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
The Bill was passed on 09 June 2022 and became an Act on 19 July 2022
Contents
Stage 1 - General principles
Committees examine the Bill and gather views. They produce reports before MSPs debate the Bill in the Chamber. MSPs then decide on the purpose (“general principles”) of the Bill.
The Bill ended Stage 1 on 29 March 2022
Committee Examination
The lead committee for this Bill is the Standards, Procedures and Public Appointments Committee
Find out more about this committee
The committee published its Stage 1 report on 21 March 2022.
The Stage 1 debate on the Bill took place on 29 March 2022.
Who spoke to the lead committee in the Parliament
MSPs met with people in committee meetings to discuss what the Bill will do.
Minutes of 3 March 2022
Minutes of 17 March 2022 (private)
Meeting on 3 March 2022
Work by other committees
Delegated Powers and Law Reform Committee
Committee report
The lead committee published its report on 21 March 2022.
The Committee received the following responses to its report –
Letter from the Minister for Parliamentary Business (261.2KB, pdf) (261KB, pdf) posted 28 March 2022
Debate
MSPs debate the purpose (“general principles”) of the Bill.
Meeting on 29 March 2022
Vote
MSPs vote on the general principles of the Bill.
Meeting on 29 March 2022
Scottish Local Government Elections (Candidacy Rights of Foreign Nationals) Bill
- Submitted by: George Adam, Paisley, Scottish National Party.
- Date lodged: Monday, 28 March 2022
- Motion type: Motion For Debate
- Motion reference: S6M-03818
- Current status: Taken in the Chamber on Tuesday, 29 March 2022