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We live in exceptional circumstances. What happened in the 2021 election was driven by the need to ensure adequate time for administrators to process a possible surge in demand for postal votes due to the pandemic. Given the increase in postal voters last May, we do not anticipate a similar increase this year, as many people who will want to vote by post will already have that facility in place. I have been voting by post since 2007. That was mainly a quirk of my being so busy in my working life, but I won an election that year and—although not being superstitious—just decided to remain a postal voter, and I have been winning elections ever since.

We do not anticipate encountering the same issue as last year. Postal voters will already be down to vote by post. Bringing forward the deadline would reduce the amount of time that people would have in which to apply for a postal vote. We do not anticipate there being any more postal voters than last year. We already have a solid group of individuals who have indicated that they wish to vote that way.

I do not believe that there will be any impact. Candidates’ expenses, returns and declarations are already available for public inspection for two years following their receipt by the returning officer, and copies can be requested on payment of a fee. The new requirement for returning officers to send copies of candidates’ expenses, returns and declarations to the Electoral Commission, if requested, allows for the commission to request copies without payment of a fee.

I will ask Iain Hockenhull to give you a more detailed answer to that question. We can take it from there.

At that point, I was your chief whip rather than the minister, so I will ask Iain Hockenhull whether he knows anything regarding that.

We fundamentally disagree with the UK Government on the issue. I do not think that the Scottish Government has been quiet about its position that it does not believe that voter ID is the way forward. As Mr Mountain has heard from me today, it has been shouted from the rooftops that we fundamentally disagree with voter ID.

There is a big difference between something that we all fundamentally disagree with and aspects of the bill where we could probably find a Scottish solution.

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.