Hansard

Thank you, Presiding Officer. I join other members in thanking the clerks, all those who gave evidence, and the other members of the committee for their consideration of the bill.

The bill represents a baby step towards democratic reform, so I welcome its general principles. To be honest, however, it is hardly groundbreaking stuff. Even when taken together with the Scottish Elections (Franchise and Representation) Bill, we have miles to go if we are to reinvigorate democracy, improve registration and turnout, and make Holyrood and council chambers truly representative of the people they serve.

Last year, I went with the Presiding Officer to visit the Swedish Parliament, where there was genuine concern that turnout in elections had fallen a few percentage points from the high 90s. We can only dream of those levels of voter participation in elections in Scotland.

We still live in one of the most democratically underrepresented countries in Europe in terms of the levels of government that operate and the numbers of elected representatives who serve. In Sweden, one out of every 145 citizens has stood for election, whereas in Scotland, it is one in every 2,000. In Sweden, political work is normalised in communities and it really shows in Sweden’s political culture. Does the bill address that democratic deficit? I do not think that it does. It takes a small step towards doing so, but does not really address it.

I welcome the five-member council wards as an option for the Local Government Boundary Commission for Scotland to consider. That would deliver more proportionality, but to represent what the public actually votes for in an election, we would need wards of around six to seven members. In answer to Mr Findlay’s point, we took some evidence on that, and there were some more expansive suggestions that we could have city-wide lists or council-wide lists. Even sticking with the system that we have at the moment and expanding it to true proportionality would require six to seven members per ward.

Worryingly—and I share Mr Tomkins’s views on this—the option of two-member wards is also on the table in the bill. Beyond the islands, where the flexibility to have one and two-member wards already exists, I can see no circumstances in which two-member wards would be appropriate. The fact that the Government did no work to consider the bill’s impact on proportionality is disappointing. I do hope that, 13 years after its introduction, a wider review of the multimember ward system will now take place. It would be good if the minister could reflect on when that could happen. Committee members all had different perceptions of how well the multimember system has worked, so now is a good time to review it.

I felt that the committee disappeared down a few rabbit holes when hearing evidence. One was the list-order effect. I do not deny that it might be real, especially for candidates of the same party whose surnames start with the same letter. It is, however, clear that a wide range of other factors, especially incumbency, are more important, particularly in local government elections.

Another red herring was around registration. The bill makes it illegal to vote more than once and I suspect that most people would think that that was already the law; they might be surprised to learn that it is not. Registration on multiple registers is not a problem. Groups such as students move around, and it is far more important that they are enfranchised to vote wherever they are resident at the time of the election rather than having no vote whatsoever. Underregistration is a much bigger issue that should concern us.

The shift in the length of the parliamentary term from four to five years is to be welcomed. There is no point in trying to second-guess the chaos of Westminster timetabling anymore, and five years allows Parliaments to get more into their stride.

We received very little evidence on electronic voting, to be honest, which I am a bit disappointed about, but I am aware of major concerns from organisations, including the Open Rights Group, about whether e-voting can ever be genuinely secure, anonymous and verifiable. The Government appears to be quite agnostic on electronic voting, but I ask the minister to focus work with disability groups on other methods of increasing participation, including postal voting. I also ask that the Government work with the Open Rights Group and others in fully assessing the implications of any pilot well before they are even considered.

The provisions in the bill to allow attainers of age 14 to be entered onto the electoral register could be a real springboard in helping young people play a full role in democratic life. I urge the Government to help equip our young people with the knowledge that they need about our democracy while they wait for their full rights to vote to come to fruition. It is an unusually exciting provision in a bill that has perhaps been more about tidying up than igniting a renewed democratic vision.