Chamber and committees

I have nothing further to add, convener. I will press amendment 63.

Amendment 63 agreed to.

Amendments 64 and 65 moved—[Ross Greer]—and agreed to.

The question of randomising ballot papers, or the advantage or disadvantage of alphabetical order on ballot papers, is not unique to Scotland or the UK, and I am sure that members will be familiar with the issue. This is a long-standing area of debate in all parliamentary democracies.

There is strong evidence that appearing at the top of the ballot paper is an advantage. A quite comprehensive study in 2015 in Denmark found, on average, a 4 per cent advantage to the candidates at the top of ballot papers. In Scotland, the advantage might not be as significant as 4 per cent—there has not been the same rigorous study here—but there are plenty of other studies from across the world showing various levels of advantage to candidates who are at the top of ballot papers. Nothing can be done to prevent that, because somebody needs to be at the top of the ballot paper.

However, based on the principle of fairness, but also the perception of fairness, I think that we should randomise ballot papers so that there is no way to secure that advantage. I remember one particular incident in which a candidate from my party was accused of having changed their surname so that it began with A. That candidate was successfully elected—

Yes, by something in the region of 4 per cent.

I can confirm that that candidate was not particularly enthusiastic about being elected to the local authority in question, and most certainly had not changed their surname to secure that advantage. If they had realised that in advance, they perhaps would have kept their previous surname, although their partner might have had something to say about that.

Because of that unfair advantage, I am proposing randomisation, but I have not prescribed a method of randomisation. Local authority returning officers could simply draw straws or pick names out of a hat. They might want to do it like the cup draw for the football and get minor celebrities in, live stream it and make it a bit more exciting for the three people who will be watching. That is for returning officers to decide. I have simply stated that the ballot papers should be randomised to tackle the issue.

The committee will be glad to know that I will speak to the amendments only very briefly, because I believe that they align with the Government’s intentions. I will use two examples to illustrate why the amendments, which relate to agents and candidates, are necessary.

Amendments 64 and 65 deal with the current requirement for election agents to use their home address. In the relatively recent past, there was an incident in which an individual turned up at the home address of a party election agent on the weekend after an election, because they were seeking the successful candidate who had been elected. The candidate had, quite reasonably, not used their home address in the nomination process, but that individual was able to find the election agent’s home address. Thankfully, the incident did not escalate, but it illustrates the need for us also to give the option that candidates have to their election agents, to ensure that everyone can engage with the process safely.

Amendment 63 would give candidates a new option to state the ward that they live in. At present, candidates can state the local authority area that they live in or the constituency that they live in, when that is relevant.

The example that I will use for amendment 63 relates to the recent Arran by-election. Arran and Cumbrae are the two islands in the North Ayrshire Council area. As you would expect, it is very important to Arran residents that they know that candidates live on the island and, therefore, understand life in an island community. One of the candidates who was put forward by a party did not live on the island, which resulted in the candidates who were Arran residents feeling under pressure to publish their home addresses in order to demonstrate that they lived on the island. The other option was simply to state that they lived in the North Ayrshire Council area, but that could mean that they lived in Irvine, Kilwinning or Ardrossan—in other words, not on the island—and did not have lived experience of island life.

A number of people have approached me to say that they want to be able to demonstrate that they have a connection to the relevant community. That applies not only to islands: particularly in larger local authority areas, a candidate being able to demonstrate that they live in the area is important. People want to be able to demonstrate that without compromising their and their family’s safety by publishing their home address. Amendment 63 would simply provide candidates with the additional option of stating what ward they live in, which would clarify their connection to the community.

I move amendment 63.

I am happy to take up the minister’s offer of further engagement and therefore I seek the committee’s agreement to withdraw amendment 66.

Amendment 66, by agreement, withdrawn.

Amendments 67 and 68 not moved.

Section 28—Pilot schemes under the Scottish Local Government (Elections) Act 2002

I am going to speak only to my own amendment, convener, and I will be quite brief.

Amendment 69 will require parliamentary approval not for all pilots but for any pilot that alters how votes are cast. My primary area of concern is e-voting—electronic voting, digital voting or however you wish to phrase it. I am not seeking to ban e-voting pilots outright, although in all honesty I would do so, but I think that any move from a paper to an electronic ballot, even as part of a pilot, would be of such significance that it should require specific consideration before it went ahead. Any trial of a new system, even in a single area, will still be part of a live election in which somebody will be elected to represent a community.

Given the significance of long-held concerns about the potential ability to compromise such a system, there should be that additional level of scrutiny. Therefore, I propose that any pilot that changes how votes are cast be subject to the Parliament’s approval.

I move amendment 69.

Good morning, everyone. It might seem a little odd in the first instance that I, a Green, am moving an amendment to get rid of cash deposits, now that we are finally at the stage of other parties in that we can afford to pay those deposits ourselves. I am moving it because I do not believe that participants in elections should face financial barriers, and cash deposits obviously create such barriers. The ability to pay £500 bears no relation to the demonstration of a reasonable level of support.

Deposits originated after world war 1 as a way to pay for elections. The political parties themselves, combined, had to pay for the administration of elections. Clearly, we have moved well beyond that, and cash deposits are a legacy of a different era of electoral administration.

The Electoral Commission has reviewed the issue a couple of times. Most recently, in 2015, most of the countries that it reviewed—certainly across Europe—had no cash deposit system. Germany, Italy, Spain and the Netherlands do not have such a system. The United States has quite complicated ballot access arrangements but it does not have a cash deposit system. Those countries that had such a system tended to require financial deposits of far less than the equivalent of £500.

The argument that is used now for cash deposits, given that we have moved beyond the point where they are used literally to pay for the administration of elections, is that they provide a barrier to filter out unserious candidates. They limit the length of our ballot papers compared to those in, say, Australia—where, for some senate elections, ballot papers can reach 1.5m to 2m long, with over a hundred candidates on them.

The length of the Scottish Parliament’s regional list ballots suggests that cash deposits are not exactly acting as a significant disincentive in that manner. Plenty of “unserious” candidates can afford £500, but the financial barrier gets in the way of what might be regarded as more serious candidates, particularly independents.

What I propose instead is that we strengthen the system so that it is equivalent to the nominator or subscriber system that is part of the Westminster general election nomination process. That system long predates cash deposits—it has been in place for Westminster candidacies since the 1870s. Currently, only 10 electors are needed to sign each nomination, but that requirement sits alongside the £500 cash deposit.

For some reason—which I have not quite been able to get to the bottom of—when the Scottish Parliament was established, we replicated the requirement for a cash deposit for Holyrood constituencies but we did not replicate the 10 nominations threshold.

I want to emphasise that this amendment is about implementing a long-held recommendation of the Electoral Commission. The Electoral Commission’s 2015 report states clearly:

“We recommend removing the requirement to pay a deposit at all elections, as we do not consider that there should be a financial barrier to standing for election.”

Instead, I propose to implement a nomination threshold. For constituencies, the threshold would be 0.05 per cent of voters, or 50 individuals. In practice, in most mainland constituencies, 0.05 per cent of voters would usually be slightly more than 50 people. However, the reason that I include the 0.05 per cent as well is to reflect the fact that island constituencies have much lower populations, and it would therefore be reasonable to have a lower nomination threshold in an island constituency. For the list system, the threshold would be 150 voters, or 0.05 per cent of voters—which would generally be around 150 people.

I have included provision in amendment 57 for ministers to vary those thresholds in the future, to reflect population change. I would also propose that cash deposits still be allowed in the event of snap elections, to recognise the fact that it takes a bit more time to collect signatures than it does simply to lay a cash deposit.

The amendment also includes a provision whereby, if a member of a party is elected, the party gets automatic ballot access at the subsequent election. That is quite common across other electoral systems comparable to our own. The fact that a party has had a candidate elected previously is a clear demonstration of its credibility and a reasonable level of public support—therefore, why should any barrier be placed in the way of its standing a candidate again? For example, all of the parties represented in this committee would have to go through the nomination process once, but, assuming that at least one MSP from each of our five parties were returned at the 2026 election, we would not have to go through that process again in 2031.

For the existing Holyrood parties, the amendment would end what I see as, frankly, a total inefficiency whereby hundreds of thousands of pounds are transferred from all our bank accounts at the start of an election period to a council bank account and then transferred back into the party accounts afterwards—assuming that we reach a vote share of 5 per cent in all the relevant locations.

That is amendment 57. You will be delighted to know that I do not have nearly as extensive a set of speaking notes for all of my subsequent amendments. Amendments 57 and 68 are the substantial ones.

I thank the committee members and the minister for taking part in the debate. I recognise that these would be significant changes, but we should be a bit cautious about the argument that significant changes cannot be introduced to bills through amendments, because that robs everyone other than the Government of the ability to make significant changes. Back-bench MSPs from the governing party, as well as Opposition MSPs, also have the right to legislate for substantive things.

Good morning, all. I want to return to and focus on an issue that has been touched on a couple of times. Professor Mannion mentioned evidence that shows that about 80 per cent of the outdoor education that young people in Scotland currently get is not residential—I think that he said that it averages out at about half an hour a week in total. I am interested in your thoughts on the value of outdoor residential education specifically, as opposed to outdoor education more generally.

Suggestions have been made, when the bill was proposed and in the consultation process, that a wider entitlement to outdoor education would be more appropriate than a specific entitlement to residential education. Obviously, the bill proposes residential education specifically, and I do not think that anyone round this table would dispute the value of that—you have all given a compelling case for it. However, I am interested in your thoughts on the argument about whether we should create that specific entitlement or take the wider approach of entitling young people to outdoor education in the round.

I think that it was you, Professor Mannion, who acknowledged that outdoor learning is expensive. The benefit to the children and young people involved is indisputable, but it is resource intensive. Is there a particular value for money argument for residential learning opportunities, as opposed to the wider approach of an entitlement to outdoor learning? I am specifically looking for the argument for residential learning being particularly valuable.