Hansard

Neil Findlay and I might have one of those discussions ourselves—I might inflict that on him. Adam Tomkins is objecting to that for some reason.

During the Labour-Liberal Democrat coalition of 1999 to 2007, we brought in the proportional representation system for local councils. As Sarah Boyack might remember, there was a debate then as to the size of the wards. In the end, we came up with a compromise. We wanted bigger-sized wards to reflect that in rural areas some of the distances are utterly huge. Up in Caithness, the wards are enormous—they are much bigger than many of our constituencies. There was a debate at that time and we compromised on three and four-member wards. Having two and five-member wards would help to keep communities together in more urban areas, increase the amount of proportionality in urban areas, but also reflect the real distances that are involved in rural areas and the sheer number of community councils and school parent councils that are in those communities. It is sensible to have two and five-member wards, although I would probably change it further and include bigger-sized wards. We know that on islands, there is potential to go to one-member wards, which I think is equally sensible.

We also support the cautious approach on electronic voting pilots, particularly for people with sight loss. That is a sensible way to proceed. We need to be careful with our democracy. There are measures that some people are proposing that we should not try out, as they may jeopardise the whole electoral system. I would be cautious with electronic voting pilots.

It is sensible to have declarations on internet adverts. We have seen that Facebook has changed in order to give greater transparency; however, for other adverts, there needs to be an ability to find out who its original source is, so that we can track back and hold it to account for anything that is said.

There are provisions relating to the Electoral Commission being accountable to the Scottish Parliamentary Corporate Body. Considering the debate that we had quite recently on the independence of the SPCB, we need to be careful regarding that institution. The Electoral Commission reporting to the SPCB means that it is even more important to make sure that the SPCB is considered as an independent body. I agree with all that.

I even agree with Neil Findlay on doing further research on the randomisation of ballots. I recall that when Steven Purcell was the leader of Glasgow City Council, he almost lost his seat because he happened to be a bit further down the ballot paper. I am not sure that the constituents in his ward really intended for that to happen, but it did almost happen. We need to be mindful of that issue and there should be further research on it. There is a bias towards those whose names are at the beginning of the alphabet, and somebody who is near the end of the alphabet, like me, has a great interest in changing that.

However, we do not support the five-year term lengths. For a long time, the norm has been four years. In my view, there is no reason why we should change from four years; that term gives a regular renewal of our democracy and sufficiently long terms in Government but also enough democracy within our system. As we have seen, in our country, politics changes a lot, and the electors should have the right to change their Governments more frequently than every five years. It feels like we have had elections and referendums every five minutes for the past decade, but I hope that that will not always be the case. A four-year cycle would be sensible. As Adam Tomkins said, we might not continue with the Fixed-term Parliaments Act 2011. We might be back in the same position of having to make sure that we separate election years by another means. We should do what is right for our democracy in Scotland and have four-year terms instead of five-year terms. We want to avoid a repeat of the chaos around 2007. We can do that by making sure that we have a system in this Parliament that accommodates any change at Westminster.

In order that I can make another speech on the subject, I hope that there will be another elections reform bill and that it will be more radical. We could have a reform to the voting system in this Parliament. We could align it with the local government voting system, so that we can avoid confusion by having the single transferable vote across the country. That would allow us to educate people fully on the ballot paper. Even with randomised ballot papers, we would have a connection with the communities as well as greater proportionality and simplicity. I urge the minister to consider that for the next elections bill.