Meeting of the Parliament

Meeting date: Thursday, February 25, 2016

Official Report 889KB pdf

---

Scottish Elections (Dates) Bill: Stage 3

The next item of business is a debate on motion S4M-15709, in the name of Joe FitzPatrick, on the Scottish Elections (Dates) Bill.

15:40  

I am pleased to open the debate at stage 3 of the Scottish Elections (Dates) Bill.

I thank the Standards, Procedures and Public Appointments Committee for its scrutiny of, and support for, the bill. Throughout the passage of the bill, I have emphasised that it is very short and straightforward. Nonetheless, it is an important bill, and Parliament has rightly subjected it to the same level of scrutiny as all other bills are subjected to. From the Government’s perspective, it has gone through the same processes as all other bills to ensure its robustness, so I take this opportunity to thank my bill team for their efforts and diligence. That the bill has got to this stage without any amendments being lodged speaks for itself.

I will take this opportunity to recap what the bill will do. As things stand, there will be elections to both the Scottish and UK Parliaments on 7 May 2020. Therefore, the bill proposes moving our election, which is currently scheduled for 7 May 2020, to 6 May 2021. That will mean a five-year term for the next Parliament, and will mirror the one-year extension to this current term. Moving the Parliament election to May 2021 would mean that it would clash with the local government elections that we had scheduled for the same date, so the bill will also move those elections, which are currently scheduled for 6 May 2021, to 5 May 2022. Again, that will mean a five-year term, and will replicate the one-year extension to the current local government term.

During the stage 1 debate, I set out the reasons why I consider the clash of election dates to be undesirable and why the bill is therefore necessary. I will not repeat those reasons now, but it is worth noting that the tenor of the debate at stage 1 indicated consensus in support of the arguments that underpin the bill. However, there is clearly less unanimity on the longer-term solution to the clash of election debates. There was a very interesting debate about future term lengths during the stage 1 debate, in which members expressed a range of views.

It is important to reiterate that decisions on permanent changes to the timing of elections will be for members in the next session of Parliament to take. However, I restate my party’s commitment to publicly consult on the issue, should we be returned to Government. That consultation would be wide ranging, and I hope that it would prove to be useful to those who make the decisions. The contributions that have been made by members during the passage of this bill will undoubtedly also help to inform future decisions.

In conclusion, I emphasise that this short bill presents a straightforward and pragmatic solution to the issue of a clash of election dates.

I move,

That the Parliament agrees that the Scottish Elections (Dates) Bill be passed

15:43  

In opening the debate for Scottish Labour, I say at the outset that we will support the bill at decision time tonight.

The Scottish Elections (Dates) Bill is a concise and effective piece of legislation that aims to make the next term of the Scottish Parliament a five-year term, which will mean that the next elections to the Scottish Parliament, after this May, will be held on 6 May 2021. As a consequence, the Scottish local government elections will also be delayed by a year, which will mean that, after 2017, the next Scottish local government elections will take place on 5 May 2022. Thereafter, elections to Scottish local government will return to taking place every fourth year.

The change to the law will ensure that we do not see a repeat of 2007, when Scottish parliamentary and local government elections were held on the same day, which resulted in mass voter confusion and a record number of spoiled ballot papers. In the aftermath of the 2007 election, the Gould report was published. It recommended complete separation of local government and Scottish Parliament elections—that is exactly what the bill does.

The change to the law will avoid any potential clashes that may arise with Westminster general elections following the introduction of the Fixed-term Parliaments Act 2011. The next UK general election is scheduled for 7 May 2020, so moving the Scottish Parliament elections to the following year will avoid a clash of those two very important elections.

As has already been mentioned, holding multiple elections on one polling day causes problems including an increase in the number of spoiled ballot papers. That is exactly what we saw on 3 May 2007, when the Scottish local government elections and Parliament elections were held on the same day, which resulted in a record number of 142,000 spoiled ballot papers. I am sure that we all across the chamber agree that we should do everything in our powers to ensure that that situation never occurs again.

A five-year session for the Scottish Parliament will maintain its stability, scrutiny and performance. As Joe FitzPatrick pointed out, it will be up to the next Government to determine when elections take place after that. An alternative three-year session for the Scottish Parliament, which would bring the Scottish Parliament elections forward to 2019, would also have avoided a potential clash with the UK general election, but the main problem with a three-year session would have been the risk of the next Scottish Government implementing poor and rushed legislation in an effort simply to introduce new laws within its short term.

The other devolved institutions—the Northern Ireland Assembly and the National Assembly for Wales—also have five-year parliamentary terms, as does the UK Parliament. The Scottish Parliament should also have five-year parliamentary terms and remain in line with the other Government institutions in the UK.

This is a short but nevertheless important debate. I confirm our support for the bill.

15:46  

We in Parliament debate many highly charged and contentious issues, which are robustly discussed. However, the Scottish Elections (Dates) Bill is not one of them. As has been said, it is a short and straightforward bill.

The twin proposals to shift the Scottish Parliament and local government election dates to 2021 and 2022 respectively are sensible and necessary, and will receive the support of the Conservatives. Indeed, it seems clear that the bill has received wide support both from within and outside Parliament.

According to the policy memorandum, the Scottish Government consulted several organisations on the proposed date changes, including the Convention of Scottish Local Authorities, the Electoral Commission, the Electoral Management Board for Scotland, the Electoral Reform Society, the Scottish Council for Voluntary Organisations and the Society of Local Authority Chief Executives and Senior Managers. That is an exhaustive and impressively authoritative compendium of electoral expertise, and I am very glad that all are said to be supportive of the bill. That consensus is encouraging.

It is important to reflect on how we got to where we are. The Gould report of 2007 pointed out the undesirable aspects of twinning local government elections and Scottish Parliament elections. Cross-party agreement has now emerged on the principle that that is indeed an unwise course of action, and that those elections should not fall on the same day as general elections to the House of Commons or any other significant elections. That principle is, of course, recognised in the Scotland Bill, which declares that UK legislation should prevent a Scottish Parliament election from being held on the same day as a UK general election, a local election or an election to the European Parliament. That is good practice to which we should adhere.

It is worth noting that the powers that we are exercising are yet another example of further devolution in practice. The responsibility for changing the date of a Scottish Parliament election currently sits with the UK Parliament, but the Smith commission, on which I served, recommended that

“The Scottish Parliament will have all powers in relation to elections to the Scottish Parliament and local government elections in Scotland”.

However, the Scotland Bill that is currently before the Westminster Parliament will not be enacted in sufficient time to resolve the issue that immediately faces us.

It is important that, before they go to the polling station, people know the length of the next parliamentary session and can make a decision with that knowledge. I am very glad that the specific issue is being addressed in the Scotland Bill but, as I said, it will not be passed in time, so the Scottish Elections (Dates) Bill is necessary.

There has been productive co-operation between our two Governments, and I want to see that continue. It is another example of the spirit of the Smith commission working in practice to very good effect for the people of Scotland.

I am very pleased to say that my party will support the bill at decision time.

We move to the open debate. I call Stewart Stevenson. You have up to three minutes, Mr Stevenson.

15:49  

The bill—all 200 words of it—was looked at intensively by the Standards, Procedures and Public Appointments Committee and we reported, in a mere 1,000 words, our conclusions in its support.

It is part of the continuum of reform, over a long period, of our process of representative democracy, which started perhaps with the great reform act of 1832, which took the vote away from women who, if they had been head of the household and met the property qualification, had had the vote until that point.

The Representation of the People Act 1867, which quadrupled the size of the electorate, caused its own problems. In 1872, we had to introduce secret ballots, the first of which took place at Pontefract on 15 August of that year. The minister should be aware that, at that time, if appointed to office as a minister, one had to resign one’s seat and fight a by-election before being permitted to take up ministerial office. That led, in the 1880s in Scotland, to the situation in which a member had been elected to the Westminster Parliament in a by-election, was appointed a minister, and immediately had to resign and fight another by-election. They were only eight days apart. We think that we have too many elections; perhaps, then, there were even more.

When Winston Churchill lost his seat in Dundee in 1922, there was a first-and-second-past-the-post system, in which we had a single vote but elected two members. In 1945, in the university seats, for which we elected three members using a single transferable vote system, the third member, a Conservative, got—

Will the member take an intervention?

No—I cannot with only three minutes. I am sorry.

The member is in his last minute.

The third member was successfully elected on the seventh round of redistribution of votes, having also lost their deposit—an outcome that I wish for many of my Conservative friends in the forthcoming election.

It is said that, in political debate, the debate is not always over when everything has been said but merely when everyone has finally said it. I think that everything that can be said about this bill has probably now been said.

Excellent. Thank you for your brevity. We move to closing speeches. I call Annabel Goldie, who has up to three minutes—although less would be more.

15:52  

Goodness. It seems like only seconds since I was here, but here we go.

I could say that this has been a profound and extensive examination of the bill that is before us. However, it is clear—not for the first time with a bill—that it may be short and straightforward, but important. It is interesting that it is a pragmatic response to a problem of timescales. That was necessary and sensible. Nonetheless, I may not be alone in believing that constitutional matters such as this should not be driven purely by practicalities. It is clear that many members—Mary Fee referred to it—feel that there needs to be a more established convention to regulate the length of sessions of the Scottish Parliament and to provide a more permanent approach to avoiding potential clashes with other elections.

That needs to be based on a broad debate and on proper examination of the different options that are available to us. Although it will be an issue for the next session of Parliament, it is worth signalling in this debate that it is something to which we really need to apply our minds. It will not affect me because I shall not be here, but I hope—I say to Stewart Stevenson—still to be alive to exercise my vote to support my party in its enhanced and, I predict, increased presence in this Parliament, post May.

Some good work has already been done in Parliament, not least by the Standards, Procedures and Public Appointments Committee. The committee came up with the option of three years, but the consensus is that that is too short for a parliamentary session.

Dr Richard Simpson had concerns: he thought that we should perhaps ally the Scottish elections with the European cycle, with voting in local and Scottish Parliament elections also being held on the same day. I would not support that—I do not think that it is the best solution. The Smith commission, which I referred to in my opening speech, looked at the issue briefly and felt that there should not be an election on the same day as the elections to the UK Parliament or the European Parliament, or any nationwide local government elections. There is scope for investigating that further and for looking at what Wales and Northern Ireland have decided to do. They have both taken the step to legislate to regulate the position.

I am not advocating any one position at this stage, but am merely pointing out that it is important for the future that we do not just react on an issue-by-issue basis in order to do what we need to do to get the matter through, but instead come up with an enduring solution.

There is a myriad of possibilities. The issues are significant. They affect not just us as members of this Parliament, and they affect not just candidates who want to come to this Parliament: they also affect every voter in Scotland.

I have three minutes, Presiding Officer, and I intend to use every last second.

In conclusion, I say that this is a worthwhile bill and an important one, and my party will support it.

James Kelly has up to three minutes. Less would be more for you too, Mr Kelly.

15:55  

I have not even started yet. [Laughter.]

Thank you, Presiding Officer. The debate really has been a quick run around the park for everyone. I want to indicate my party’s support for the bill at stage 3.

I think that both the minister and Annabel Goldie used the word “pragmatic” in relation to the solution that has been developed. That is correct. Nobody wanted a situation in which the general election and the Scottish elections clashed. That is important because each election has its own distinct issues and set of candidates. If the elections were to clash, it would lead not only to confusion among voters, but to a situation in which it is more difficult and challenging for the political parties and individual candidates to get their distinct messages across. From that point of view, the bill is the right thing to do.

The current situation is a repeat of the one in 2010, when we extended the current parliamentary session to five years. There is an important job to be done in the next session of Parliament in ensuring that the situation does not occur again. We want to avoid clashes of elections, but we need to be very clear about what the ideal lengths of Parliament and local government terms are. One of the regrettable aspects of this necessary legislation is that local government terms will also be extended to five years, when in recent times they have been four years. There is an argument to be made that a system in which politicians and administrations are up for election every four years is more democratic because that length of term makes them more responsive to the needs of the people. It is an important issue that needs to be addressed in the next session of Parliament.

In the meantime, as others have said, this bill is a pragmatic solution and it is the right thing to do. That is why we are seeing Parliament and the parties come together to support the bill today.

Many thanks. I appreciate your brevity. I call Joe FitzPatrick to wind up. Minister—you have up to two minutes.

15:58  

I thank the members who have taken part in the debate for their contributions. It is clear from them that there is consensus on changing the dates of the next Parliament and local government elections. That consensus is welcome, and I believe that it is important that there is agreement across the chamber on the significant issue of changing election dates.

As I said in my opening remarks, there is, however, less consensus about what permanent solution should be implemented when Parliament gets the power to make longer-term changes. When that power comes here, it will be important for us to consider the issue carefully and to undertake the widest possible consultations. I am sure that the suggestions that have been made through the bill’s process will be taken on board.

It is imperative that a solution to the 2020 clash of election dates is implemented before voters go to the polls in May. The Scottish Elections (Dates) Bill offers a solution, and I welcome the agreement across the chamber on this relatively short, yet important, bill. Again I thank members for their contributions and invite them to support the motion to approve the Scottish Elections (Dates) Bill at decision time.

Many thanks. That concludes the debate on the Scottish Elections (Dates) Bill.