Meeting of the Parliament (Hybrid) 03 June 2020
I echo the words of the convener of the Standards, Procedures and Public Appointments Committee and express my solidarity with all those who are protesting against the violence in the US—indeed with people who are joining in across the world. I think that many people are standing in solidarity with the protesters today.
I thank the convener, committee members and clerks and all the witnesses, who assisted us greatly in our deliberations on the bill. We had some interesting meetings.
By its nature, the bill is pretty dry, bureaucratic and technical. However, it is important to our democracy. In a participative, representative democracy, elections must be free and fair, and must be seen to be so. Confidence in the system’s integrity is fundamental to its success. The bill clarifies the role of the Electoral Commission and will rebrand the Local Government Boundary Commission for Scotland as boundaries Scotland. I am sure that that will be expensive, as all these things are, and I am sure that it will be money very well spent.
Our democracy has to be constantly under review to reflect changes in society and culture, and some of the provisions in the bill do that. It seeks to increase participation in our democracy, and I think that we all look forward to seeing the positive results of the initiatives to assist disabled citizens in accessing their ballot and visually impaired voters in voting independently and in secret. It is extremely important that people can exercise their right to vote, and that all barriers to that are removed. That should be an on-going task; I hope that it will be a rolling programme of work, and that the minister will ensure that officials engage with the RNIB and others, as they put forward very practical suggestions. It is disappointing that Colin Smyth’s amendment was not agreed to.
We support the provision of five-year parliamentary session lengths. Adam Tomkins mentioned that support for that is by no means unanimous—indeed, it was not unanimous in my party either. People have views on it one way or the other, and that is no bad thing. However, the majority supported the five-year session lengths.
We also support the possibility of having two or five-member electoral wards in exceptional circumstances, as Adam Tomkins said.
As the bill has come through each stage, it has not addressed the effect of list order, which the committee took evidence on. Many people feel that certain candidates are disadvantaged because of the in-built advantage for candidates who are higher on the ballot paper. During this process, a commitment was made that some serious work would be done on that, and I hope that, in summing up, the minister will confirm that the Government will undertake in-depth research, because the previous research was pretty thin. My personal view is that full randomisation would be the best option.
Willie Rennie mentioned issues to do with paid advertising in elections, which is not covered in the bill. However, he made a very valid point. We have seen the impact of paid advertising in other countries and our own, and it is always good to know who is behind an advert.
We had a number of discussions on electronic voting, and people were open minded about it. However, security was the key issue.
We all have a vested interest in the Scottish election in 2021, some of us for some reasons, and some for others—I am looking at Richard Lyle, because he and I have a reason to be interested in the 2021 election.