Seòmar agus comataidhean

I have nothing further to add, convener. I will press amendment 63.

Amendment 63 agreed to.

Amendments 64 and 65 moved—[Ross Greer]—and agreed to.

The question of randomising ballot papers, or the advantage or disadvantage of alphabetical order on ballot papers, is not unique to Scotland or the UK, and I am sure that members will be familiar with the issue. This is a long-standing area of debate in all parliamentary democracies.

There is strong evidence that appearing at the top of the ballot paper is an advantage. A quite comprehensive study in 2015 in Denmark found, on average, a 4 per cent advantage to the candidates at the top of ballot papers. In Scotland, the advantage might not be as significant as 4 per cent—there has not been the same rigorous study here—but there are plenty of other studies from across the world showing various levels of advantage to candidates who are at the top of ballot papers. Nothing can be done to prevent that, because somebody needs to be at the top of the ballot paper.

However, based on the principle of fairness, but also the perception of fairness, I think that we should randomise ballot papers so that there is no way to secure that advantage. I remember one particular incident in which a candidate from my party was accused of having changed their surname so that it began with A. That candidate was successfully elected—

Yes, by something in the region of 4 per cent.

I can confirm that that candidate was not particularly enthusiastic about being elected to the local authority in question, and most certainly had not changed their surname to secure that advantage. If they had realised that in advance, they perhaps would have kept their previous surname, although their partner might have had something to say about that.

Because of that unfair advantage, I am proposing randomisation, but I have not prescribed a method of randomisation. Local authority returning officers could simply draw straws or pick names out of a hat. They might want to do it like the cup draw for the football and get minor celebrities in, live stream it and make it a bit more exciting for the three people who will be watching. That is for returning officers to decide. I have simply stated that the ballot papers should be randomised to tackle the issue.

The committee will be glad to know that I will speak to the amendments only very briefly, because I believe that they align with the Government’s intentions. I will use two examples to illustrate why the amendments, which relate to agents and candidates, are necessary.

Amendments 64 and 65 deal with the current requirement for election agents to use their home address. In the relatively recent past, there was an incident in which an individual turned up at the home address of a party election agent on the weekend after an election, because they were seeking the successful candidate who had been elected. The candidate had, quite reasonably, not used their home address in the nomination process, but that individual was able to find the election agent’s home address. Thankfully, the incident did not escalate, but it illustrates the need for us also to give the option that candidates have to their election agents, to ensure that everyone can engage with the process safely.

Amendment 63 would give candidates a new option to state the ward that they live in. At present, candidates can state the local authority area that they live in or the constituency that they live in, when that is relevant.

The example that I will use for amendment 63 relates to the recent Arran by-election. Arran and Cumbrae are the two islands in the North Ayrshire Council area. As you would expect, it is very important to Arran residents that they know that candidates live on the island and, therefore, understand life in an island community. One of the candidates who was put forward by a party did not live on the island, which resulted in the candidates who were Arran residents feeling under pressure to publish their home addresses in order to demonstrate that they lived on the island. The other option was simply to state that they lived in the North Ayrshire Council area, but that could mean that they lived in Irvine, Kilwinning or Ardrossan—in other words, not on the island—and did not have lived experience of island life.

A number of people have approached me to say that they want to be able to demonstrate that they have a connection to the relevant community. That applies not only to islands: particularly in larger local authority areas, a candidate being able to demonstrate that they live in the area is important. People want to be able to demonstrate that without compromising their and their family’s safety by publishing their home address. Amendment 63 would simply provide candidates with the additional option of stating what ward they live in, which would clarify their connection to the community.

I move amendment 63.

I am happy to take up the minister’s offer of further engagement and therefore I seek the committee’s agreement to withdraw amendment 66.

Amendment 66, by agreement, withdrawn.

Amendments 67 and 68 not moved.

Section 28—Pilot schemes under the Scottish Local Government (Elections) Act 2002

I am going to speak only to my own amendment, convener, and I will be quite brief.

Amendment 69 will require parliamentary approval not for all pilots but for any pilot that alters how votes are cast. My primary area of concern is e-voting—electronic voting, digital voting or however you wish to phrase it. I am not seeking to ban e-voting pilots outright, although in all honesty I would do so, but I think that any move from a paper to an electronic ballot, even as part of a pilot, would be of such significance that it should require specific consideration before it went ahead. Any trial of a new system, even in a single area, will still be part of a live election in which somebody will be elected to represent a community.

Given the significance of long-held concerns about the potential ability to compromise such a system, there should be that additional level of scrutiny. Therefore, I propose that any pilot that changes how votes are cast be subject to the Parliament’s approval.

I move amendment 69.

I thank the committee members and the minister for taking part in the debate. I recognise that these would be significant changes, but we should be a bit cautious about the argument that significant changes cannot be introduced to bills through amendments, because that robs everyone other than the Government of the ability to make significant changes. Back-bench MSPs from the governing party, as well as Opposition MSPs, also have the right to legislate for substantive things.

Apologies, convener—I read the wrong number at that point. You are right: the proposed threshold would be 0.01 per cent of voters for constituencies, and it would be 0.05 per cent for the regional list. Sorry—I should have made that clear.

Amendment 68, on by-elections, is designed to address what I see as democratic distortion caused by having single-member by-elections for multimember wards. Again, it might seem a little odd that this amendment is being moved by a Green, given that, as of this year, we have finally started winning some by-elections. However, I think that it is important to air the distortion argument in Parliament.

For example, at the moment, Perth City North has three Scottish National Party councillors in a three-member ward as a result of a by-election. That is despite the SNP having less than 50 per cent support—it still has substantial support—and there being strong support in that ward for both Labour and the Conservatives.

Four out of four councillors in the Drumchapel/Anniesland ward were from the Labour Party after our colleague Bill Kidd stood down from his council seat to focus on this Parliament. If there was another by-election in Hillhead, in Glasgow, because Councillor Ken Andrew decided to move on and do something else with his life—I emphasise that I do not believe that he is going to do so—the Greens would win that ward and would have three out of the three councillors in a ward that elected only one Green at the last election.

The Scottish Parliament made the choice to adopt a proportional system—the single transferable vote—for council elections. Other countries that use STV for their local elections do not generally have by-elections. For example, the Republic of Ireland does not have by-elections. Of course, Northern Ireland also does not have by-elections, but that is for very different reasons—it is about maintaining balance between communities—so I generally do not use that as an example. The Republic of Ireland does not because it has a similar system to what I am proposing.

If a vacating councillor was originally elected on a party ticket, that party’s nominating officer would be able to appoint a replacement for them. I would propose maintaining a by-election system for independents, so it would not go as far as it does in other systems. In Ireland, for example, if an independent councillor vacates, it is up to the council to decide how to appoint their replacement. I would not go quite that far, as I think it is reasonable to have by-elections in the case of independents.

I thank Mr Simpson for that intervention, which takes me to the exact point that I wanted to close on.

I concede—absolutely—that there is a trade-off. Individual candidacy matters more in a local election than it does at any other level. It often does not matter quite as much as those of us who are candidates and elected representatives would like to think it does, but it matters more at a local election, so there is a trade-off.

At the moment, many people—usually most people—vote to elect councillors from a party that does not come first in a multimember ward, and they are then left without representation as a result of a by-election caused by a vacancy left by any candidate other than the one who came first.

I do not comprehensively recall the—

Yes.