The next item of business is a debate on motion S2M-1495, in the name of Andy Kerr, that the Local Governance (Scotland) Bill be passed, and one amendment to that motion.

Before I begin, I place on record my and Tavish Scott's appreciation for the hard work of the Executive officials who have supported us as we dealt with the bill. It has been an interesting journey.

The Local Governance (Scotland) Bill will make council membership more accessible. It will introduce new arrangements for determining councillors' remuneration and bring in the single transferable vote system for council elections. The bill is an important part of our modernisation and reform agenda. It is a key bill that stems from the partnership agreement that we entered into last year. One of the main issues that the bill deals with is electoral reform, which has been subject to extensive consultation and debate over recent years. Indeed, that debate has gone on since the Scottish constitutional convention's proposals were adopted in the Scotland Act 1998, which provided a system of proportional representation for Scottish Parliament elections.

A wide range of views has been expressed about different parts of the bill, especially by some serving councillors. Indeed, clear views have been expressed not just by councillors, but by many MSPs, who have used numerous and varied arguments about the various options for change. I do not underestimate the significance of the changes to local government that we seek to introduce. However, although we have listened closely to the views that have been expressed and have considered the alternatives that have been proposed, we have not been convinced by those arguments.

As members will recall, a clear majority of responses to our consultation on the bill favoured change. The Parliament supported that change when it voted in favour of the general principles of the bill at stage 1. In today's debate, some will argue that STV will be too difficult for voters and for election staff. They will claim that the ballot papers will be too long, votes will be wasted, wards will be too big and the count will take too long. We do not agree. Those issues should not stand in the way of the bill being passed and we are confident that they will have been addressed before the next local elections take place.

Our agenda remains to renew and to strengthen local democracy rather than to undermine it. We should not be constrained by the past. The bill will put voters first, which is where they must always be. Our other local authority reforms have ended compulsory competitive tendering, introduced three-year budgets and brought in community planning. We have thereby empowered councillors to act in the best interests of their electors. Our modernisation and reform agenda means that we will not shy away from trying something new. In building the new Scotland, our coalition Executive knows that the challenge that we face is not the local government electoral system, but the battle for hearts and minds. We will build that new Scotland by winning arguments, by showing leadership and by delivering for the people of Scotland.

Innovative and imaginative voter education will be needed to ensure that voters understand how to cast their vote in the polling station and the broad principles of the transfer process. Returning officers and their staff will require to be trained and they will need to learn from others who already operate STV. Given that new wards will need to be created, the Local Government Boundary Commission for Scotland will soon start to work with councils to draw up proposals. Councillors will also need to change how they work in the new multimember wards. Moreover, councils will need to think about what the new arrangements will mean in practice for the way in which they do business. We will work closely with bodies such as the Electoral Commission, the Local Government Boundary Commission for Scotland and the individual local authorities, as well as with people such as returning officers and their staff, in order to implement the bill effectively.

The bill is not just about STV. That reform is part of a much bigger package that will make significant changes to councillors' remuneration and introduce new measures to widen access to council membership. Those measures are critical to ensuring that councillors more accurately reflect the make-up of the communities that they seek to represent. The current system of councillors' allowances has long been in need of an overhaul. With the bill, the Executive is taking that step by establishing a committee that will make recommendations on councillors' remuneration, including their pension arrangements. The bill also contains simple, straightforward and essential measures to secure widened access to council membership. Those measures will have a positive effect on councils across Scotland and they will be reinforced by the work and recommendations of the widening access progress group, which will report later this year. Taken together, the measures in the bill will be a key part of our on-going modernisation agenda, which is about improving public services and putting the needs of the citizen first.

I know that some members and councillors have difficulties with parts of the bill but, as I said at stage 1, although the bill presents every councillor in Scotland with big challenges, I am confident that those challenges will be met.

Will the minister give way?

I will not.

Councillors will need to embrace the opportunities that the new arrangements will provide by fighting the next election on their track record of how they have served their constituents. They must then try to make the new arrangements work in the best interests of the electorate in their new wards.

I am pleased that the Parliament supported the general principles of the bill at stage 1. My colleague Tavish Scott will deal with the amendment in his closing remarks. I hope that colleagues will approve the bill.

I move,

That the Parliament agrees that the Local Governance (Scotland) Bill be passed.

Before I speak to the amendment in my name, I put on record the Scottish National Party's long-standing support for STV proportional representation. For a long time, the introduction of STVPR has been SNP policy, as we believe that such a system is needed for local government elections.

Because the Executive parties were dragging their feet, last year I introduced a member's bill on the issue. We could already have had STVPR in place if, regrettably, the Labour Party and the Liberals had not opposed my bill. In passing, I point out that the provisions for STV in the Local Governance (Scotland) Bill bear a remarkable resemblance to the provisions of the Proportional Representation (Local Government Elections) (Scotland) Bill, which was rejected because the Liberals and others believed that there was not enough detail on the face of the bill—the same detail that the Executive has chosen to include in regulations.

The reason for the amendment is that amendments that Mr Sheridan, Mr Mundell and I attempted to lodge at stage 2 to decouple the Scottish Parliament elections from the local government elections were ruled inadmissible because they were outwith the scope of the bill. We believe that that matter is serious. When the Local Government and Transport Committee took evidence at stage 1, it became clear that there were concerns that holding two different elections on the same day using different forms of proportional representation would be problematic not just for voters, but for those who administer the elections. In evidence to the committee, the Society of Lawyers and Administrators in Scotland said:

"The firm and unanimous view of the Society in its submission to the Scottish Executive on September was that if STV was to be introduced for local government elections then these elections should be decoupled from the Scottish Parliament Elections."

The SNP opposed combining the two elections in the first place, but the Parliament cannot now ignore the compelling evidence in favour of decoupling them, given that we are almost at the point of passing a bill to introduce PR.

Time is short, but I would like to make a couple of other points about STVPR. First, I agree that the mechanisms of the election should be determined by regulation. However, it is important that the Executive should take on board the serious concerns that have been expressed about the extent of those regulations and the method by which the Parliament deals with them. Secondly, I refer to the point made by my colleague Bruce McFee about the role of the Local Government Boundary Commission for Scotland. In trying to square away the councillors, the Executive has compromised the commission's independence. The SNP believes that that will leave the door open to a potential legal challenge. I ask the Executive to reflect on that point.

The bill is not perfect and we are concerned by aspects of it, but the SNP will support it. For many of us, the introduction of PR for local government is a long-held ambition. I recognise the commitment to it among MSPs from every party and acknowledge that tonight some members from the Labour Party cannot bring themselves to support it. However, all parties will win and lose in local government elections held under STV. The SNP will lose in Angus, whereas Labour will lose in Midlothian and Glasgow. The winners will be the voters, who will get the council for which they voted—their votes will count. That alone is reason enough for supporting the bill. We call on members from all parties to do so tonight.

I move amendment S2M-1495.1, to insert at end:

"but, in so doing, considers that the Scottish Executive should bring forward legislation, as a matter of urgency, to decouple elections to Scottish local authorities from the elections to the Parliament."

I agreed with one speech this afternoon—that made by Elaine Smith. I say to her that there are still 15 or 20 minutes within which the first-past-the-post system can be saved, by members voting against the bill. She and her colleagues who oppose the introduction of the single transferable vote system should do so.

I am not afraid to say that I think that first past the post is a far better method of electing councillors than STV. When electors finally discover what has been done to them today by the combined forces of the Labour Party and the Liberal Democrats, members from those parties should be very afraid, whatever voting system is used, because the public will exact due retribution.

Labour constituency MSPs should also be very afraid, because today by voting for the introduction of the STV system for local government elections they are signing the death warrant of first-past-the-post constituency elections for the Parliament. SNP members want that, Liberal Democrat members want it and Labour MPs at Westminster also now want it, because they cannot believe what Labour MSPs have done in collaborating with the Liberal Democrats to produce this hybrid system—this something-for-nothing system that is neither one thing nor another.

The new system does not deliver accountability and it does not deliver the known councillor to represent the community. Moreover, it is not even proportional. It offers none of those benefits and yet it is going to be forced on the people of Scotland as if it were a great triumph for the Liberal Democrats, who have pursued the holy grail of STV, which is not even proportional representation. It does the Parliament great discredit to pass a bill that has such flaws and that was not supported by any of the evidence that came before the Local Government and Transport Committee.

I support the view that Scottish Parliament and local government elections should be decoupled, not least because local democracy should be the focus of local government elections. All the evidence indicates that introducing a different system leads to voter confusion, as we saw in the London Assembly and mayoral elections. That makes the need to decouple our elections even more urgent. That is why I lodged a member's bill today to put the decoupling of the elections on to the parliamentary agenda again, because, despite repeated calls, ministers have never indicated that they are willing to decouple the elections. It is clear that ministers fear that STV will not lure people to the voting booth as has been claimed.

Not one piece of evidence that was submitted to the Local Government and Transport Committee said that changing the voting system would increase voter turnout. Not one piece of evidence indicated that it would diversify candidates who stand for council elections or that we would get more representative councillors as a result. Those members who vote for the bill on those grounds will have been conned, too. At the end of the day, however, the people of Scotland will not be conned. They will know who has voted in favour of the bill and they will punish them in the 2005 and 2007 elections.

I am not sure that I expected to reach the point at which we are discussing a motion to pass a bill to introduce the single transferable vote for local government in Scotland. It is a great and proud moment for me as a Liberal Democrat to be speaking in favour of that motion today.

It is a little sad that some of the other parties have not recognised the importance and significance of the occasion. I was particularly saddened by the SNP contribution. One would have thought that a party that supports the single transferable vote and which claims to have done so for many years would be celebrating the fact that the bill will, in a few minutes, be passed by Parliament. Instead we heard a speech from Tricia Marwick that did not celebrate but criticised what we have done.

It is important to recognise how we reached this position. It did not happen overnight. It has taken a considerable amount of time—not just the five years of this Parliament, but many years before that. The process started with the McIntosh commission, which recommended that a more proportional system of voting for local government should be considered. We developed that recommendation in the partnership agreement of the previous session of Parliament by setting up the Kerley commission, which reached the conclusion that the single transferable vote was the best way to strike a balance between proportionality and the member-ward link, which is what the bill is intended to achieve.

It was the drive of the Liberal Democrats that kept the process moving in the previous session and it was that drive that got us a white paper on the matter and a draft bill. I say to Tricia Marwick that the reason why her bill did not pass stage 1 was not because of anything that the Liberal Democrats did; it was because there was not a majority in the previous session who would agree to it. The Labour Party would not have voted for it, the Conservatives would not have voted for it, so there was no majority for it.

Mr Smith knows as well as I do that a majority of individual members in the previous session believed in PR. The Liberal Democrats voted against the bill. It is as simple as that and Iain Smith cannot wish that fact away.

I do not wish anything away. I wished to ensure that we got PR for local government and that is what Liberal Democrats have delivered—we said that we would deliver it and we are delivering it.

We have STVPR because we dealt with the reality of the situation, which was that there would not in the previous session have been a majority for the bill. There was not a majority for the SNP bill, which would have been voted down anyway. We avoided a situation in which Parliament would have voted against the principle of PR for local government, whereas Tricia Marwick's party would have insisted that Parliament did that. That would have happened had the SNP proceeded with the bill as Tricia Marwick wanted to. It would not have been passed in the previous session. We have delivered and we said that we would deliver.

Let us not forget that the Local Governance (Scotland) Bill is about more than PR for local government—it tackles other important issues. The reduction in the age at which a person is qualified to stand as a councillor fulfils the important democratic principle that people who have the right to vote should also have the right to stand for elected office. The remuneration packages that will be proposed by the remuneration committee that the bill will set up will also be extremely important.

The bill is important for local government. It is about improving local democracy; it will do that. It is also about encouraging more people to stand for local government and about ensuring that the electorate has the final say in who is elected.

David Mundell talked a lot about people losing their votes because of spoiled papers. Well, I am concerned about the hundreds of thousands of voters whose votes are wasted and do not count because they do not happen to vote for the winning candidate in an election. There are thousands of Conservative voters in North East Fife who are left unrepresented on the local council because of the first-past-the-post system. There are thousands of Labour voters in Angus who are left unrepresented because of wasted votes that do not count because of the first-past-the-post system. There are thousands of SNP voters in Edinburgh who are left unrepresented in local government because of the first-past-the-post system. We all suffer under that system, but the single transferable vote will ensure that more people's votes will count and that we will have a better system of local government as a result.

A considerable number of members wish to speak and I will not be able to call them all. I have decided to call three members, who will get two minutes each. I call Bristow Muldoon.

We should acknowledge that the debate that we are having today has been going on for quite some time. It was started by the Labour party and it can be traced back either to Donald Dewar's commissioning of the McIntosh inquiry, and to the subsequent Kerley inquiry that Parliament set up, or to what probably really sparked off the debate, which was the Labour Party's decision to introduce a system of proportional representation for this Parliament. That was the genesis of the debate. Although there are strong feelings in my party on the issue, we must recognise that, in the many consultations that took place during the McIntosh and Kerley inquiries, the overwhelming majority of responses said that people support the case for change. The case for change has been made in all the public debate that has taken place over many years.

Given the shortage of time, I want to comment on just a couple of issues. The first is the issue of proportionality and the member-ward link. The McIntosh and Kerley reports both acknowledged the importance of maintaining that link, which is a traditional part of British electoral politics. That balance has rightly been struck and, in striking it, the system that has been produced will introduce far greater proportionality than exists under the current local election system. Those who try to pretend otherwise are fooling themselves and they are trying to fool the public.

I also want to comment briefly on decoupling, which Tricia Marwick spoke about. The real reason why the SNP does not favour the two elections taking place at the same time is the same reason why it has expressed concerns about all-postal ballots: SNP members fear high turnouts. I have one thing to say to SNP members; they should not worry too much. It does not matter whether there is a high turnout or a low turnout; the SNP will lose.

Please wind up now, Mr Muldoon.

Finally, I want to comment on the modernisation of the system of pay and conditions for local authority councillors. That is an essential part of the bill. It has long been the case that councillors have not been adequately rewarded for the many hours that they work and for the commitment that they show to their communities—

I call Tommy Sheridan.

Iain Smith is uncharacteristically right. The passage of the Local Governance (Scotland) Bill is cause for celebration. Although we looked for the full loaf in relation to a proportional system that was applicable and comparable across Britain, we have ended up with a system that will be less proportional than PR systems in other parts of the world, but which will be much more proportional than the system we have now. That is cause for celebration. Half a loaf is better than none, and we must accept 100 per cent that the bill provides an opportunity for the regeneration and rejuvenation of local government democracy in Scotland.

The bill provides that, in every single local government contest after the introduction of the new system, every vote will count. Every single vote for all parties will count: six political parties are represented in Parliament, there are independents and there is a party that has one representative. Under a fairer voting system they will all have the opportunity to have their voices heard in local government: that represents the rejuvenation of local democracy.

I hope that David Mundell is wrong and I hope that the Scottish electorate proves him wrong—I hope that the electorate use their votes more in the future. The ridiculous situation in which the Labour Party in Glasgow can get 47 per cent of the vote and claim 90 per cent of the seats does not represent democracy: it is the opposite of democracy. I hope that the new system will encourage voters throughout Scotland to use their votes and to gain representation by using their votes appropriately. This is a day for celebration. It is not a full loaf, but it is half a loaf.

I welcome the bill as it is an opportunity to address a democratic deficit that has existed in Scottish local government for many years. It is indefensible that political parties that represent a relatively small proportion of the electorate can construct what are in effect one-party states because of the in-built inequities of the first-past-the-post system.

Many people defend the first-past-the-post system on the basis that it produces stability in council chambers, but it is stability to do what? It is stability to ignore the clearly expressed wishes of the electorate.

Labour's domination of Lanarkshire, Glasgow and Renfrewshire is not reflected in its share of the vote. In Renfrewshire, the Labour Party has an absolute majority of seats despite not even being the largest party in terms of votes received. I say to Bristow Muldoon that in my part of the country we certainly look forward to the introduction of this system.

Although there is much to welcome in the bill, I regret that the proposals are not all that they could be. A blinkered approach to the number of members in a ward makes the STV system that is proposed in the bill one of the most disproportional PR systems in the world, while at the other end of the scale a refusal to recognise geographical constraints will result in some wards being as large as parliamentary constituencies. An overdue recognition of councillors' service has been corrupted by the need to buy off Labour Party selection battles. In addition, attempts to placate Labour councillors and backbenchers have compromised the position of the Local Government Boundary Commission and the prospect of gerrymandering raises its ugly head.

I will vote for the bill, but I regret that the Executive's half-hearted endorsement of PR means that the final product will not match its initial billing.

I echo the tribute that Andy Kerr paid to the Scottish Executive bill team who were involved in the passage of the bill. I also thank Bristow Muldoon and his colleagues on the Local Government and Transport Committee, who have been extremely helpful during the passage of the bill.

Today is just the beginning; there is a lot to do before the next local government elections, not only on voter education, which many members have spoken about with considerable care this afternoon, but on the ward boundary review. I say to Tricia Marwick that I do not accept that there is a challenge to the integrity of the Local Government Boundary Commission. There is also much to do in relation to the remuneration committee, on training for returning officers and staff and in the scrutiny of secondary legislation.

I hope that Parliament will today back a bill that is about making every vote count. The bill is about ensuring that Scotland's councils are more representative of the communities that they serve. It is about widening access and encouraging more people to consider standing and creating a fair system of remuneration for our colleagues in local government.

When will the Scottish statutory instruments that will fill in the details of the bill come before Parliament? Tavish Scott's colleague, the Minister for Finance and Public Services, ducked that question. It is important to know when the legislation will finally be completed. What is the Government's timetable for that?

Mr Welsh knows, because we discussed the issue at the Local Government and Transport Committee, that once the committees such as the remuneration committee report we will bring forward those measures as quickly as we possibly can.

I will deal with the arguments about combined elections and the charm of Ms Marwick's earlier argument when we were discussing the amendments.

There are three arguments for retaining combined elections. First, it is simply more efficient to hold combined elections and it avoids voter fatigue. Secondly, although similar concerns were expressed about the introduction of the additional member system, voters adjusted to the system; it is wrong to underestimate voters' capacity to understand new systems. Thirdly, we want above all to make the process as simple as possible for the voter. The Scottish National Party amendment would increase confusion, increase costs, reduce turnout and drive a wedge between Parliament and councils.

It was rank hypocrisy of the Conservatives to lecture Parliament on proportional voting and it was a bit much for Mr Mundell to lecture us about respect for the electorate. A number of questions come to mind: was there respect for the electorate when three million people were unemployed, or when the Conservatives introduced the poll tax? We accept no lectures from the Conservatives on respect for the electorate.

The bill cannot change politicians and politics in Scotland today, but if we are serious about long-term renewal, we should be serious about how the bill will help. Just over a year into its second term of office, the Executive has driven forward its legislative programme. After tonight's vote we will be able to look back and say that an Executive of two parties and a Parliament of seven parties—and more—has this week and, indeed, last week, passed remarkable legislation, despite our being told by people outside Parliament that the bill would split us apart and fragment us. We should be proud of our achievements and of the benefits that they will bring in the future in Scotland. This is about determined, purposeful government that is serious about delivery, about helping to make Scotland a better place and about changing Scotland for good. I invite all members to support the Local Governance (Scotland) Bill, which is fair and puts their constituents first.