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I suspect that this will be a shorter debate, convener, but I might be tempting fate.

The Government’s amendment 21 reflects the committee’s recommendation in its stage 1 report on the bill. The bill, as introduced, allows ministers to amend the categories of persons eligible to register with the Electoral Commission as third-party campaigners. The removal or varying of a category will require consultation with the commission, whereas the addition of a category will not.

Under amendment 21, which, as I have said, follows the committee’s stage 1 recommendation, ministers will be able to add a category of third-party campaigner only after a recommendation by the Electoral Commission. That reflects broad agreement that the Electoral Commission should be a key part of the decision-making process in this type of change to campaigning rules.

I agree that it is important to maintain confidence in the system and that it remains free of any perception of possible political influence. Requiring a recommendation from the Electoral Commission for any changes to be made to categories of third-party campaigners is a helpful safeguard in that respect, and provides for consistency of approach to all amendments to the categories of persons eligible to register as third-party campaigners. I therefore invite the committee to support the amendment in my name.

I move amendment 21.

Actually, that was not the point that I was going to come to, but I take the member’s point. However, I come back to the issue that I was trying to touch on, which is that such a move starts to open up the notion that there is a requirement on returning officers and those involved in the process of accepting and processing nominations to take a step beyond the checks that they would otherwise carry out. I think that I am right in recalling that the evidence provided to the committee thus far suggests that the system that we have by and large operates effectively and that there has not been any substantial concern in that respect.

The point that I was going to make is that, strictly speaking, Mr Greer’s amendment does not, in and of itself, set out to create a full screening process, including in the limited circumstances that he has outlined, but I fear that it starts to move us in that direction. It is also not clear why we would pick out just this one aspect of eligibility for the Electoral Management Board to collate data on, and I am concerned that amendment 61 would send a signal that we were moving towards, if not a full vetting system of nominations, then a wider one, which would have huge logistical consequences. I note that the convener of the Electoral Management Board wrote to the committee yesterday to say that the amendment represented

“significant changes in both policy and practice”,

and that his estimation was that it should be “subject to further consultation”.

On that basis, I urge the committee not to support amendment 61, but I look forward to the debate that we will have on this group of amendments.

I move amendment 8.

None, other than to once again urge Mr Greer to consider withdrawing his amendment.

I am grateful to Ross Greer for having taken the time to discuss the amendments with me in advance of today's proceedings. I very much appreciate the points that he has made, which include that requiring candidate deposits could be viewed as a barrier to engagement in the democratic process; that there is a reasonable case to be made for requiring candidates to have demonstrated some support in the process of being nominated in the local area that they are seeking to be a candidate; and that by-elections can impact the proportionality of council representation. I understand the points that Mr Greer has made, and there is some merit in the case for his suggested changes.

However, in my estimation, removing deposits and doing away with local government by-elections represent fairly significant changes. I should say that I know Councillor Ken Andrew very well, and I will certainly be pressing him to not stand down in the Hillhead ward.

I am also taken with the point that Graham Simpson has made. There is a balance to be struck here, but, equally, although we ordinarily vote along party lines in a council election, we are also electing an individual.

Although there is merit in the suggestions, they require some further thought. They involve pretty big changes and they have not been subject to consultation during the bill process. I take the point that Mr Greer has made, that relevant work was done by the Electoral Commission, but that was some time ago. As far as I am aware, the issues were not raised at stage 1, and I note that the Electoral Management Board’s convener has raised some concerns about the changes in his letter to the committee.

I recognise that there is a case to be made for changing the arrangements and that the proposals ape elements of some systems in other jurisdictions, but I think that the difference in threshold for those parties that have had electoral success and those that have not, in terms of requiring them to collect signatures, would require some consideration.

I also note that there are some drafting issues that might require attention if the amendments were to be successful today, although, of course, we could deal with them at stage 3.

I think that the issues that have been aired are worthy of future consideration. They could and probably should be debated and discussed by the Parliament at some point in the future. However, incorporating them into the bill at stage 2 is probably not the best way to make such major changes to how we carry out our elections. On that basis, I urge the committee not to support the amendments.

I refer members to the letter that I have sent regarding the consultation that the Scottish Government has committed to on other areas, which we will turn to in the debates on other groups of amendments. If the issues that have been raised are of interest to the committee, I am more than willing to consider how we might be able to undertake a similar exercise in the area of election law.

I thank Mr Greer for lodging the amendments. It is worth airing the issues, but I ask him to consider not pressing them today. Should he choose to do so, I ask members to vote against them.

I will give the age-old answer that the consultation would be launched as soon as possible. The point is that the commitment would be to hold and conclude the consultation in this parliamentary session. Given that the issues have been raised earnestly, it is important that I make that commitment, and we would honour that. I am genuinely committed to consulting so that we can gather views. As I said, we will ensure that the consultation takes place during this parliamentary session.

Therefore, I urge the committee to vote against the various amendments that I have spoken to—other than my own—and to allow full and proper consultation to take place before Parliament as a whole can take a position on dual mandates.

I am grateful to Ben Macpherson for taking the time to speak to me about his amendment 59. Although there might be a case for an MSP to be required to be ordinarily resident in Scotland, that is another amendment that has not been subject to any prior debate or discussion—it was not raised at stage 1. It might be another area that is worthy of future consultation, but there are important issues to consider, not least whether there would or should be transitional provision to prevent potentially disqualifying currently serving MSPs if, for example, someone happened to reside just over the border. In the first instance, I urge Mr Macpherson not to move amendment 59. However, if he does so, I urge committee members not to support it.

Ross Greer’s remaining amendments in the group cover disqualification orders under the bill and the Elections Act 2022. These are the orders that we are looking to put in place to debar people from office when they are convicted of a crime that involves hostility towards elected representatives, campaigners and electoral workers. Mr Greer’s suggestion that any offence that involves abuse in an electoral context should be subject to a sentencing aggravating factor is interesting. We already provide additional protection for certain groups, such as emergency workers, by setting out sentencing aggravating factors.

It is true that concerns about abuse towards elected representatives and election workers have increased in recent years, and that is the reason for the disqualification orders in the bill. However, I am concerned about adding a sentencing aggravating factor at this stage, as that has not been fully considered. There has not been any consultation on such a step, which could, for example, consider how a new aggravating factor would sit with other statutory aggravating factors.

On amendment 61, Mr Greer has touched on a question that we have discussed before with the committee—that is, the checking of candidate eligibility. That is not a feature of our system; returning officers, in particular, do not check whether candidates are disqualified, and the committee heard evidence at stage 1 about the resource implications if such a system were to be introduced. I would just point out that 2,548 candidates were nominated in the most recent local government elections, while in 2017, 2,572 candidates were nominated. Moreover, in the 2021 Scottish Parliament election, 357 candidates were nominated for constituencies, while in 2016 the equivalent number was 313. I would be very reluctant to set up a screening process without evidence that there was a problem of disqualified people standing for office.

Mr Greer rightly says that there has been a long-standing debate on these issues. I can well imagine that Mr Greer would take far more interest in watching a draw of the order of names on a ballot paper than he would in watching the Scottish cup draw, but I will leave that to one side.

It is clear that there are strong views among many members and councillors that the alphabetical ordering of names on ballot papers has disadvantages. As other members have touched on, the consideration of the issue has a complex past. For a number of reasons, we could not suddenly move to randomising the order of names on ballot papers, particularly without prior consultation and engagement, not least with councils and councillors.

First and foremost, as Annie Wells mentioned, we must consider the concerns that have been raised about the potential negative effects that that would have on some voters with accessibility needs, particularly those with sight loss. The electoral reform consultation that the Government ran in 2017 looked at the possibility of randomisation and other options. Equality groups responded to both that consultation and a study that was undertaken by the Electoral Commission in 2019 to set out their concerns that the randomisation of names would disadvantage people with disabilities, and the Electoral Commission wrote to the committee to make that point.

In responding to the 2017 consultation, the Scottish Council on Visual Impairment said:

“SCOVI’s very strong preference is to retain alphabetic listing of candidates and would urge against moving away from this method. SCOVI acknowledges the concerns about ‘list ordering’ but considers the ability of people with vision impairments to undertake their democratic right to vote independently and in secret to be a principle that must not be jeopardised.”

In its response, Inclusion Scotland stated:

“While we would not disagree that counteracting the list-order effect is a worthwhile goal, we would urge that any system used for doing so be balanced with the potential complication it adds for the electorate.”

I recently wrote to the committee to update it on work to improve the ability of voters with sight loss to complete their ballot independently and in secret. The on-going development of a tactile ballot, paper overlays and the accompanying audio support could potentially be undermined by the randomisation of names on ballot papers. That might be a step backwards for voters with sight loss. It is clear from what we have been told that many voters rely on memorising the order of names on the ballot paper in advance of voting or on using the large posters of the ballot paper in polling stations as an aid. I think that we would all concede that randomisation would complicate that. Although there might be work that could be done to ensure that we would not disadvantage anyone in society, the issue needs to be considered before any changes are made.

I heard what Mr Greer said about consultation and the experience of other places—he mentioned Denmark specifically. I have already mentioned the study that the Electoral Commission undertook in 2019. With regard to the order of names on the ballot paper, it said that it could find “no impact” on the ability of voters to cast their vote.

I note that the amendments also apply to parliamentary elections. The list order affecting local government elections has been debated often and is, I think, understood to a degree by us all. However, I am not aware of any issues that are caused by the order of names on ballot papers in Scottish Parliament elections. I should say that I have no skin in the game in that regard—my surname begins with an H and Mr Greer’s begins with a G, so I am not saying all this out of self-interest. The list order effect is generally considered to be a feature in STV elections, in which one party has multiple candidates standing in the same ward.

The Government last set out its position on the matter in a letter to the committee in October 2022, in which we concluded that we had no plans to undertake further research unless and until there was a specific proposition that was practical and accessible and which had attracted cross-party support. No such proposal has been brought to our attention since then, otherwise we might have been able to test it out.

I am keen to engage with Mr Greer between now and stage 3 on whether we can determine some way of creating, perhaps, an enabling mechanism in the bill that will provide us with the time and space to consult on how we might best address concerns about the order of names on council ballot papers while accommodating the concerns that some organisations have flagged up. As a result, I ask Mr Greer not to press his amendment. Should he choose to do so, I urge committee members not to support the amendments in this group.

I will not seek to extend your patience, convener.

I urge the committee to support my amendments in this group, which relates to the postponement of elections.

The bill’s provisions on the emergency rescheduling of elections are deliberately designed to restrict the postponement of an election by an office-holder, such as the convener of the Electoral Management Board. I think that such decisions should be made by Parliament, if that is at all possible.

The principal purpose of the nationwide postponement provision was to provide time to allow Parliament to pass a bill to set a new date for a local election. I am clear that it was never the intention to suggest that a nationwide local government election could be straightforwardly rearranged within two, or even four, weeks. Local government elections are complex and challenging to deliver, because of the e-counting system that is required to calculate results under the STV system. Rather than give the convener of the Electoral Management Board for Scotland the power to postpone an election by, say, six months, the bill provides for a limited postponement, during which Parliament can decide whether it wishes to pass emergency legislation.

Having heard the evidence at stage 1, I accept that the maximum period could be helpfully increased to four weeks—an aim that is achieved with amendments 25 and 29. I think that the approach is most likely to be of assistance at a local level, where an individual returning officer can decide to postpone the election in an authority area based on local circumstances. In individual areas, that could mean a postponement of up to eight weeks, as the EMB convener’s power to postpone could be followed by a local postponement by a returning officer.

The other amendments reflect the committee’s recommendation in its stage 1 report on ensuring a wider understanding of and confidence in decisions that are taken to reschedule or cancel an election.

The bill as introduced contains provisions to make arrangements to postpone elections and, in the case of certain by-elections, to cancel them. These amendments change part 4 of the bill to require that, when in relation to the Scottish Parliament, the Presiding Officer, and, when in relation to local government, the convener of the Electoral Management Board or relevant returning officer, exercise their power to postpone or cancel an election, they must also publish a statement setting out the reasons for doing so.

As I said in my letter of 16 May to the committee, the bill’s provisions on emergency rescheduling seek to cover situations where postponement is considered essential, but they are deliberately not prescriptive. It is right that those who are entrusted with making those important decisions are not unduly constrained in doing so and are able to draw on their experience and judgment to take account of as wide a range of emergency situations as possible, both local and national.

That said, I also agree with the committee’s assessment that such decisions that impact on the democratic functioning of our country be easily understood and command as much confidence as possible among the public. Requiring the person who makes the decision to postpone or cancel an election to publish a statement setting out the reasons for the decision will help in both regards, and will add an important extra layer of transparency and accountability to the process.

I invite the committee to support the amendments in this group.

I move amendment 22.

Members will recall that we were already looking at this matter. We received a positive response to the consultation that we held on making the proposed changes through secondary legislation.

The Electoral Commission has said in writing to the committee that it supports the amendments in the group. I am supportive of the policy intent behind the amendments. As Mr Greer alluded to, we would have sought to make the changes through secondary legislation, but the amendments enable us to do so now. I am happy to support the amendments in the group.

Members will recall that we have written to the committee about plans for other changes through future secondary legislation. I commit to continuing to keep the committee up to speed with those changes, but of course that is for down the line. Today, I urge the committee to support Mr Greer’s amendments.

Will the member give way on that point?