Bills and Laws

Scottish Local Government Elections (Candidacy Rights of Foreign Nationals) Bill

The Bill ensures all nationals of Luxembourg, Poland, Portugal and Spain are allowed to stand as candidates in Scottish local government elections.

The UK has entered into treaties with these countries to allow their nationals to be candidates here. The Bill puts this into law. Without this Bill, nationals from these countries must have settled status or pre-settled status to stand as candidates. If this Bill is passed, it will be enough that they have any type of leave to remain in the UK.

The Bill also allows the Scottish Ministers to add to the list of countries who have this arrangement using regulations. The Scottish Ministers must (and can only) use this power to add a country to the list if that country is entering into a treaty with the UK. They also have the power to remove a country from this list if that country stops being party to a treaty.

Scottish Local Government Elections (Candidacy Rights of Foreign Nationals) Bill as introduced

Read the rest of the Bill's overview

The Bill was passed on 09 June 2022 and became an Act on 19 July 2022