Chamber and committees

Committee members will be aware that there will be people who have been involved in the process, like us—we have known each other far too long—and our agents. Such people will be able to get involved in the consultation; they know, organically, how the process works. Getting information from those people will make a difference as we move forward.

I agree with that, and it has been an on-going issue. Again, it is all down to training in accessibility issues, consultation with organisations and so on. There are returning officers who have all of these things in place and others who do not, and we need to tell them, “You need to do X, Y and Z so that we get this done.” We have to ensure that it becomes part of the culture.

I will give you a nice, simple answer, Mr Doris. Yes, as in many parts of UK bills, we see common ground in this bill, and we will look at that common ground when we move towards the Scottish electoral reform bill in 2023.

I understand the convener’s point. However, the situation is that we have already partly legislated for digital imprints. If there had been an open dialogue in which we could have engaged, in a perfect world, I would be sitting here, in front of the committee, saying that there was no LCM and that we were going forward with the bill because we agree on so many things and want to do what is best for everyone. However, I tried that during the negotiations in my initial meetings with the Westminster Government. I tried to get that agreement, as did my Welsh colleague—although I should point out that he is in a slightly different position to us, as our justice system is fully devolved—but it just was not going to happen. In effect, we tried to say, “Let’s work together and find a way to sort this out”, but the answer was “No—it will be done this way.” I do not believe that that is in the spirit of the devolved settlement involving all the UK nations, nor is it the way forward, and I believe that a minister of any party colour doing my job in our chamber would have a very similar opinion about how we, in the Scottish Parliament, should take the matter forward and deal with it.

I am quite happy for Iain Hockenhull to add to those comments.

If you are talking about our own consultation on the matter, my answer is yes, I do. As I said in response to an earlier question, we have the option to consult the people who are involved in the process and ensure that they engage with us on that issue. We, as public figures, all know how toxic social media, in particular, can be with regard to some of the things that can be said. However, for me, the most important thing has been to find a way forward, given that we have been a leader in the digital imprint area. When I, quite reasonably, said to my UK colleague, “I am quite happy to take this forward in a Scottish bill, look at some of the ideas you’ve had and see where we go from there,” I was more or less told, “No—we’re totally in charge of that.” In fact, we have received legal advice that suggests that those grounds are a bit ropey.

To answer that specific question specifically, I would say that it is not for me to decide what the UK Government does in its area of government.

I would be open to it being part of the consultation, as we are with everything. However, at the end of the day, the Government makes decisions on various aspects; the Government is against voter ID and, even if the Government was for it, we would probably not get a majority to get it through this Parliament of minorities.

I have already explained a couple of times, and I gave an example of why I believe that it would cause confusion. Even if elections were not on the same day, staff members would need to be retrained to ensure that they knew what levels of ID were available and how people could identify who they were.

The problem—as you quite rightly say, Mr Doris—is that people could be turned away. We have all been at various polling stations when someone has not been on the voters roll and we have seen how upset or aggressive they can be, and in certain situations that can escalate.

In a democracy as mature as ours, I do not think that we need that level of voter ID, because the public understand the process and have not abused it. We would be treating the public with disdain and causing unbelievable confusion, because the position is that we cannot guarantee that there will not be two elections on one day here in Scotland. We know that that would be a problem, having experienced it in the past.

I will bring in Iain Hockenhull after I comment. On the whole, personation is not seen as a major issue. If we consider the issue from the perspective of the various communities that we live and work in, there has been a handful of such situations over decades. We have all heard various stories of that happening in mass cases, but that has not been proven. There have been only minor cases. We would be using a sledgehammer to crack a nut. We are trying to solve a problem that is not a major problem, and I do not see how voter ID would help with the situation that you mention, convener.

I have said previously that the issue is murky, Mr Mountain. I am not convinced that that is the way forward.