Seòmar agus comataidhean

Thank you, minister. Before we come to questions, I invite Elena Whitham to put something on the record.

I am grateful for that. I apologise for not inviting you to put that on the record before I invited the minister to present his opening statement.

Minister, I will home in on a couple of points that it might be helpful to get some clarification on. What are the implications of the proposed changes for the transparency of election expenses in local government elections?

That was sort of my understanding from reading through the legislative consent memorandum at the time. It is nice to be able to get this on a more formal statutory setting after some 22 years, if it is agreed to. That is very helpful.

My other question relates to the statement that there are no cost implications. Does that extend as far as the monitoring role that will become a statutory requirement for the Electoral Commission? Has that been considered?

The next group that we will consider is a proposed CPG on maritime and shipbuilding. I welcome Paul Sweeney MSP, who is the proposed convener of the proposed group. Good morning, Paul, and happy new year. I invite you to give a short presentation to the committee about the intentions of the CPG.

I am grateful to the committee for that.

I will ask a final question to ensure that it is on the record. The period for scrutiny was shortened because of the urgency of the legislation, and a relatively small number of groups were consulted on it. The policy document says that there was support for the change. From the consultation, was there any disagreement about the early issuing of poll cards?

There was a significant rise in postal votes for the Holyrood election, but there are a number of people who are unclear as to whether they registered for one election or for continuing postal votes. Indeed, I have spoken to members of the public who have been slightly caught out with that in a by-election. Has any analysis been done of the figures for people who signed up for the Holyrood election alone rather than for continuing postal votes up to the number of years that are permitted?

It appears that Mr Simpson’s video feed has frozen, and I do not know whether we will be able to return to it. I will give him a moment.

From looking at the BlueJeans attendance list, I think that we may well have lost Mr Simpson—unfortunately, he has dropped offline. Ah, the travails of information technology. I think that this has happened in order to give us more evidence for later discussion.

For the record, I thank Mr Simpson for his comments about our debate and the discussions that we had afterwards. In eager anticipation, I look forward to his bill winging its way to us.

I am not getting any indication that Mr Simpson is going to be able to rejoin us. I therefore move to agenda item 3, which is formal approval of the three cross-party groups that we have heard from this morning, on beer and pubs, maritime and shipbuilding, and poverty. Does any member have comments or views to express before I formally put the proposal to the committee? There is no indication that anyone has, so I formally propose that the three CPGs—on beer and pubs, maritime and shipbuilding, and poverty—be accorded recognition. Are we in agreement?

Members indicated agreement.

I am grateful for that.

Thank you very much. I invite Edward Mountain to comment with regard to the proposed CPG. I will ask a couple of questions after that.