Local Electoral Administration (Scotland) Bill

Part of the debate – in the Scottish Parliament at on 16 March 2011.

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Photo of Alex Johnstone Alex Johnstone Conservative

The bill is worthy legislation but will not take up much time in the chamber, I suspect. I hope that, at this moment, the clerks are vigorously phoning offices in other parts of the Parliament to ensure that those who are responsible for the next item of business are aware that it may arrive early.

Yesterday, I had the good fortune to find myself speaking at a conference along with Mr Willie Rennie. I travelled back to Edinburgh on the train last night in his company, during which time we took the opportunity to discuss and compare parliamentary procedure. He told me that, if such a piece of business as this debate were scheduled at Westminster and if a specific time were allocated, each member would ensure that they filled every second of the available time—I see Stewart Stevenson’s chest sticking out and rising to that opportunity.

It is one of the virtues of this Parliament that, when we have the opportunity to do things that are consensual and hold common interest across the parties, we can do so efficiently. The way that business has been truncated today and extra stage 3 debates have been timetabled because of the limited number of amendments is an indication of one of the things that we do better.

The bill covers part of the problems that we experienced in 2007. The electoral shambles that happened then crept up on many of us. Although there were concerns about there being three ballot papers and three different electoral systems in use on the same day, many people applied a great deal of thought in advance of that and believed that the system would work. The fact that it did not work demonstrated that we cannot cover every eventuality. That is why the bill may not achieve the objectives that we have set out for it. However, we have gone into the matter with open minds and with our eyes open and we have been determined to achieve the objectives that we set out at the start.

The bill has the function of implementing a significant part of the recommendations of the Gould report. For that reason, I welcome it and will be happy to vote for it later in the day.

There is a concern, which the previous speaker expressed, that we are about to do something similar again; that the alternative vote referendum, in conjunction with a Scottish Parliament election, might cause as yet unforeseen complications. I do not believe that that will be a problem. I believe that having three ballot papers on which electors are asked to mark a single X is not the same as the problem that we had whereby the differing electoral systems required an X on one paper and numbering of candidates on the other. I have faith in the Scottish electorate and I believe that they will not experience difficulties in the election that is about to happen.

However, having put that on the parliamentary record, it is now a hostage to fortune. I look forward to being hoist by my own petard at some time in the future. I support the bill.