Scottish Local Government (Elections) Bill: Stage 3
The next item of business is a debate on motion S3M-4387, in the name of Bruce Crawford, on the Scottish Local Government (Elections) Bill.
I start by thanking the Local Government and Communities Committee for its consideration of and support for this bill. I also thank other members of the Parliament, and people in the electoral community throughout Scotland, for their support for the bill.
The principles set out in Ron Gould's comprehensive report into the 2007 elections met with widespread support. Our response and our subsequent consultation on the Gould report received similar support, and I am pleased to say that support has continued through the parliamentary stages of the bill.
This is a straightforward but important piece of legislation. During the stage 1 debate last month, Gavin Brown went so far as to describe the bill as "vital". I agree with him. The bill separates future local government elections from elections to this Parliament, and it makes more detailed voter information available. Passing this bill will be a significant and necessary step towards improving the administration and management of elections in Scotland.
The bill will remove uncertainty in the polling booth and reduce the potential for confusion among voters in future local government elections. Voters will not be faced with two separate elections using two separate voting systems. Decoupling will also give local government elections the prominence that they deserve: local issues will not be overshadowed by national or United Kingdom-wide issues.
Our aim in future local government elections should not just be to ensure that more people turn out to vote; we need to foster and create a genuine local debate on the issues that matter to local voters. Turnout is important, but we must be ambitious enough to aim higher. We should not just look to increase turnout for its own sake. Ron Gould said that we should look to engage voters with the campaign in a meaningful way and to encourage them to make knowledgeable decisions on the casting of their votes.
Later this year, we will issue a consultation paper covering the remaining administrative recommendations from the Gould report. The paper, and the responses to it, will feed into the election rules for the 2012 elections. We will work closely with the electoral management board for Scotland on that, and we will continue to work with the Electoral Commission, particularly in the important area of ballot paper design. In its response to the Gould report, the commission agreed to develop design standards for ballot papers. That work will help to ensure that, in future elections, ballot papers are as easily understood as possible.
The Electoral Commission's work will be published later this year. Scottish Government officials have already discussed emerging findings with it, and the political parties panel and the electoral management board discussed that work with commission staff just yesterday. That level of co-operation and involvement is a model of the way in which we should develop electoral proposals in the future.
Concern has been expressed throughout the passage of the bill about the effect on turnout of decoupling. In the context of the bill, we are concerned about the likely turnout in the 2012 local government elections, but the problem of low turnout is already with us.
We all agree that turnout is important and that something needs to be done. With the bill at stage 3, we now have to start thinking about what we can do to improve the situation. I have said before, and I am happy to repeat today, that I look forward to working with the Local Government and Communities Committee and others in Parliament to consider and develop ways of increasing voter turnout.
There is evidence that a combination of initiatives could be used to encourage voters. Information campaigns could be used to explain how to register to vote, and how, when and where to vote. Advertising campaigns could get across the importance of voting, and community or grass-roots activity could encourage groups and individuals to use their vote. This is not just a job for Government and officials; it is a job for everyone in society.
We could use the education system and process to encourage an interest in politics. Schools already have educational visits to Parliaments and hold mock elections, but we need to think about what more can be done. We could hold events around places of entertainment to draw people in and then give them information about the voting process.
We need to encourage individuals to vote, whether through inducements or simply through making the process easier. There are a number of things that might make it easier for people to vote: we could consider electronic voting, the use of the internet or, in the longer term, voting by text. Of course, security of the ballot will have to be ensured in the safe use of new technologies.
We could consider using texts to issue voting information and reminders to vote. We could consider allowing voting in shops or other public buildings, and mobile polling stations could be introduced. Voting could take place over a number of days or even at the weekend, and we could encourage greater use of postal ballots. Convenience must enhance the voting process. It is important to think about different methods although, as I said, whatever we do must be weighed against the security of the ballot.
The legislation will make things clearer for voters and give local government elections the prominence that they deserve. The challenge for us all will be to ensure that the debate at local government elections focuses on local issues. Turnout is a challenge and a problem, but there is a lot that we can do to put it right.
The bill is the next stage in preparing for the 2012 elections, but there is still a great deal of work to do between now and then. We will do that work in co-operation with the Local Government and Communities Committee, the electoral management board for Scotland and all the professional bodies that are involved in the elections arena.
I move,
That the Parliament agrees that the Scottish Local Government (Elections) Bill be passed.
I welcome the minister's speech. There should be a general concern in the chamber that, over its 10 years, this Parliament has spent some time debating electoral processes while presiding over a decreasing level of turnout across the country. Although Scottish Labour does not believe that it is always necessary to hold elections to local councils and the Scottish Parliament on separate days, we recognise that voters found the use of different voting systems on the same day in the May 2007 elections confusing, so we support the decoupling of the elections.
As I have said before in this chamber, so much was wrong with the last set of elections to this Parliament and our town halls that it is pointless to insist that holding the elections on the same day was the sole cause or even the main cause of the voter confusion that prevailed on polling day. We all recognise that we were all responsible for what is now largely regarded as a debacle of an election.
We believe that misleading party descriptions should be done away with and that the names on the ballot paper should be the names of the candidates, not other people's names. We also believe, as I said during the stage 1 debate, that Parliament should consider listing or grouping candidates by party in alphabetical order on the ballot, as opposed to the current system of election by alphabet, as there is strong evidence that candidates whose names appeared towards the top of the ballot fared better than those whose names appeared at the bottom.
So many things were wrong with the elections—from the use of different electoral systems to the construction of the ballot papers and the failure of the electronic voting systems—that it would take too long to list them all. As the minister said, that was why we had an independent review of the elections, one of the outcomes of which is that we are about to enact a mechanism that will decouple the elections from May 2011. As I have also said, there may be a price to pay for that decision in terms of voter turnout if we do not ensure that the decoupling is accompanied by an imaginative, vigorous and well-resourced campaign of voter education to combat any confusion. However, I am reassured in that respect by some of what the minister has said.
Let us not forget that it was just eight years ago that the then Scottish Executive introduced the Scottish Local Government (Elections) Bill that introduced the measure to make council elections coincide with Scottish Parliament elections. Coupling the elections did not prove a problem in the 1999 and 2003 elections and, as we all know, the electorate did not have much to say then about the coupling of the elections on the same day. That was the correct decision in the prevailing circumstances—in advance of the introduction of proportional representation to local government and barely halfway through the first session of the Parliament—and it sat within the appropriate timeframe and mechanism, but the desired effect was not achieved at the following elections.
In his report, Mr Gould recognised that coupling the elections increased the attention paid to local government elections and the turnout at them, and he balanced his conclusions on those points. I reminded members previously that, prior to the decision to couple the elections, turnout in non-combined local elections between 1974 and 1995 was more than 7 per cent lower than the average for combined elections held since 1999: there was an average turnout of 45.9 per cent in non-combined elections and an average of 53.3 per cent for combined elections. We must learn from that and ensure that, after the bill is enacted, we have a vigorous and effective voter education campaign, and that we work our hardest to ensure that we challenge the problem of lower voter turnout.
The issue is, of course, electoral systems, but it is more than that. For example, it is no coincidence that Eastwood, with its predominantly affluent electorate, had the highest turnout at the previous elections, while Shettleston in Glasgow, with its well-documented levels of deprivation, had the lowest. Increasing voter understanding and encouraging greater participation in the Shettlestons of Scotland is a priority, and it must be undertaken by the Electoral Commission on our behalf.
In addition, voter turnout is falling in different electoral systems across the world. The task is to combat voter cynicism, restore faith and trust, make issues relevant and make access to voting easier. We will have that kind of campaign before the next Scottish Parliament elections and we will learn what needs to be learned for the local government elections the year after.
We support the proposal that the next council elections should be held in 2012 and 2017, and agree that there should be a four-year cycle for local government elections thereafter. That will ensure less voter confusion and allow greater focus on local government issues. As we saw recently, when the council elections in England were held at the same time as the elections for MEPs, many good councillors, from whatever party, who had worked hard and served their communities nonetheless lost their seats because of the effect of national issues. We need to understand the impact of that.
It was your councillors.
That happened to many Tory councillors in Mrs Thatcher's day, Mr McLetchie.
We must remind ourselves of Duncan McNeil's point that
"a vote robbed through clever practice is simply a vote lost, and that that affects the electorate's confidence in the electoral process."—[Official Report, 10 January 2008; c 4998.]
Further, we should not forget Ron Gould's wise words from his report:
"In essence, the local government elections are not simply about ensuring a reasonable number of voters show up at the polls on polling day. More important is that they engage with the campaign in a meaningful manner and make a knowledgeable decision on their ballot paper."
That is our task and our objective, which is partly realised today.
In the stage 1 debate on the Scottish Local Government (Elections) Bill, I spoke about the background to the proposal to decouple the elections and the history of recommendations from a string of independent committees, which the previous Labour and Liberal Democrat Scottish Executive totally ignored. It ignored the McIntosh committee, the Kerley committee and the Arbuthnott committee. However, no one in the Parliament, not even the previous Administration, could ignore the debacle that surrounded the combined Scottish Parliament and local government elections of May 2007.
When the Gould report on those elections also recommended decoupling, it was inevitable that it would come to pass. However, it is worth while recalling that the rationale for decoupling rests not on the efficient conduct of elections to separate bodies, on the different voting systems or on the number of spoiled ballot papers, but on the view—expressed again and again by McIntosh, Kerley and Arbuthnott—that local authority elections deserve to have their own day in the sun so that there can be a greater focus on local issues in determining the outcome.
McIntosh said that holding the two elections on the same day serves
"to weaken the democratic mandate of local government."
Kerley said that separate elections
"would ensure that local government issues are at the heart of local government elections"
and that that was
"an essential part of democracy and democratic renewal."
Arbuthnott said that separation would allow
"attention to be focused on local issues."
Finally, Ron Gould said:
"If local issues and the visibility of local government candidates are viewed as a primary objective, then separating the … elections is necessary … to avoid the dominance of campaigns conducted for the Scottish parliamentary contests."
I could not agree more with all those conclusions.
It is worth while reminding ourselves why council elections are important in their own right. In our 32 councils, we elect 1,222 councillors who represent 353 wards. Councils spend nearly £17 billion per annum, of which £12 billion comes from the Government. That is about a third of the expenditure for which the Parliament is responsible. By any stretch of the imagination, councils are substantial bodies that are responsible for a wide range of public services on which the quality of our lives depend heavily.
However, the benefits of separate elections might be severely curtailed if councils are not given the freedom to pursue their own policy paths. In that context, the Government has made much of the substantial reduction of ring fencing. We support that reduction. However, the other side of the concordat equation is that councils are now bound every year into so-called single outcome agreements, which have to be focused on 15 outcomes and 45 targets and indicators, all of which are nationally determined, as well as on the separately specified set of commitments.
It is an interesting debate for the future to consider whether we have abolished a lot of small ring fences only to create an even bigger and all-encompassing one. If councils are to have a separate and distinct democratic mandate in point of time, is it not reasonable for them to decide whether to introduce free school meals for all pupils in primaries 1 to 3 rather than have that dictated by the national Government? There might be many other areas in which a local education budget could be spent far more usefully than in feeding the children of parents who can well afford to feed their own offspring. That is one small example, but there are many others in which local priorities might vary from those that are dictated under the terms of the concordat to which our councils foolishly signed up in their entirety.
However, the passing of the bill today will be a vindication of all that we on the Conservative benches have said in the Parliament for the past 10 years. It will be another victory for the Conservatives and will show once again that we are winning the battle of ideas on how Scotland should properly be governed. I support the motion.
I do not think that anyone will be surprised to hear that, although the Scottish Liberal Democrats do not oppose the Scottish Local Government (Elections) Bill, we have serious reservations about it. Our reservations focus on the fact that, in decoupling the local government elections from the Scottish Parliament elections, we risk having a negative impact on voter turnout on election day.
The Gould report recommended that we should decouple the elections, but I am afraid that, in introducing the bill, the Government failed to recognise Gould's other recommendation that concerns about voter turnout should not be ignored. Ignoring the concerns is precisely what the Government is doing. Gould said that institutions that are concerned about voter turnout should continue their efforts to encourage voters to exercise their right to vote, but the bill does not provide for that.
The irony of the bill is that it aims to avoid confusion in the voter's mind by decoupling local government and Scottish parliamentary elections when, in fact, it was not the local government elections but the Scottish parliamentary elections that Gould found to have confused the voters. The people of Scotland coped very well indeed with the single transferable vote system used in the local government elections.
Will the member give way?
No—the member has had his say.
Voters easily understood the system of preference voting, putting their first, second and third choices in order on the ballot paper. What caused confusion in voters' minds was not the use of two different election systems at the same time, but the voting system for the Scottish Parliament with its use of two Xs on the ballot paper to elect constituency MSPs and regional list MSPs. Therefore, although the bill is aimed at decoupling the two elections, the fault remains uncorrected.
Mike Rumbles has given us a lot of reasons why the Liberals should not vote for the bill. Will he give us a few reasons why they will vote for it?
If the minister listens to what I have to say, he might be able to work them out.
We know that voters can find the single transferable vote system, with its simple method of putting down 1, 2 or 3 beside the candidate of preference, very easy to use. Indeed, it could not be easier.
Will the member give way?
Unfortunately not. I am running out of time.
The system has the added advantage of putting more power into the voter's hands than any other method of voting. After all, the voter can decide to vote for candidates of different parties and is not restricted simply to voting a party line—which is probably why some of the other parties do not like it. Every preference counts and no vote is ever wasted. I cannot think of a better system for encouraging and ensuring enhanced voter turnout at election time.
Will the member give way?
I would take an intervention, if I did not have only 60 seconds left.
I understand that the Scottish Parliament does not yet have the power to change its own voting system. However, the Calman commission has recommended that such a power be transferred to us in this chamber. That reform cannot come too soon, because I am convinced that implementing the Calman recommendation and changing the system for Scottish Parliament elections to the STV system of preferential voting would at a stroke increase voter involvement and hence turnout.
The Scottish Liberal Democrats support the bill, with all its faults, and look forward to the day when legislation comes before this Parliament to ensure real voter involvement and an end to the system of two types of MSP once and for all. We need the STV preferential voting system that is used in local government elections. Only once we have it can we really say that we have improved the system of elections in Scotland.
We move to the open debate. I ask members to keep their speeches to four minutes.
I should also say that, although stage 3 debates are usually wide ranging, it would help if members made more than a passing reference to the Scottish Local Government (Elections) Bill.
I assure the chamber that it is a great pleasure to speak in this debate and that I will speak about the subject. After all, when the bill is passed at 5 o'clock, Scottish Parliament and local government elections will be separated.
Indeed, as someone who since 1999 has spoken in every chamber debate on this subject, I am particularly pleased to speak in this stage 3 debate. I will be more generous than David McLetchie and acknowledge that the Conservatives have contributed as much as the SNP to the debate on separating local government and Scottish Parliament elections. I am delighted that the SNP Government has adopted a commonsense approach and done the right thing by the voters and local government.
In the stage 1 debate, I mentioned the support for the move from McIntosh, Kerley, Arbuthnott and now Gould. As for Andy Kerr's comment that the decision taken in 2001 to combine both sets of elections was the right one, I have to tell him that it was not and that it was certainly not supported by anyone who examined it before or after 2001.
I regret the wasted years during which Labour and the Liberal Democrats opposed the decoupling of the elections. I bitterly regret those parties' failure to decouple the 2007 elections, when a new voting system was introduced for local government, despite the warnings about the chaos that would ensue. That was precisely why, when the motion to pass the bill that introduced proportional representation through the single transferable vote was debated, I lodged a reasoned amendment saying that the two sets of elections should be decoupled. It is regrettable that the Labour Party and the Liberal Democrats did not take the opportunity then to separate the two sets of elections, but it gives me no pleasure to say, "I told you so." I welcome the belated support from Labour and the Liberal Democrats for the separation, but I must say that Mike Rumbles gave every impression of being dragged kicking and screaming to support the bill. It is clear that, even now, after all that has happened in the ensuing years, Mike Rumbles personally does not believe that the two sets of elections should be separated. Every single word that he said confirmed that.
Why is it important to hold the local government elections in a different year from the Scottish Parliament elections? Scottish local government is a separate tier of government. It is not subservient to the Scottish Parliament; it has powers of its own and responsibilities for housing, education, social work, planning and other issues that affect the daily lives of millions of people in Scotland. Indeed, I venture to say that there is no power of local government that does not affect the lives of ordinary people in Scotland. It has statutory powers. Councillors and councils deserve to have their record decided on by the electorate, but no one could examine the elections of 1999, 2003 or 2007 and say honestly that local government issues featured in the campaigns.
The SNP Government has respect for local government. That led to the signing of the concordat between the SNP Government and Scottish local authorities. The SNP believes in the parity of esteem between the Scottish Government, the Scottish Parliament and local government.
Councils must have their own democratic mandate. The challenge for politicians of all political parties and none is to engage with voters and increase turnout. We will do that only if people believe that their participation will make a difference. PRSTV will help to ensure that we have a fair voting system and that every vote counts. I look forward to a proper information campaign before the next local government elections because, frankly, such a campaign was missing in 2007. Members might say that there was an information campaign, but few people out there understood it, so the message did not get across.
I congratulate the minister and the Local Government and Communities Committee on ensuring that the bill has received a smooth passage. I am delighted that, at long last, local government will have its day in the spotlight.
I welcome the opportunity to take part in this stage 3 debate. I do not want to repeat what I said in previous debates, so I will use the opportunity to reflect on some material that I have not used and to draw on some of the lessons from the European Parliament elections.
I reiterate that the decision to decouple the elections is correct—anyone who experienced the 2007 elections and the confusion at the polling stations would agree. When we watched the votes being counted and saw the way in which people had attempted to record their votes, it was clear that there had been a great deal of confusion throughout the country. On the back of that, it is correct to separate the elections. We do not want to put people off voting, but we might do so if we create a situation in which they have to cast too many votes and we use a system that is too complex for some people.
There are issues about voter turnout for the stand-alone council elections in 2012. By then, we will have had four years of elections in a row. Data show that council elections tend to have the lowest turnout. In order to give our democracy credibility, it is crucial for all parties that we maximise voter turnout. We saw that recently in the context of the European elections, where one of the consequences of low turnout was the election of two British National Party members to the European Parliament. Everyone in the chamber would agree that that is a retrograde step. I say in passing that the PR system used in the European Parliament elections helped to deliver that outcome. Had we used the old system of protecting links between members and constituencies, the BNP might not be represented in that Parliament.
Although I regret saying it at this stage in our consideration of the bill, the way in which television in particular promotes and publicises elections influences turnout to a much greater extent than we in the Parliament estimate.
I agree with Margo MacDonald that the way in which television and the media present information to voters has a great deal of influence. That brings me to my next point, which is about the importance of education in relation to the 2012 elections and the challenge facing all political parties to interact with the electorate to increase voter turnout.
If we use modern techniques and—more important—get the issues right, people will turn out to support us. There is an issue in my constituency about a local pharmacy application, about which I will speak later in the members' business debate. I recently ran a survey on the subject. I sent out letters to 1,200 people and nearly 40 per cent of them—more than 400 people—returned their answers. More people in that area responded than voted in the recent European elections. That demonstrates that when we speak out on issues, people interact with the political process and politicians.
I agree with the provisions in the bill and I will support it at 5 o'clock.
Decoupling the local government and Scottish Parliament elections is vital. The equality of status and esteem that this Scottish Government has been developing with the Convention of Scottish Local Authorities via the concordat and single outcome agreements means that local government and Scottish Parliament elections must have equal status. Having both elections on the same day has led to local government issues being swamped by national ones. We must ensure like never before that just as Governments should stand or fall on their records, so should our councils.
It is ironic that two aspects of today's parliamentary business that I have been involved with make the case for me. First, we took evidence at the Local Government and Communities Committee on the £60 million town centre regeneration fund. Alex Neil, the Minister for Housing and Communities, said he hoped that there would be a healthy geographical spread of successful bids to the fund. However, he also made it clear that the quality of the bids was crucial. If a local authority were to make a poor and unimaginative or disappointing bid and it lost out, voters might wish to express an opinion about it at the ballot box.
Secondly, we had a statement on the Scottish Futures Trust and the school building programme only this afternoon. If a local authority does not make best use of its capital budget or makes a botched job of a Scottish Futures Trust bid, once again the electorate might wish to express a view at the ballot box. I picked those two examples not just because of their topicality, but because they are both Scotland-wide issues and, on another level, intimately local ones.
Decoupling will allow voters to decide clearly on the merits of both national Government and local government. Although the topics debated might sometimes be the same, the performance of Governments, Opposition parties in the Parliament and local authorities will vary depending on the topic under discussion. Decoupling will enhance the clarity and the scrutiny of their performance. Indeed, it might allow some local authority electorates to wake up and smell the incompetence
At the Local Government and Communities Committee, much was made of the significant numbers of spoiled papers at the local government elections, despite the fact that there were considerably more spoiled papers in the Scottish Parliament elections. We believe that there was much below-the-radar spoiling of ballot papers in the local government elections, which was caused by misunderstanding. Many voters marked 1 and 2 on the paper and then, because of poor numeracy and literacy skills, marked 2 again. That did not count as a spoiled paper as long as the first preference vote was cast successfully. There is obviously an iceberg-type issue with spoiled papers at local government elections.
I congratulate the Parliament on moving towards decoupling, but I ask the Government to ensure that there are decent public information campaigns to reduce the incidence of spoiled ballot papers.
As a member of the Local Government and Communities Committee, I think that the bill has been straightforward to consider. Perhaps that is because I spent two years on the former Justice 1 Committee, which considered bills such as the Family Law (Scotland) Bill and the Scottish Commissioner for Human Rights Bill—which became the Scottish Commission for Human Rights Act 2006—which were anything but straightforward. However, even when a bill appears straightforward, it is important that it is scrutinised properly. I hope that the Parliament will accept that the Local Government and Communities Committee members took their role seriously and scrutinised the bill properly.
As has been said, the bill has two policy objectives: the decoupling of the Scottish Parliament and local government elections; and the provision of post-election information. I did not have time to say much about the provision of post-election information at stage 1, other than to express my support for it. At present, polling information is made available only down to ward level. Section 2 of the bill would permit Scottish ministers, via a Scottish statutory instrument, to allow returning officers to publish information down to polling station level. People might be suspicious about why we would want such information, so it should be made clear that how individual voters cast their vote would not be revealed. Establishing a numerical threshold of 200, as indicated by the Scottish Government, will ensure that how a person votes is still secret. That must be made clear, given that one of the reasons for the bill is to restore confidence in the election process. The secret ballot is important in allowing everyone to accept an election's legitimacy.
I turn to the decoupling of the Scottish Parliament and local government elections. I said during the stage 1 debate that I did not think that it was impossible to hold two elections, even using different voting systems, on the same day. If it was, we would have to legislate to that effect, but we are not doing so—local government elections could still be held on the same day as Westminster and European elections. However, I acknowledged that faith in the electoral process had been undermined by the problems of the 2007 elections. Therefore, I, and fellow Labour members, have supported the bill.
However, I still believe that the Scottish Government has to respond to a couple of points to ensure the smooth running of future local government elections and to start to rebuild confidence in the electoral process. First, some people have argued that the two elections must be held together to raise turnout and that changing that would affect turnout. I do not believe that there is a risk just to turnout in local government elections—although, given that the Presiding Officer told us that we are debating local government elections, I shall refer only to them.
There is a responsibility on us all to make renewed efforts to increase turnout. One way to aid that is to improve voter education about how STV works. I take issue with Mike Rumbles's earlier comments, because I do not think that people are fully conversant with the process.
Fewer local government election ballot papers were spoiled in 2007 but, as Bob Doris said, that masked a clear amount of misunderstanding. Given that, what resources will the Scottish Government make available to help the education process? How does the Government intend to undertake that work?
In the stage 1 debate, I made it clear that I shared the concerns that were being voiced about the adequacy of funding for local government elections. I think that all members accepted the necessity to use e-counting, but can the minister provide more information than he provided at stage 1 about how much e-counting will cost? The general administration of an election will fall to local authorities, and no cross-subsidy will be available from a Scottish Parliament election. Will the Scottish Government give an assurance on the record today that it will fully fund local government elections?
The bill was not amended at stages 2 and 3, but some issues have still to be resolved to assure fully those who make the effort to cast their vote that their vote will count.
As we all know, the bill had its genesis in the problems that were encountered following the combined elections in 2007. I am sure that none of us wants a repeat of that situation, not just because of the time that we all spent at counts becoming increasingly frustrated at the lack of progress, or even because of our concern—which was right—about the hours that returning officers' staff were required to work.
Our main concern must be with what will maximise voter engagement and turnout. The elector must be at the heart of the decisions that we take. Like others, I am sceptical about the benefits of decoupling local government elections from Scottish Parliament elections. That is the right thing to do at this stage, but I fear a resulting decrease in turnout. I am willing to support the proposal to decouple in the sincere hope that it will work for turnout and will give a focus to local government.
I am sure that we all want local government to have its day in the sun, as one member put it. However, as the recent European elections showed, national events throw elections off course. Just because we want to talk about the Parliament's issues or our council colleagues want to talk about the issues that affect their local authority areas, that does not mean that that is what the media will report or what electors will cast their votes on.
Will the member give way?
I do not have time—I am sorry, Ms MacDonald.
The first step towards the goal of increasing turnout must be examining voter registration. The Local Government and Communities Committee heard about innovative ways of registering voters. For example, we heard of a local authority area in which 200 new voters were registered because of work that was done in secondary schools with young people who were attaining voting age. In my local authority area—Glasgow—students are registered automatically when they matriculate. In that context, the bill that is going through Westminster to introduce individual rather than household registration will be helpful.
In recent years, we have expected much of electors. We have expected them to cope with more elections and we have introduced two new voting systems. Perhaps we must think even more about facilitating voting. I am pleased with what the minister has said today and to the committee about the work that he is progressing. However, the committee heard from witnesses that the system of information officers in polling stations in 2007 had mixed results—my experience bears that out. The majority view was that the idea was sound but that a bit more consistency would have made a difference. The view of most witnesses whom the committee questioned was that we should continue with information officers at least until the election systems had bedded down, but that we had to provide better training for such officers and for voting booth staff and other polling station staff, because people often ask them questions and do not always approach information officers. I would be pleased if the minister and the Government developed that in conjunction with local government colleagues, but I acknowledge that a cost is associated with the measure.
Similarly, costs will be associated with decoupling and with e-counting. Given that the local government elections in 2012 will take place on the same day as the London Assembly elections, the cost of e-counting will be a major consideration.
I accept that in committee the minister said that he and his officials planned to get on with the project as soon as possible. I hope that he will be able to tell us what progress has been made on commissioning the e-counting system. I would also be grateful if he would advise us of whether he is beginning to have meaningful discussions with Scotland's local authorities about the many issues that were raised with the committee in relation to the loss of the economy of scale that applied to the previous combined elections.
In spite of my slight reservations, I will support the bill at 5 o'clock.
This afternoon we have had an interesting, if brief, debate on an important matter, especially for our local government colleagues up and down the country. Professor Ron Gould's report, which I and other members of the Local Government and Communities Committee considered, highlighted a number of key issues. I invite the minister when summing up to indicate which of those issues the Government intends to pursue—I hope that it will pursue as many as possible.
One issue that the committee discussed a great deal but which has not been touched on at all in this debate is the costs of decoupling. There is no doubt that decoupling the local government and Scottish Parliament elections will increase costs—possibly by circa £5 million. We need to ensure not only that that money is available but that the sharing out of resources between local government and central Government is properly thought through and that an excessive burden is not imposed on local government. Andy Kerr said that he sought a well-resourced voter education campaign. That is important, but it must be properly focused if it is to be at all successful.
Decoupling has been backed by members of all the parties represented in the chamber, by the Gould report and by bodies such as Unison and the Electoral Commission. I hope that the minister will support the process. It is correct that we should move from the present system to a four-year cycle of local government elections between Scottish Parliament elections, which also have a four-year cycle. We should do so in stages, as has been suggested.
Another issue that was raised in committee but which has not been raised today is e-counting. As we all know, in 2007 e-counting was extremely controversial. I am slightly bemused by the suggestion that it will be used only for local government elections. Electronic counting is essential under the STV system that is used in those elections, if votes are to be counted timeously and properly. I ask the minister to indicate in his summing up how we will evidence the fact that e-counting problems have been overcome if there are no more large-scale e-counting elections until 2011.
Under the bill, the Government will carry out a consultation, which is welcome. We look forward to working with the Government on ways of increasing voter turnout. Mr Crawford highlighted some examples, which was helpful. However, we need to gain the public's confidence. One way in which all of us can do that is by changing people's attitude that all politicians are in it for themselves. In Falkirk and elsewhere, we need to engage with the public and to show them that they are getting value for money from their representatives.
Ron Gould, who is an international expert in elections, produced a hefty report for the committee to consider. Going through the document was a time-consuming but interesting process. The report recommended the appointment of a chief returning officer for Scotland. As my colleague Mike Rumbles indicated, the Calman commission may be the key to helping us ensure that we have full control over elections in Scotland, including control over the appointment of a chief returning officer.
Postal voting, and even advance-voting strategies, as used in other countries, should be considered as ways of making the voting process more effective. Andy Kerr sought engagement with people; David McLetchie argued that it was necessary for the Scottish Parliament elections and local government elections to be separated. I ask the minister to ensure that those points are fully researched and that all helpful suggestions are put into practice as soon as possible.
In recent years, the Lib Dems have changed their position on the decoupling of local elections from Scottish Parliament elections. We have done so because we have much greater respect for local government and our local government colleagues than some colleagues have sometimes shown. We have shown that respect, and we have ensured that information is available. We have not tied local government, like the Scottish National Party has done, to unrealistic manifesto pledges, or indeed to complicated single outcome agreements—as was touched on by David McLetchie.
I understand that my time is up. Thank you, Presiding Officer.
This has been a strange debate, in a way, as nothing has really changed since the stage 1 debate on 14 May. For that reason alone, I quite enjoyed the rather shameless infomercial for STV from Mr Rumbles. However, I am not quite sure that it was grounded in reality.
As Bruce Crawford agreed, this is a vital bill for Scotland. It is unlikely to grab the headlines, but it is critical for restoring faith in democracy in Scotland. It will do so in two ways, I believe. First, it will reduce voter confusion and, as a consequence, the number of rejected ballot papers will reduce. Secondly, and just as important, the bill will strengthen local government and make it accountable to the people that it seeks to serve.
The policy now has overwhelming support. It has been policy for the Conservative party—and for Tricia Marwick—for quite a number of years. I think that the Greens, too, signed David Mundell's initial proposal for a member's bill. The decoupling of the elections was recommended in the McIntosh, Kerley, Arbuthnott and Gould reports. It is interesting to note that there have been no divisions at all on the bill, either at stage 1 or in the Local Government and Communities Committee. I am sure that members are listening to this debate, and I am also fairly sure that the bill will be passed this evening, also without division.
It is now important to focus on what the next steps might be. A number of speakers have touched on that, some in more detail than others. The Achilles' heel of the bill is the potential—I stress the word "potential"—for reduced voter turnout. It is important to note, however, that Ron Gould himself said:
"In essence, the local government elections are not simply about ensuring a reasonable number of voters show up at the polls on polling day. More important is that they engage with the campaign in a meaningful manner and make a knowledgeable decision on their ballot paper."
I do not believe that voter turnout is the only show in town, although it is clearly critical. Other members have alluded to the decline in the number of votes in local government elections. Turnout was about 51 per cent in 1974; it dropped to about 45 per cent in 1995. It is a matter of fact that, in 1999—the first year in which the two sets of elections were coupled together—turnout rose from 45 to 58 per cent. However, it then dropped back to 49.8 per cent just four years later. It is fair to suggest that coupling the elections improved turnout, but it does not automatically follow that turnout will go down if we decouple them. There is the potential for that to happen, but if the right structures are put in place, it can be avoided.
Efforts need to be made instantly to ensure that turnout in local government elections remains as high as it is—or higher—so that local government is truly accountable. I have reflected on some of the comments that Bruce Crawford made. At least he already has some ideas on the table, such as better adverts, grass-roots campaigns, a better schools programme, making it easier to vote and voting over a number of days, which I suspect might be tiring for campaigners and candidates, although it would perhaps make things far easier for voters. I am not sure whether the ideas that are on the table are the right ones, but it is incumbent on all of us in the Parliament and in the wider Scottish electorate to try to ensure that voter turnout does not drop as a consequence of the bill.
The STV experiment was not the heralded success that the Liberals have portrayed. The rate of rejected papers trebled between 2003 and 2007.
We will support the bill, but further action will be required as we consider turnout and voter education.
In the stage 1 debate on the bill, I said that we were debating democracy. Since then, we have had democracy in action, with the European elections and a local election in my constituency, following the sad death of the former provost of East Dunbartonshire Council, Alex Hannah. I pay tribute to him for his long and dedicated service, both to his constituents and to the Labour Party.
Alex Hannah was a hard act to follow, but Labour selected an excellent candidate. Polling took place on the same day as elections to the European Parliament. We will agree to the decoupling of elections at decision time today, so it is interesting to note what happened. In the local council by-election, turnout in the Bishopbriggs South ward was 38.3 per cent. Some 9,463 people were eligible to vote in the ward and 3,622 turned out on the day. The Labour candidate, Alan Moir, received 1,401 first-preference votes—a 38 per cent share of the vote—and was elected after the fourth count-back.
The eligible electorate in the East Dunbartonshire constituency was 79,702 and 27,127 votes were cast, so turnout was 36.5 per cent. Therefore, in the area in which there was a contest to elect a local councillor, turnout was marginally higher than it was in the European elections in the rest of the constituency. I do not know whether turnout was lower than 40 per cent in both cases as a result of voter apathy or because there is less interest in European elections. In the joint Scottish Parliament and local government elections in 2007, turnout was 60.6 per cent, which is considerably higher. It is worth noting that only 52 ballot papers were spoiled in the local government by-election, which was conducted under the STV system, and that turnout in the Bishopbriggs South ward in the joint Scottish Parliament and local government elections was 58.5 per cent.
Be that as it may, the bill has been debated and decided on. Labour will support the decoupling of the local government elections, and the next two elections in which we choose councillors will take place in 2012 and 2017.
During the stage 2 debate on the bill, the Minister for Parliamentary Business, Bruce Crawford, was put under pressure to tell the Parliament who will pay the additional costs of decoupling. According to the explanatory notes, the joint elections in 2007 cost £6.6 million. The notes contain various estimates of the cost of decoupling and present two scenarios. In the worst-case scenario, the additional cost to local authorities is estimated to be £5 million, on the basis that local authorities already have nearly £2 million in their allocations to cover elections—that might come as a surprise to local authorities, but who knows? Mr Crawford says that the money is there. The best-case scenario puts the cost at £4.5 million. According to the explanatory notes,
"the average additional cost per local authority will … be £156,000".
However, the caveat is added:
"The average figure is … for illustrative purposes only."
It is a pity that the Scotland Office has said that it does not intend to use e-counting in the next Scottish Parliament elections. In principle, I see nothing wrong with electronic voting. The key is to have a reliable system. It was the lack of reliability that was at fault in 2007.
Reliability is essential, but there must also be the correct specs. That is difficult to anticipate.
I am not sure what the member meant by "the correct specs". I thought that I was wearing the right specs—
I was talking about specifications for the counting machines. They are not big enough.
I am sure that Margo MacDonald will forgive me for having a bit of fun with her.
Always, always.
I agree with Margo MacDonald that we must have a reliable system. Computers can give out only information that is fed into them, as everyone should know. They are not human.
I welcome the Scottish Government's intention to work in partnership with local authority returning officers to put in place an e-counting system in time for the local government elections in 2012.
Mr McLetchie and Mrs Marwick gave the I-told-you-so speeches that we have come to expect from them. Bob Doris mentioned the town centre regeneration fund. I, too, hope that there will be a healthy geographical spread of successful bids to the fund, and I hope that Kirkintilloch in East Dunbartonshire will benefit. Mary Mulligan and Patricia Ferguson talked about costs. Mr Rumbles eulogised about STV but did not say whether he supports alphabetical listing.
I prefer random selection to a particular approach to listing candidates.
I welcome that clarification.
Labour welcomes the bill and will give it our full support at decision time.
A great number of points were raised in the debate. I will do my best to cover as many as possible, but I might not be able to cover every one of them.
David McLetchie and Tricia Marwick did their best to hide their gloating glands on this occasion—not successfully, I must say. I guess that their views could be boiled down to, "I told you so."
Andy Kerr did the best job that he could of explaining why Labour has changed its mind on decoupling and did it with some honesty, if not always the humility that we expect from him.
Mike Rumbles managed to go through his whole speech saying why he was opposed to the bill. I heard nothing at all that indicated that he would support it.
I did say that.
I invite him to intervene and repeat it.
If the minister had listened to my speech, he would have heard me say that we would support the bill.
I tried hard to listen to Mike Rumbles, but all that I could see was every sinew in his body saying that he wanted to vote against the bill. He is obviously being whipped today, even though he is the whip himself.
Mr Rumbles mentioned the Calman commission. I suggest that he read its report. He might fall asleep after a couple of pages, but it is worth getting up to speed on the issue. Calman proposes the transfer of only the administration of Scottish elections; he does not recommend that Westminster should transfer the legislative responsibilities for the electoral system in any way—whether the voting system, the voting age or the number of MSPs.
Do not be defeatist.
Mike Rumbles should know by now that I am never defeatist. I am in a minority Government of only 47 members out of 129. It would not pay to be defeatist in those circumstances.
As everyone knows—we have been through the issues on a number of occasions in the parliamentary process—the financial memorandum contains the costs of the bill's proposals for decoupling. I tell Mr Whitton that those estimates were agreed by the electoral management board for Scotland. The Government has already made a commitment to meet the additional costs, and I repeat that commitment to Mary Mulligan.
The Government has also made a commitment to meet the costs of e-counting. Those will be determined by competitive tendering, which will begin in the autumn. I hope that that more up-to-date information helps Mary Mulligan.
We will also run information campaigns in co-operation with the Electoral Commission. Costs will be discussed with COSLA at the appropriate time.
I appreciate that there will be official information campaigns, but will the minister also take on board the requirement to talk seriously to the media that cover and publicise local government elections, to try to get them to refocus on those elections and not the outcome of the next general election?
I will do my best as long as Margo MacDonald and everyone else do the same. If we all did that, we might have some impact, but she knows as well as anyone else how the media work.
We have met the electoral management board to develop the functional specifications for the e-counting system. Work is under way to tender for that in the autumn. In addition, we met officials from the Greater London Authority to discuss managing the risks of holding the two e-counts on the same day, which we recognise.
Jim Tolson asked whether e-counting will work. I guess that testing, testing, testing and then even more testing will be how we find out whether it works. We will have 12 to 15 months before the elections in 2012 to make that testing work on as many occasions as we can.
Members such as Andy Kerr and Mike Rumbles mentioned the ballot paper. It is the means by which most people take part in the political process, so it must be as easy to use as possible and we need to ensure as far as we can that it is. As Andy Kerr said, the work that the Electoral Commission is doing in that regard is vital.
We know that turnout is not a problem just in Scotland; it is a problem worldwide. However, there are some exceptions that show that it is not impossible to achieve high turnout. We should see what we can learn from other countries, and we have started to examine the worldwide activity. We are considering some case studies and examples of effective practice and imaginative initiatives. A number of approaches that have been taken elsewhere could be adopted in Scotland.
Several members referred to turnout in the European elections earlier this month. The average turnout across Europe was 43 per cent, whereas turnout in the United Kingdom was only 34 per cent. In Scotland, the average turnout was 28.6 per cent, with East Renfrewshire and East Dunbartonshire achieving turnouts of 36 per cent and North Lanarkshire and Glasgow managing turnouts of only 22 per cent and 23 per cent. Overall turnout for the European elections was disappointing. Excluding countries that use mandatory voting, 14 member states experienced falls in turnout and 10 member states managed to increase turnout. However, those 10 included some notable exceptions: Estonia achieved an increase in turnout of more than 17 percentage points compared with 2004 and Denmark's turnout increased to 60 per cent, which is an increase of almost 12 percentage points. What are those countries doing differently that is increasing turnouts to that level?
Does the minister really want an answer to that question?
Order. The member will wait until she is called.
Given that I have only six minutes, I should perhaps now conclude.
Like previous parliamentary consideration of the bill, today's debate has demonstrated the cross-party support that exists for decoupling. I have enjoyed working with the Local Government and Communities Committee on the bill at stages 1 and 2, but it is now time to move on. We all agree on the benefits of decoupling, but decoupling of itself will not ensure effective and well-run elections. The bill will also provide for the publication of more detailed vote information—on which very little has been said today—at polling station level rather than at ward level. That will increase the transparency of our electoral processes without compromising the secrecy of the ballot.
I recommend the decoupling bill to Parliament.