Meeting of the Parliament 18 March 2026 [Draft]
The order responds to a European convention on human rights compliance issue that was identified in relation to voting rights for Scottish Parliament elections and which requires to be remedied ahead of the 2026 election.
Section 3A(3) of the Representation of the People Act 1983 includes a blanket ban, similar to the one that used to be in place for prisoners, to prohibit some people detained on mental health grounds relating to criminal justice from voting in elections in the UK. The order makes minor changes to legislation to maintain consistency with exceptions made to prisoner voting in the Scottish Elections (Franchise and Representation) Act 2020, which extended the right to vote in Scottish Parliament and Scottish local elections to prisoners serving sentences of 12 months or less. That bill remains the only bill of this Parliament to have required a two-thirds supermajority in order to be passed and to have obtained that.
I gently point out to Sue Webber and the rest of the Tories, who are forever on about the accuracy of contributions that are made in the chamber, that it was this Parliament, not the SNP, that facilitated prisoner voting.