Hansard

I wrote to the convener of the committee on 1 August to respond formally to the committee's report. I said that I was grateful for the committee's detailed consideration of the important issues that arose from the 2007 elections and I am happy to repeat that message today.

Having considered the report further, I welcome it as an important contribution to the debate. I also thank Duncan McNeil for his positive contribution this morning across a wide range of issues. My speech will have to be a bit more focused, but I may get a chance when I sum up to come to other issues. I welcome the emphasis that Duncan McNeil placed on equalities and I support such an approach.

I was pleased to note that so many of the committee's recommendations echoed the commitments made in the Scottish Government's response to the Gould report, which was published back in March. Therefore, it is not surprising that I am happy to accept the majority of recommendations and comments. Ron Gould identified many problems with our electoral system; it is now up to us as a Government and all of us as members of the Parliament to ensure that we address them.

We should never forget that the electoral system is the bedrock of our democracy, so we must get it right. The Gould report identified that complicated systems and structures have been created over many years to manage our elections. It identified the complexity of the legislation and the fragmentation of roles and responsibilities as a crucial barrier to smooth-running elections. We have a lot to do. Nevertheless, if we can draw a line under the events of May 2007 and learn from them, there can still be a silver lining. We have the opportunity to address those systemic failures and to take the necessary steps to re-establish public confidence in our democratic process.

As Duncan McNeil said, Ron Gould stated that the voters in Scotland were "treated as an afterthought" and we must ensure that we never allow that criticism to be levelled at us again. We published our response to the Gould report in March 2008 and the committee's helpful report followed on from that.

In responding to the report, I make no apology for starting with the issue of jurisdiction. Where should the responsibility for elections in Scotland lie? The committee supported the central recommendation of the Gould report and the resolution of the Parliament that executive and legislative powers for administration of its own elections should be transferred to the Scottish Government and to this Parliament.

Ron Gould reached that conclusion in October 2007 and the Scottish Parliament reached the same conclusion in January 2008. The Local Government and Communities Committee made it a hat trick in June 2008. So far, unfortunately, the United Kingdom Government has failed to see the logic of the recommendation. On 24 June, it outlined its formal response to the Gould report. Although its response was disappointing, we will continue to press it to change its position. Judging by a letter that Bob Doris received from the new Secretary of State for Scotland, such a change is perhaps unlikely, but it would be in the interests of every voter in Scotland if it were to happen. However, we cannot wait for Westminster and put the work that we have to do on hold. For the moment, we must accept that we are where we are and we must move forward to undertake the reforms that are deliverable within our current competence. We must focus on what we can do to restore public trust and confidence in the electoral system in Scotland.

On 3 September, the First Minister announced our legislative programme to Parliament. Among the bills to be introduced is the Scottish Parliament and local government elections bill, which will be introduced in January 2009 and will decouple the Scottish parliamentary and local government elections. When we consulted on the proposals earlier in the year, the responses showed that there was overwhelming support for our plans to separate the elections. There was even stronger support for the proposal that local government elections should be moved to the mid-point of the Scottish Parliament session.

The bill will give effect to that, and to the recommendations made by the Local Government and Communities Committee, by extending the current and subsequent local government term to five years. Subject to parliamentary approval, the next two local government elections will take place in 2012 and 2017. After that, local government terms of office will revert to four years.

The bill will also introduce provisions to allow returning officers to release information at polling station level, which will help to increase confidence in the overall result and will provide political parties with valuable information that they can use to analyse how their total vote is compiled. That change will also have benefits in respect of building confidence in the voting system, but we must ensure that the underlying principle remains the secrecy of the ballot.

The committee supported decoupling, the provision of post-election information and other large parts of the response to Gould. I will take the opportunity to comment on a number of recommendations in the committee's report.

On ballot papers, the committee expressed concern about the security and integrity of the ballot. I will be happy to consider anything that the committee has to say on the matter. We hope to address the problem next year when we consult on what can be summarised as the administrative Gould recommendations.

The committee also raised concerns about ballot paper design, which echoed Ron Gould's comments. We are already involved in work with the Electoral Commission and others to consider possible changes. The aim must be to develop a ballot paper that is easy to use and fair: an effective ballot paper that allows voters to vote the way that they want to and gives them confidence that their vote will count. A number of issues must be considered in that work and I know that many in Parliament and elsewhere have ideas that they want to put forward.

As Duncan McNeil said, changes to ballot paper design must be backed up by public information and education campaigns. The designs must be tested extensively before they are introduced, and the test must be whether any changes put the voter first.

I am pleased to say that personal identifiers are an example of co-operation with the committee. My officials have shared with the committee a draft of the regulations that will shortly come before it through the formal procedures.

The regulations will specify how personal identifiers for absent voters should be collected and used for Scottish local government elections. They will also set a requirement for returning officers to check a certain percentage of the postal votes that are returned against the personal identifiers that have been submitted ahead of the election. The Electoral Commission recommends that 100 per cent personal identifier verification should be mandatory, and I am attracted by the idea of 100 per cent checks; however, I am also conscious of the need to consider the cost-effectiveness of such an approach. For instance, for other elections in the United Kingdom, the law requires that returning officers check at least 20 per cent of returned voting statements. That minimum requirement is set out in law, but I am told that, in reality, returning officers aim to check 100 per cent of postal votes. In this year's elections to the Greater London Assembly, for instance, virtually all the returning officers checked 100 per cent of the returned postal voting statements.

I turn to the introduction of the chief returning officer for Scotland. The Scottish Government agrees with the committee that it is vital that there are clear lines of accountability and responsibility for running elections and that a CRO would help to address the issue. A consultation paper, which we will issue before the end of the year, will consider possible models for a CRO for Scotland. As suggested by the committee, our work in drafting that paper will be informed by experiences elsewhere, including Northern Ireland.

We all know that the electoral landscape in Scotland has been fragmented, cluttered and confused, and we must not let that become a cliché; it is a fact that we must do something about. We need a coherent and unified organisation of elections, based in Scotland, that is clearly accountable to Scottish ministers and to the Parliament. We need to develop a system that is right for Scotland. Yes, we can look at models elsewhere, but we must remember that they were designed for different countries with different traditions. We must be careful not to create new posts or organisations if we cannot justify them. As everyone knows, the Government is working to simplify and consolidate the range and scope of public bodies in Scotland. We must keep that in mind in considering a possible CRO. There may be other ways—which I would like to hear about—of providing the co-ordination and coherence that we need.

I understand that the elections in London used electronic counting, and Ron Gould concluded that electronic counting is preferable to a manual count for an STV election—as one might expect. Given the complex counting procedures that are required under STV, it is right that we should encourage the use of electronic counting. Nevertheless, before we can commit to its widespread use in future elections, we must do all that we can to restore the credibility of the system and confidence in it. That means carrying out rigorous tests in comparable circumstances to those of elections, to protect against the failures that were experienced last year.

There is a lot to do, and we have a work plan to ensure that new arrangements will be in place well before the next elections. I very much look forward to working with the committee—indeed, with people throughout the Parliament—over the coming months to re-establish the confidence of the electorate in Scotland's electoral system.