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Is that the case even though, as a member, you arrived because of your membership of a political party and because you appeared on a ranked list?

So, in your mind, at a constituency level, having an individual name appearing on the ballot paper and the electorate voting for that person because they are identified very clearly, they are associated with a known political party and they have chosen to do that is no different from literally a party name appearing on the regional ballot. Are you satisfied that there is enough similarity between those two events that the process should be as similar as possible for a departing situation?

Welcome back. Agenda item 3 is consideration of a legislative consent memorandum on the Absent Voting (Elections in Scotland and Wales) Bill, which is a private member’s bill that has been introduced in the House of Commons by Tracy Gilbert MP. The bill relates to absent voting at local government elections in Scotland and Wales and at elections to the Scottish Parliament and the Senedd. It will give the Scottish and Welsh Governments powers to introduce regulations that enable applications for postal and proxy votes for devolved elections to be made online using the online absent vote application—OAVA—service, which has been developed by the UK Government.

Members have a note from the clerk, which includes a copy of the memorandum that has been lodged by Shona Robison, the Cabinet Secretary for Finance and Local Government. It was lodged on 12 June 2025 following consideration of the bill at committee stage on 11 June 2025. Consideration at report stage is scheduled for 4 July 2025.

The Minister for Parliamentary Business wrote to the relevant UK Government minister on 30 May 2025, before the date was set for the committee stage. In that letter, the minister noted that a date for consideration of the bill at committee stage had not been set, and he expressed his

“concern over the limited time now available for the Scottish Parliament to give its consent and also that”

he

“will now be obliged to ask it to do so to an expedited timetable”

in order for the Parliament’s consent decision to be given before our summer recess.

The Scottish Government recommends that consent be given. It is anticipated that the Delegated Powers and Law Reform Committee will consider the LCM at its meeting on Tuesday 24 June 2025.

If no members wish to make any comments or ask any questions regarding the memorandum, I propose that the committee writes to note the concern that we will have to expedite the provision of the LCM because of when our summer recess starts. When it comes to Westminster, the lodging of LCMs sits outside the control of the Scottish Government and the Scottish Parliament.

Are members content to support the LCM but to defer publication of the committee’s report until after the DPLR Committee has had the opportunity to consider it next Tuesday?

Members indicated agreement.

This is, of course, an evidence session rather than a session to decide whether we are going one way or the other. This is an opportunity to gather evidence so that the committee can then answer the questions that are being posed. To be fair to Emma, that is why she asked.

My other question relates to completion of rights of appeal. There might be situations in which someone is imprisoned but there is still a right of appeal. What is your view? Must the rights of appeal be exhausted, notwithstanding the fact that the person might be incarcerated during that process? Or is it the incarceration that triggers the provision, even though a conviction might subsequently be quashed on appeal?

Today, we conclude our oral evidence sessions on the Scottish Parliament (Recall and Removal of Members) Bill at stage 1. I welcome Graham Simpson, who is the member in charge of the bill. He is joined by Ben McKendrick, senior clerk in the Scottish Parliament’s non-Government bills unit, and Catriona Lyle, who is from the Scottish Parliament’s legal services office. Graham, before we move to questions from members, would you like to open on the purpose of the bill and the reasons for it?

Good morning. I welcome everyone to the 11th meeting in 2025 of the Standards, Procedures and Public Appointments Committee. I have received apologies from Ruth Maguire, so I welcome Rona Mackay, who is attending as a committee substitute.

Our first item of business is for the committee to agree to take in private item 4, which will be discussion of the evidence on a member’s bill that we are about to hear. Are members content to take that item in private?

Members indicated agreement.

Elections obviously have tight rules on campaign expenditure: who does it, how it is done and how it is reported. When the minister gave evidence about the recall petition, he made the point that an individual could face an unknown campaign to remove them. Would that need to be addressed in secondary legislation? Would you expect the financing in relation to the petition to be dealt with in secondary legislation, and should it be dealt with by secondary legislation for the purposes of the recall petition?

Let me delve into that. You talked about serious offences; there might be other offences that a group of the community would perhaps despair at. For example, the provision would be triggered if someone were in prison for more than six months for contempt of court, but people might dispute the reason for the sentencing. I am not inviting you to comment on that unless you wish to. Are you content that the trigger should be the sentence of imprisonment for six months—or, indeed, for longer but for less than 12 months and one day—rather than the reason for which that sentence has come about?

Right. That is what I am driving at.