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Official Report: search what was said in Parliament

The Official Report is a written record of public meetings of the Parliament and committees.  

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Dates of parliamentary sessions
  1. Session 1: 12 May 1999 to 31 March 2003
  2. Session 2: 7 May 2003 to 2 April 2007
  3. Session 3: 9 May 2007 to 22 March 2011
  4. Session 4: 11 May 2011 to 23 March 2016
  5. Session 5: 12 May 2016 to 5 May 2021
  6. Current session: 12 May 2021 to 27 December 2024
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Displaying 1830 contributions

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Standards, Procedures and Public Appointments Committee

Electoral Commission

Meeting date: 9 November 2023

Stephen Kerr

The biggest concern for me personally is the completeness and accuracy of the registers. There are lots of stand-out questions on that, particularly about Scotland. For context for those who are watching, I will share something on completeness. A report that you have produced shows that the major errors total in Scotland in 2022 was 18.5 per cent, which was up from 16.5 per cent in 2018. What the watching public might be interested in is the comparison with Great Britain, where the figure is at 13.4 per cent for major errors—we are at 18.5 per cent. That obviously requires explanation. On minor errors—again for context—the number in Scotland is 13.4 per cent, and across Great Britain it is 8.6 per cent.

Something different is happening in Scotland and it seems to be getting worse over time. Why?

Standards, Procedures and Public Appointments Committee

Electoral Commission

Meeting date: 9 November 2023

Stephen Kerr

Do we have a particular challenge in getting any specific group to come on to the register? We have not even begun to talk about accuracy yet—we seem to have a specific challenge with that as well. I take Craig Westwood’s point about not reading too much into one data set, but that is the data that we have. What groups do we have to work particularly hard with to get to the register?

Standards, Procedures and Public Appointments Committee

Electoral Commission

Meeting date: 9 November 2023

Stephen Kerr

What is the Scottish dimension to all of that, particularly the attitudinal stuff?

Standards, Procedures and Public Appointments Committee

Electoral Commission

Meeting date: 9 November 2023

Stephen Kerr

Ivan has just prompted a question in my head about—

Standards, Procedures and Public Appointments Committee

Electoral Commission

Meeting date: 9 November 2023

Stephen Kerr

Is this the significant challenge to the resilience of our electoral system that Dame Susan Bruce referred to in her opening remarks? It is a significant challenge, to my mind. We have an electoral system in a democracy in which one in five of the potential voters is not even on the register, let alone voting. That is very alarming for Scotland’s democracy.

Standards, Procedures and Public Appointments Committee

Cross-Party Group on Ukraine

Meeting date: 5 October 2023

Stephen Kerr

As Dr Allan—when he was in the room—and the convener said, the group is obviously a good idea and it is a way of expressing our collective solidarity with the people of Ukraine in their darkest hour.

Standards, Procedures and Public Appointments Committee

Cross-Party Groups (Compliance)

Meeting date: 5 October 2023

Stephen Kerr

It is all very straightforward, and appropriate actions are being taken to encourage the required compliance with the code of conduct.

Standards, Procedures and Public Appointments Committee

Cross-Party Group

Meeting date: 21 September 2023

Stephen Kerr

It is astonishing that there has not been a cross-party group on fisheries and coastal communities until now.

Standards, Procedures and Public Appointments Committee

Cross-Party Group

Meeting date: 21 September 2023

Stephen Kerr

Have you tried to raise those issues in any existing CPGs? What has been your experience over the past two and a half years?

Standards, Procedures and Public Appointments Committee

Cross-Party Group

Meeting date: 21 September 2023

Stephen Kerr

As a member who represents Central Scotland, I have to be honest that the issue of fisheries has not always been at the top of my inbox or on my casework agenda, but I repeat that fisheries are a vital—in fact, a totemic—part of Scotland’s economy, and it seems extraordinary that we have not had a cross-party group to look specifically at the issue. I am therefore, as you can probably tell, very sympathetic to the proposed group. It highlights that, despite there being however many cross-party groups there are—