Chamber and committees

To answer the latter question, I do not have those statistics to hand. Migration statistics are largely held by the UK Government. Based on the information that we can go on from the National Records of Scotland, in the year to mid-2021, an estimated 397,000 non-British nationals were living in Scotland, of whom 165,000 were non-European Union citizens.

However, lest anyone think that this is likely to lead to a significant increase in the number of candidates, I point out that there were 2,606 candidates in 2007 and 2,548 in the most recent election, in 2022. That indicates that, of the overall eligible population likely to stand for election, it is a fairly small proportion who do, and this change is unlikely to alter that.

Again, that goes back to the wider question that was asked by Mr Bonnar. That is a wider area of work that we look to progress. Some of that is being done in collaboration with the UK Government, which has a lot of information about some of those issues. There is interaction with the UK Government at that level, but it is incumbent on us all to be vigilant.

That is precisely why we are introducing the bill now. We sought to give the Parliament as much clarity as early as possible in order for it to be implemented in time for the next council elections. In line with the Gould principles, any changes to elections law should ideally be in place six months before the coming election. If that is not possible, they should be in place as soon as possible. That reflects our intent with the bill.

With any form of legislation, we seek to avoid any error being made. Unfortunately, it can happen from time to time. In such circumstances, it is incumbent on us to at least offer the Parliament the chance to rectify the error, which is what we are doing in this instance.

The reason for this error was the way in which the franchise and candidacy entitlement have evolved across a range of different pieces of legislation over a long time. The legislation on candidacy rights, which dates back to the 1970s, has been amended a number of times in what could probably be considered piecemeal fashion, which has caused some challenges. In effect, what has happened in this instance is that Commonwealth citizens have historically been treated differently from other foreign nationals and not been included within the legal definition of a qualifying foreign national. We sought to franchise a cohort of the population that we wanted to enable to become candidates. We thought that we had covered that by extending the definition of qualifying foreign nationals, but it became clear in cross-referring to the legislation in preparing the SSIs that the provision did not, unfortunately, include Commonwealth citizens with limited leave to remain.

I think that I just agreed with that, Ms Baillie. I said that I recognise that.

We believe that this change is needed because it will fulfil what the Parliament agreed to in the previous parliamentary session. I do not think that the Parliament intended to have a situation in which, to return to the example that I cited, a US national with limited leave to remain could stand for local government in Scotland, but a Canadian citizen with limited leave to remain could not. Similarly, a citizen of Turkey or Greece with limited leave to remain could stand for local government in Scotland, but a citizen of Cyprus could not. I happen to have a list in front of me of all 56 sovereign states that are Commonwealth nations, but I will spare you from hearing me read them all unless you really want me to do so. In effect there is an odd gap in the law, so this is a chance for the Parliament to rectify it.

I do not think that there is a substantially increased risk of that. Since the 2025 act took effect, we have cast a glance across all the by-elections and checked to see whether any of the candidates who were elected fell foul of those rules, and none of them did, so I do not think that it is a substantial risk.

I answered some of those points in response to Mr Simpson’s question. I do not consider that the change is likely to lead to a substantial number of by-elections. Can we say that it is impossible? No, we cannot, but I go back to my wider point that, when anyone stands for any election—in this instance they are local government elections—you cannot rule out the possibility of an individual’s circumstances changing and the councillor determining that they do not want to remain in office. There is a marginal risk but not a significantly heightened risk.

I caught a few of the exchanges that you had with the previous panel. There might be wider questions to consider about the approach that was taken, which was unanimously agreed to by the previous Parliament. The committee might want to look at that issue, but the proposition in this bill is very limited. Is it consistent that those who are foreign nationals from non-Commonwealth countries with limited leave to remain can stand in council elections but those who are Commonwealth citizens with limited leave to remain cannot? We need to fix that inconsistency.

If there is wider work to do that the committee decides to look at, the Government will of course engage with that.

I am happy to do that.

I know that you did not vote for the bill. You had the opportunity to do so, though, Ms Baillie. You were a member in the previous parliamentary session.