Meeting of the Parliament 18 March 2026 [Draft]
When the Scottish National Party Government first allowed some prisoners to vote in Scottish Parliament and local elections in 2020, we warned that that would set a dangerous precedent, with an increasing number of offenders being allowed to vote over time. Sure enough, in the dying days of this parliamentary session, the Scottish Government is trying to sneak through a policy that would allow convicted criminals who are detained on mental health grounds to vote in the election in May.
The Scottish Government is incorrect in claiming that we need to expand prisoner voting in order to be compliant with the European convention on human rights. As I said when the Standards, Procedures and Public Appointments Committee met to debate the instrument a few weeks ago, the rest of the United Kingdom has not expanded prisoner voting to the same extent that the SNP has done in Scotland.
I want to make absolutely crystal clear what we are debating. We are considering enfranchising criminals who are considered to be so dangerous that they must be detained in a hospital for their own good rather than serve their sentence in prison. In some circumstances, they will have committed serious offences and, rightly, will be detained due to the risk that they present to society, yet the Scottish Government thinks that it is appropriate to give them the right to vote.