Meeting of the Parliament (Hybrid) 24 February 2021
I am aware of two things. One is the cynical exploitation of a range of issues this week by the Conservatives. I am familiar with that, it is a disgrace, and they will pay the price for it. Secondly, I am fully aware that, when the issue is explored and discussed properly, people tend to be on the side of fairness; they do not tend to be on the side of prejudice.
Let me carry on with what I was saying. The Tories would have had to bring an emergency bill to the chamber. They have known what the situation is for a year, but they have brought the matter here this week. Such a bill would require a process to be implemented, and it would be only the second-ever bill, and the only ever emergency bill, to need a supermajority.
What message would that bill send out to the people of Scotland? First, that the priority of the Tories was not Covid, education or health, but themselves and their hard-right views. Secondly, it would send a signal about our willingness to welcome short-term prisoners back into society and about the Parliament’s concern for human rights and the rule of law, which is something that the Tories pretend to support when it suits them. It would trample all over the Gould principle, which argues that changes to electoral law should not be made less than six months ahead of an election—something that the Tories regard as sacrosanct in other circumstances.
Such a bill would send the very odd message that the Parliament might be willing to radically change its mind on an issue that it endorsed by an emphatic margin just a year and four days ago. In fact, it was not pushed through; it was passed by 92 votes to 27, with all the parties voting for it except the Conservatives. It would involve a tiny number of people. There were 643 prisoners in custody serving a sentence of 12 months or less two days ago. Many of those people will not register to vote, due to the length of their sentence or to an unwillingness to do so.
Such a bill would negatively impact on electoral registration officers, who are busy processing large numbers of new postal-vote applications as a result of the pandemic, thus—[Interruption.] No, I will not give way. Thus, it would make the operation of our democracy harder.
Finally, and most dauntingly of all, such a move would resurrect the incompatibility with the European convention on human rights that inspired the Scottish Elections (Franchise and Representation) Act 2020 in the first place and, in so doing, it would put Scotland back at severe risk of significant penalties.
The franchise was extended to prisoners serving sentences of 12 months or less by the will of the Parliament, by 92 votes to 27, on 2 April 2020. The bill that led to that change was passed under the supermajority procedure. It was the first and, so far, only bill of this Parliament to require that majority. It was not pushed through; it was democratically decided. The view of democracy that the Tories give is a sham, and it should be shown as a sham.
Before the change, the Government conducted a consultation, in which only a third of respondents opposed permitting any prisoners the vote. The Standards, Procedures and Public Appointments Committee took evidence on the bill and unanimously concluded that
“the blanket ban on prisoner voting is unsustainable as it is at odds with the European Convention on Human Rights.”
I will lean on legal opinion, not on the opinion of Liam Kerr, who, I have to say, has set himself up against the entire body of jurisprudence on the matter and expects us to believe him.
The Tory motion—[Interruption.]