Meeting of the Parliament 25 February 2016
I have not even started yet. [Laughter.]
Thank you, Presiding Officer. The debate really has been a quick run around the park for everyone. I want to indicate my party’s support for the bill at stage 3.
I think that both the minister and Annabel Goldie used the word “pragmatic” in relation to the solution that has been developed. That is correct. Nobody wanted a situation in which the general election and the Scottish elections clashed. That is important because each election has its own distinct issues and set of candidates. If the elections were to clash, it would lead not only to confusion among voters, but to a situation in which it is more difficult and challenging for the political parties and individual candidates to get their distinct messages across. From that point of view, the bill is the right thing to do.
The current situation is a repeat of the one in 2010, when we extended the current parliamentary session to five years. There is an important job to be done in the next session of Parliament in ensuring that the situation does not occur again. We want to avoid clashes of elections, but we need to be very clear about what the ideal lengths of Parliament and local government terms are. One of the regrettable aspects of this necessary legislation is that local government terms will also be extended to five years, when in recent times they have been four years. There is an argument to be made that a system in which politicians and administrations are up for election every four years is more democratic because that length of term makes them more responsive to the needs of the people. It is an important issue that needs to be addressed in the next session of Parliament.
In the meantime, as others have said, this bill is a pragmatic solution and it is the right thing to do. That is why we are seeing Parliament and the parties come together to support the bill today.