Chamber and committees

I hope so.

Mr Mountain asked for my personal opinion and tried to get information about how things will go with regard to the bill. We disagree on some fundamental issues and that is one of them. I do not think that it is right, Mr Mountain.

We are considering the process and ideas all the time. Nobody has suggested that to us yet. If the suggestion is made, I will consider it.

Iain Hockenhull can respond to that.

On the Scottish elections, that is exactly what we want to aim for. We want to ensure that they are open and free and that changes are not made by funding from elsewhere.

In my exchanges with Mr McLennan, I did not use the term “dark money” but I expressed severe concerns about money from abroad. The bill provides the opportunity for someone who has not been involved in the electoral process, who has not been a taxpayer of the UK and who has not been in the country for 14 years to influence a UK election if they have the financial ability to do so. That is a concern. It is not transparent, as Mr Doris says. It is not what we are all about here, because the Scottish Parliament has always been about ensuring that the elections are fair and above board.

I have concerns about allowing someone who has not been involved in the electoral process or even lived in the country for 14 years being able to engage and spend money in a UK election.

To generalise across the piece, we are working towards making sure that there is no confusion, regardless of what part of the UK bill we are talking about or what ends up in the Scottish bill. We are trying to work out a way in which we cannot cause that confusion. However, at the same time, if we find a better way of working, with regard to any parts or aspects of the bill, we will also go forward with that, as my Welsh colleagues have done. We recently—towards the end of the previous session—had a bill in that area, but my Welsh colleagues have not had that, so they are playing catch-up and looking at various things.

From our perspective, part of this bill is about digital imprints, which we have already legislated on. In effect, the UK Government has come in and said, “Ours is the right way forward,” but we were the first UK Administration to legislate in the area. To put your mind at ease, Mr Doris, we are trying to find ways to make sure that there is no confusion, which is why we are consulting before bringing forward a bill in 2023.

Voter ID is the main issue on which we cannot agree, and that has been the situation from day 1 of our discussions. We feel that voter ID makes it even more difficult for people to engage. We have just come off the back of a Scottish Parliament election that had the highest-ever turnout of people going to the polls to express their opinion.

My fear is that voter ID will cause confusion because we will not be using it. We never know when there will be a Westminster election, even though we have the Fixed-term Parliaments Act 2011. As Mr Mountain mentioned, there will probably be an election well before there should be one. A Westminster election could happen at any point and we could have a scenario that would be difficult for us and the Welsh to deal with, in which a UK election was held on the same day as or within the period of a Scottish election.

Let us imagine that the two elections were held on the same day. That would be a nightmare scenario. UK officials have told us that they will try to avoid that, but that does not fill me with confidence. We could end up in a situation in which people were voting on the same day in elections in which there were two different voting systems with different processes and, added to that, voter ID was used for one of them but not for the other.

I am against voter ID because, for example, an elderly person who had voted at the same polling station for the past 20 to 25 years could turn up to vote in a Westminster election, regardless of when it might be, and say, “I’ve voted here for the past 25 years,” only to be asked for their voter ID and told, “You’ve not done it.” It just makes the process more difficult at a time when we are trying to get the public to engage more with the political process.

Let us look at the successes of the most recent Scottish parliamentary elections and encourage people to vote. The voter ID proposal is an example of how to discourage and dissuade people from voting.

Indeed, but that would involve a level of conspiracy theory that would make YouTube producers blush. For us not to find out, it would have to be done on a massive scale, and I do not believe that that is the case.

You can guarantee that that will be the case because, as most committee members will be aware, my wife, Stacey, has multiple sclerosis and is a wheelchair user, so it is important to me personally that the challenges are addressed.

On the tactile voting proposal, as I think that you are aware, I visited Forth Valley Sensory Centre to see how it works, because I am a great believer in seeing approaches. You are right that, in a digital age, it is a very analogue way of dealing with the issue but, from what I have seen and from trying it out myself, I know that it works and makes it easier for everyone with sight loss to engage with the electoral process.

I am all for trying to find easier ways for people to engage with the process but I am also all too aware how difficult it can be for people with physical disabilities, such as sight loss, to do so. A lot of that has to do with the training of staff in the polling stations. I will make one commitment: we will endeavour to ensure that that is not an issue.

Mr Mountain seems to have stumbled on to the actual issue that we are dealing with here and now. The problem is not one of my making; I am not the one who is dramatically changing UK electoral law—I cannot legislate for UK elections. It is the UK Government that is dramatically changing electoral law.

We have had discussions during the process and we have tried to engage with the UK Government on the matter. At one point, we tried to bring the UK Government round and to change various things, so that we could have a level playing field for all elections, but that just was not going to happen—and it did not happen.

The UK Government has made an assumption, whether or not you think it is right—I think that it is wrong—that it will just carry on and do things its way. It is not we, in this Parliament, who have created the problem. If there was a UK election during the intervening period, it would be under UK electoral law anyway, so there would be no difference in that regard. I agree with Mr Mountain that the UK Government has included various things that would create differences in the process, many of which we have discussed today.

I am not to blame for this. My colleagues have tried to influence the situation but have been unable to do so. The Welsh Government and I totally agree on the way forward. Our colleagues in Wales are doing the same as I am doing. In fact, they are going further, as they are adding to their electoral bill some other ideas that are not part of the proposed UK election legislation.