Procedures Committee, 23 Jan 2007

Meeting date: Tuesday, January 23, 2007

Official Report 156KB pdf

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Electronic Voting

The third item on our agenda is electronic voting in committees. Paper PR/S2/07/1/3 sets out a brief history. At some point, Parliament agreed to have a trial of electronic voting at the Communities Committee. The committee was dealing with the Planning etc (Scotland) Bill and many divisions were expected at stage 2. However, a special vote was required in Parliament because the standing orders do not allow electronic voting in committees, only voting by a show of hands.

The Conveners Group feels that electronic voting should be available to other committees and has asked us to change standing orders accordingly. If we agree to make the change, we will in no way be saying that committees should always use electronic voting; it will be up to each committee to decide what it wants to do for each bill. At the moment, the standing orders block committees from using electronic voting, but if we change the standing orders it will be open to committees to do what they want. One newspaper has whipped up some interest in the subject.

I might not have understood the procedures correctly. There was an excessive number of amendments for the Planning etc (Scotland) Bill. My understanding was that the standing orders contain a provision to allow Parliament to vote to allow electronic voting in committees. If that is the case, I am relatively relaxed about that process being used again in the future. If there is an overwhelming need, it can be done.

I cannot honestly remember how much procedure was necessary to enable the Communities Committee to carry out its voting in that way. Perhaps the clerk could remind me.

What the deputy convener says is correct. Under the current rules, committees are required to vote by a show of hands unless Parliament has directed otherwise. That is what happened to enable the pilot exercise to go ahead. The Communities Committee asked the Parliamentary Bureau to lodge a motion to enable such a direction to be made, and that was done. That would be possible, under the existing rules, on any future occasion on which a committee wanted to use electronic voting.

The point is that it requires a certain amount of forethought, and there is a process to be gone through before a committee can use electronic voting. The suggestion is that the rules might be changed to enable a decision to use electronic voting to be taken by a committee more or less on the day, without the matter going to the chamber. That is the balance that needs to be considered.

As you are aware, convener, a particularly diligent member of the parliamentary press corps read the paper on this subject in advance and beat a path to my door. The comments that I made to him are worthy of repetition today.

It is cause for concern that the electronic voting system lacks the immediacy and openness that is currently experienced by those who observe the work of committees at first hand. I have sat on committees at which—especially at stage 2 of a bill—members have argued one way but then voted another. If members choose to do that, they should be exposed instantly. Although, as the paper makes clear, it is important that we remember that minutes will be published and that the results of electronic votes will be available the following day, that would in my view be a step backwards in terms of openness. The arguments that have been put—in some detail—highlight areas in which electronic voting in a committee may be appropriate, but I would be concerned if electronic voting were to become the norm.

Following Karen Gillon's question, I want to ask whether—given that electronic voting has been possible as an experiment during the process of one bill on one committee and the procedures and the necessary functions already exist—we need to spend money on additional software in order to be able to repeat the exercise.

The paper talks about the possibility of flagging up the votes on the public television screens at the same time as the convener gets them. That would certainly get around the problem of a lack of openness.

I would be happy for us to change the rules to enable electronic voting, but I am not sure whether we are also being asked to agree to the expenditure that is outlined in the paper. I am not convinced by the costs that are cited because I do not foresee electronic voting being used so regularly that we need to have three committee rooms equipped for it. I would have thought that one or, at most, two committee rooms would need to be equipped for it, therefore the cost that is given could easily be halved if not avoided altogether.

Has one committee room already been set up for electronic voting?

It has.

Why, in that case, do we need to set up any more?

I would be happy for us just to change the rules and to instruct Parliament's information technology department to look into the possibility of getting the votes up on the public television screens.

There was some discussion on that point at the Conveners Group. I did not follow it fully, but it seems that although the pilot scheme was managed without great cost, costs would be incurred if the facility were provided more generally. It is not a question of making each committee room accessible; the equipment is portable.

Page 6 of the paper tells us that the pilot scheme cost £3,744 and that it would cost an extra £6,700 to equip a further two committee rooms. We already have one committee room enabled, which I presume will be enabled for the rest of time or until there is technological failure. Do we need to spend any more?

Paragraph 10 on page 4 of paper PR/S2/07/1/3 states that the software that was used to electronically transmit voting records to the official report from the chamber did not work and that no way was found to deal with that problem during the pilot exercise. The paragraph states that the software would have to be reconfigured

"should electronic voting become more widely used by committees".

It might be useful to find out the cost of having electronic voting equipment in only one or two committee rooms, whether reconfiguring the software would be necessary if the arrangements were ad hoc, and whether the software would work adequately on the small number of occasions on which electronic voting would be used, which would be when bills were being considered at stage 2. Perhaps the costs that we have been given are for all-singing, all-dancing electronic voting equipment for all committee rooms. It might be useful to have costs for something that would fall short of that level of equipment. If we are considering a report, the main thing to make clear is that committees should be able to decide whether they want to vote electronically, rather than there having to be a parliamentary motion agreed to.

If the equipment in one committee room is up and running—

The software is not.

The paper says that it is.

I was trying to remember what paragraph 10 says. I am obliged to Kate Maclean for referring to it.

Paragraph 10 states:

"given the short term nature of the pilot, it was agreed that this work should not be carried out and a method of transmitting the results to the Official Report in an alternative format was identified and used successfully."

A pilot exercise was conducted and the measures were only temporary. The paper states that the temporary solution would not be appropriate should electronic voting be used more widely in committees.

For me, the first question is whether, in principle, I want more electronic voting in committees. My answer is that I do not. A huge amount is gained from open and transparent voting in committees. A member who decides to vote against their party can vote openly and transparently while sitting beside two colleagues, by putting up their hand. That adds something to the process. Time gains can be made in exceptional circumstances—the Planning etc (Scotland) Bill process highlighted that—but I am not convinced that we should move in that direction. Finances are a secondary issue in that context; a point of principle is involved. We should not move to having electronic voting in committees, because some transparency and openness would be lost. The results of votes could be put on a screen, but would we know which member voted for what?

There is another issue to do with members raising their hands to vote, which arises from my experience. I sat through a stage 2 committee debate—I think Karen Gillon was also a member of the committee—in which, in representing my interests, I was in a minority of one in voting on a series of amendments. It was important for me to be seen to be in a minority of one on them. I do not want an electronic voting system to hide such things—I took great pride in putting up my hand and getting gubbed.

That takes us back to the point that Chris Ballance made about the software.

Karen Gillon said that the software would have to be changed so that people could see instantly who had voted for what. I agree with what she said about the fundamental principles that are involved, although I do not mind if committees take decisions on the matter rather than the whole Parliament having to take a position—I have no trouble with that.

Paragraph 10 mentions that the software could not transmit vote details electronically to the official report. However, given that we have official report staff present during committee meetings, the details can surely be transmitted manually. Why do the votes need to be transmitted electronically to the official report instead of being delivered manually, as happens for show-of-hands votes?

I am quite content for the technology to be made available in one committee room and for the decision to rest with committees. Committees could bid for the room in the same way that they bid for any other resource in the Parliament. However, we should make it clear that electronic voting should be used only in exceptional circumstances and that it is not the will of Parliament that electronic voting should become the routine. Although there might be an issue in respect of the time that it might take to get a request for electronic voting approved by the Parliamentary Bureau, I am not convinced that we need electronic voting equipment up and running in three committee rooms. If we were to accept the principle that committees should ordinarily use electronic voting, we might need three committee rooms, but if use of electronic voting is to be limited, it will be sufficient to have one committee room kitted out. The information could simply be handed to official report staff. Call me old-fashioned, but I do not think that we need to incur huge amounts of expenditure to enable the details to be transferred by computer.

The committee clerk has ingeniously suggested that members could vote in both ways—electronically and manually—at the same time.

Unfortunately, that would not fit in with our commitment to ensure that disabled people are catered for. People who could not do both things at once would be disadvantaged.

I draw members' attention to the section of the paper that outlines the benefits of electronic voting. Paragraph 15 claims that electronic voting resulted in improved accuracy—I do not know whether that is an accurate claim—and more efficient use of committee time. Although many of us believe that to use electronic voting is not a good idea, the question that I am struggling with is whether we should block the idea completely or whether we should, as we are invited to do, enable each committee to make up its own mind.

As the Procedures Committee, we have the responsibility to decide on the procedures and rules under which Parliament operates.

The founding principles of the Parliament include openness and transparency. If we decide that electronic voting should be the norm in committees, we will move away from a procedure that is very transparent to one that is less transparent. Electronic voting would still be transparent to the press because they could get the vote details, but it would not be transparent to the people who bother to turn up to listen to a committee's debate. For example—this committee does not provide many such examples—when the Communities Committee considered the Scottish planning policy 16 guidelines on opencast mining, large numbers of people from both sides of the debate attended the meeting to hear about the issues and to see how members would vote. If we were to take away their ability to see how members vote, what would be the point of their attending the committee meeting to lobby members before the vote and to speak to them afterwards?

I am not convinced that electronic voting will lead to increased accuracy. Given that the maximum number of members on a committee is usually nine—or perhaps 11—surely to goodness the recording of votes has been pretty accurate. On several occasions, however, our electronic voting consoles have not recorded votes accurately—or members have claimed that they did not record votes accurately. Errors can be challenged if we use a show of hands. If a convener says that the vote is five in favour and four against when it is clear that it is four in favour and five against, members can challenge that immediately by saying, "You have not counted my vote properly." If members want to vote one way but claim that they will vote the other way, they cannot do that in a show-of-hands vote. If the vote is taken electronically, members can say, "Oh, I meant to vote the other way," or, "Oh, the computer has recorded my vote differently."

Interestingly, the electronic voting system is open to human error. Recently, there have been a significant number of cases in the chamber where, during a vote, whoever was in the chair had to point out to an individual member that they had pressed their request-to-speak button by mistake. That openness to human error calls into question the accuracy of the electronic system.

Do we want a complete clarification of the subject in order to understand the issues of software, cost and so on, or are we agreed that this is a matter of principle, in which such issues are not significant?

My preference would be for us to say that committees should take the decision and that we need no more than one committee room to be geared up for electronic voting. Instead of encouraging committees to use electronic voting on a regular basis, we should be establishing the principle that it should be done only on an ad hoc, exceptional basis, perhaps for big bills like the Planning etc (Scotland) Bill.

Right. I suggest that we go through the paper bit by bit. Is it the committee's general view that it is quite enough for one committee room to be fitted up for electronic voting?

It is not a question of how many committee rooms should be fitted up. Before we decide on that, we need to arrive at a view on what should happen. If we are of a mind that electronic voting should happen only on rare occasions and that the decision to proceed should be made by the committees, we should leave it up to committee officials to say, "This is what our committee wants and this is what is required." If we say that only one committee room should be fitted up, we are dictating what happens. We do not know how much use would be made of the facility.

Committees seem to be telling us that they do not envisage using electronic voting to any great extent. They are also saying that the decision on when to use it should be made by the individual committee and that facilities should be put in place for that to happen. Once we have agreed on that, we will have taken care of Alex Johnstone's point. If he wants to bolster his ego by putting his hand up every two seconds, he can do so. When the convener asks whether his committee wants to have electronic voting, he can say, "No, I don't want that because I want the vote to be transparent." Once we have taken the decision in principle, officials can say what facilities need to be put in place and how much it will all cost.

Fair enough.

So is it our view that electronic voting should be used only in exceptional circumstances, for example when a committee is considering a bill that has generated a large number of amendments?

We should leave it for committees to decide.

Right. We are not saying that electronic voting should never happen; we are saying that it should be a rare event. In the light of that, we are also saying that one room will be quite adequate for these purposes. Is that agreed?

Members indicated agreement.

What about the issue of the standing orders? Do we want to change the standing orders to say that a committee can go ahead with electronic voting if it wants to do so, or do we want to put sufficient obstacles in the way of proceeding such that the committee has to get the Parliament to agree?

I am happy for the decision to be made by the committees. In general, I am in favour of the committees running their own business. However, I will not die in a ditch over the issue.

We should be doing as little as possible to encourage this practice.

I agree.

We should have a show of hands.

Or we could have an electronic vote on the issue.

I am not convinced that the current system is so cumbersome that it would be outwith the wit of a committee, which I guess would be meeting every week at stage 2, to get the approval of the Parliamentary Bureau and the Parliament to use electronic voting. We do not allow committees to meet when they want—the Parliament takes that decision.

Should we say that, in pursuance of our view that electronic voting should be used only in exceptional circumstances, the committee in question should have to approach the Parliament for permission? That would mean that committees would use electronic voting only when they felt a strong need to do so.

Is that the status quo?

Are we supporting the status quo? I do not know.

On the issue of transparency, the convener of the Communities Committee, who has worked with electronic voting, states:

"there are genuine efficiency benefits to be gained by using this system and … it would be unfortunate if its future use were to be ruled out on this issue alone. However, it is recommended the issue should not be ignored and that officials should be asked to examine it further and to consider whether there is any potential for using the broadcasting/voting systems to allow those present to see the individual voting records at the time the result is announced."

I see no reason why we should not ask the Parliament's business information technology office whether that is possible.

We are in danger of spending more than £7,000 to find out whether something is possible, but we have not made a decision on the principle of whether electronic voting in committees is the right way to go.

If we can overcome the transparency problem and ensure that, immediately after the vote, who has voted which way is clear to everyone in the room, I have no problem with electronic voting. If that is not possible, I have grave reservations about it.

My understanding is that the costs in the paper do not include the transmission of results on television screens.

I do not know whether that has a cost.

Everything seems to have a cost in this place.

It might be something that BIT could do internally within its own work programmes.

As things stand, I do not think that we should change the rules to allow electronic voting in committees, but I am open to finding out whether the transparency problem can be overcome.

Should we state that our view is that we do not wish to encourage electronic voting; that it is acceptable to use electronic voting for a bill to which an exceptionally large number of amendments has been lodged; that we are concerned about the transparency of electronic voting; but that, if those on the technical side read our debate and find ways of meeting our concern, we will revisit the matter? Is that a legitimate way forward?

It certainly is. Do you envisage that that would be conveyed by means of a letter to the Conveners Group?

Before we get engaged in protracted correspondence with the Conveners Group, it would be helpful to come to a view one way or the other. Chris Ballance suggested that we find out whether BIT could sort out the TV screens, so I suggest that we do that first. I guess that a majority of members of the committee are against electronic voting in committees, but I am happy to explore the avenues.

This is a small point, but if you can understand the subtle nuance, I was suggesting that we should respond to the Conveners Group and say, "We are not interested, but if you can suggest a way in which the transparency issue can be resolved, we will look at the matter again." That will put the onus on the Conveners Group to consider how important electronic voting is.

That is a good idea.

We can do that. I suspect that the timescale of the Conveners Group's meetings and ours is such that we will not progress very far in the current session.

Convener, perhaps the final question is whether the committee is content for you, on behalf of the committee, to write to the Conveners Group in those terms or whether the committee wants to see a draft letter.

Will members entrust the composition of the letter to Andrew Mylne and me, or do they want us to e-mail a draft letter to them so that they can be sure that it fairly—

We will trust you, convener.

Members indicated agreement.

Thank you.

In the light of the decisions made earlier in the meeting, there is probably no necessity to have a meeting on 6 February. We could have a meeting on that day, but I do not think that there is sufficient demand for that.

Is there sufficient demand for the other meetings that are scheduled? There is probably demand for one more meeting, but I am not convinced that there is demand for another three.

I suggest that we take a decision about that in due course, but if we take a decision on the 6 February meeting now, that would be helpful.

Right, so there will be no meeting on 6 February. The deputy convener, the clerk and I will have a discussion in good time before 20 February to decide whether we will meet then. Is that agreed?

We should take out one more meeting at this stage. People's diaries are getting relatively busy. I looked at the work programme and there is nothing on it. Why should we have three meetings in the diary for a work programme that does not exist?

I suggest that we contact members shortly after today's meeting to confirm the date of the next meeting.

Okay. If we need one meeting, we will have one, but if we need two, we will have two. Our decision about that might relate to the next meeting of the Conveners Group. From memory, there will be one in February but none in March.

Thank you for your attendance.

Meeting closed at 11:16.