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Will the member give way on that point?

The amendments in this group are either technical adjustments or seek to make changes that tidy up drafting and correct minor typos in the bill as introduced. They make no policy changes.

Amendment 23 adjusts section 23 of the bill for technical reasons. That section currently seeks to amend section 46 of the Scotland Act 1998 by adding two new subsections to take account of any delay in Parliament meeting after a rescheduled election. However, because the Scottish Parliament can modify only certain listed provisions in the 1998 act, that structure would mean that there could, arguably, be doubt about whether our Parliament would be able to amend the section further in the future. The amendment restructures the proposed amendments to leave no doubt that the text can be changed in the future by this Parliament, if that is desired.

Amendments 26, 27 and 30 add the secretary of state to the list of consultees when the convener of the Electoral Management Board or a returning officer is considering rescheduling a local government election. That is to ensure that any rescheduled local election does not fall on the same day as a UK parliamentary election. Although such a situation is considered to be unlikely to arise, were it to happen it would result in a combined election, which would add considerable complexity for administrators and risk voter confusion.

I turn to amendment 44. Existing secondary legislation powers for Scottish Parliament elections allow ministers to make provision for sub-delegating certain responsibilities to other persons. The specific sub-delegation that we have been considering is to place a requirement on the Electoral Commission to provide guidance on ways in which returning officers can assist voters with accessibility needs. The Government plans to legislate on such guidance in 2025 for Scottish Parliament elections, and before 2027 for local elections.

We have established that, as the legislation stands, Scottish ministers have the necessary legislative powers to require the Electoral Commission to provide guidance for Scottish Parliament elections, but do not have the power to do so for council elections. Amendment 44 therefore seeks to change those powers in relation to local government elections so that they match the existing powers on sub-delegation in relation to parliamentary elections. It will allow secondary legislation and council elections to refer to documents such as guidance or forms that are prepared by the Electoral Commission and others, and will provide that those documents form part of the rules in relation to local elections.

Amendment 45 simply corrects a typo. Similarly, amendment 48 corrects an inconsistency in language where the word “code” appears when it should say “plan”.

I invite the committee to support the straightforward amendments in this group in my name.

I move amendment 23.

I am happy to deal with it at the end, if you would like.

I have underlined at the top of my notes that it is Venice and not Vienna, convener—that is a mistake that I make frequently.

I will start with Ms Webber’s point, lest I forget. She is right, in that amendment 20 creates transitional provision. She cited the convention, and that is the very purpose of the provision. We need to strike a balance, by creating a set of provisions that I believe will fundamentally improve public safety and trust in our democratic system, but in a way that is proportionate and meets the requirements of the Venice commission—I nearly said “Vienna” again—around the disqualification of parliamentarians. The fundamental point is that there should be a high threshold for disbarring someone who is already in elected office. We need to approach that carefully.

I am happy to give way if Ms Webber seeks more information.

I will press amendment 8, convener.

I am just being reminded that I may not have been clear enough. I was referring to those who are already subject to a notification requirement. If, after commencement of the provisions, someone is found to have acted in such a way that they are then covered by an order, they will be disqualified. The provision applies only to those who are subject to such an order just now. I suggest that, if there are any such people, the number will be pretty small. I have no evidence to suggest that there are any.

I refer back to the point that I made about proportionality. I am trying to make sure that we are compliant with our wider obligations. Once we have commenced the provisions, anyone who commits an offence or becomes subject to an order—even if they are elected now—would be caught by such a disqualification. I hope that that provides the reassurance that Sue Webber was looking for. However, if she wants to discuss the matter further, I am happy to do so.

I turn to some—I will not cover all—comments that colleagues have made. On Annie Wells’s points, I go back to the point that I made in speaking to the amendments. I completely understand her concerns. It is just a matter of trying to get the balance right. I observe that, before her colleague Sue Webber joined the committee, Oliver Mundell expressed almost the opposite point of view, asking whether we were satisfied that what we seek to do is compliant with the ECHR and almost suggesting that we have to be cautious. I said yes at the time, and I say it now—I am confident—but I take that step further because we are at risk of not being compliant. Of course, I am happy to discuss those matters with her.

Graham Simpson talked about the value of stage 2. Ross Greer and Ben Macpherson have also spoken about that. I completely accept that point. Mr Simpson was right to say that the issue of dual mandates was raised at committee. He raised it in debate. All I will say, convener, is that, although paragraph 358 of the committee’s report reflects some comments by witnesses on dual mandates, there was no recommendation for me to act on. That is the point that I was making.

Incidentally, I was happy to hear Graham Simpson’s list of all those who had been elected with a dual mandate. It was a reminder of many colleagues from the past. I was happy to be reminded of most of them, and happy not to have been one of them.

I appreciate that Mr Simpson does not plan to move his amendments. Clearly, he has given the matter some consideration. He said that he was of the clear view that what he sought to bring forward deals with the policy matter in the right way; however, he seems to have accepted the need for consultation. I make it clear to him that consultation is not an attempt to kick matters into the long grass. I observe that the bill that we are debating was subject to a thorough and rigorous consultation. The matter of sex offenders was subject to a consultation last year, which shows that we can move quickly on such matters. Consultation is a genuine attempt to give proper consideration to them.

That relates to the points that Ross Greer made. He said that a move to consultation suggests that the bill has been a missed opportunity. Rather, it reflects the fact that the bill was never going to be the last word or the last time that we would seek to legislate on disqualification from the eligibility to be a candidate or remain as a parliamentarian or councillor. Indeed, I observe that this will not be the only such bill of the session; Graham Simpson seeks to introduce a bill that touches on some of those issues.

I understand Ross Greer’s point about aggravators, and I think that we all share significant concerns about what are, as he rightly describes, attacks or assaults on an individual but could be felt collectively to be an attack on our democratic process. I am sympathetic to what Mr Greer is trying to achieve, but we need to think through what the wider ramifications might be, for example, on sentencing policy. I understand his point that it is only a factor that the courts may take into account, but that would still have a consequential impact, and we need to understand better what that might be.

On his point about the list that he suggested that the Electoral Management Board should have to maintain, I recognise and concede that the amendment and proposition are simple and straightforward. As Annie Wells said, maintenance of the list would come with a cost, but I do not know how considerable that would be. We would need to consider how to resource it. If the Parliament is minded to support the provision, we would need to do that.

Although I accept that it is not necessarily what Mr Greer is seeking to do, my wider point is that the proposition takes us in a direction of travel towards a more substantial process by which those who accept and receive nominations would have to start almost vetting them. That would be quite a big change to our system and I am not convinced that it is required. Again, I go back to the letter that the convener of the Electoral Management Board sent to the committee, in which he set out some concerns, saying that that would be a fairly substantial change to the process.

With regard to Mr Macpherson’s points, particularly in reference to his amendment 59, I recognise that he has given thought to the issue. He has given a considered position, as all members have in relation to the amendments that they have lodged. I have some sympathy with the points that he made, but the proposal needs wider consideration. If we legislate in haste on such a requirement, what things will we not have thought through?

I appreciate that what I am asking the committee to agree to would mean that, realistically, any changes that we make in those areas would not take effect until the scheduled election in 2031. That is just a reality, and I am not going to shy away from that. Indeed, I was pretty clear about that in my letter, because I wanted to be up front about it.

In relation to Mr Macpherson’s suggestion that we delay the period between stage 2 and stage 3, I am not minded to do that, for a multitude of reasons. With my Minister for Parliamentary Business hat on—well, that is also my hat in this case. However, outwith the confines of this particular bill, we have a wider programme of legislation to get through in this parliamentary session and I need to bear that in mind.

More fundamentally, with regard to the legislation, I also have to be mindful of the Nolan principles around ensuring that those who are involved in—I mean the Gould principles; I am getting a lot of things mixed up today, but I am sure that you would have pointed that out, convener. The Gould principles are that those who are involved in the administration of elections, such as returning officers and the Electoral Commission, must have the appropriate lead-in time of at least six months, and any delay to the process of our legislating and then going through commencement puts that in jeopardy. I understand the request, but I have to balance it with that consideration.

Lastly—as you will be glad to hear, convener—I agree with Mr Macpherson’s point about pronouns. He raised it with me directly, so I have already asked officials to look at that area. What seems like a simple and straightforward process is not necessarily so, but we will look at it and see what can be done.

We have a clear commitment to introduce one SLC bill a year. That is the process that we have agreed just now. It would be disingenuous of me to say that I can give a timescale with regard to that specific piece of legislation. I return to the answer that I gave Mr Johnson about the state of a bill’s readiness to be introduced, as well as ensuring that the Parliament has the capacity to consider it.

What I can say is that, in line with the agreement, there will be another SLC bill in the next parliamentary year. I cannot say in earnest that it will definitely be a bill on the issue that Mr Johnson has identified. However, I recognise that all SLC reports are important, and we should ensure that we work our way through them as quickly as possible. The Government is committed to doing that. If there are other ways of expediting the process further, I am all ears and open to considering what they might be.

I recognise that that is important, so we should seek to accommodate it as much as possible. I want to minimise the circumstances under which we would seek to expedite a bill. I do not want us to have to do that regularly; it should happen only when the circumstances merit it.

We had a robust debate last week on the timetabling of the bill, and I hope that we can conclude the process of determining the full timescale this week. When we are expediting a bill, we should factor in as much as possible the capacity for committees other than the primary committee, including the DPLRC, to be able to undertake and exercise their scrutiny function. I know that there has been engagement with Gillian Martin as the responsible cabinet secretary and I believe that she has responded. If the committee has further questions, I know that she will be happy to respond to them.

We have tried to draft the bill fairly narrowly. It has a narrow purpose. It deals with a very important issue, but it is not a wide-ranging bill. The delegated powers in it are, by our estimation, necessary, because Climate Change Committee advice is needed to ensure that any new targets that are set are achievable, and that advice will not be available until spring next year.

We are trying to grapple with two challenges: we want to ensure that we are not in breach of legal requirements as set out in the existing legislation, but we are cognisant of the fact that we cannot look at what the targets should be until next year. By our estimation, it makes sense to do that by secondary legislation rather than going through the whole primary legislation process. At that point, of course, it will be incumbent on the various committees in Parliament—including this one, if it so determines—to consider any secondary legislation that emanates from the bill, once it is passed.

Yes, this is primarily going to emanate from the King’s speech, but right now four legislative consent memoranda have been lodged, one for the Passenger Railway Services (Public Ownership) Bill, one for the Great British Energy Bill, one for the Renters’ Rights Bill and one for the Product Regulation and Metrology Bill. I should say that the last one was lodged slightly late, but of course these things are driven by how much time and notice we, as a Government, get from the UK Government.

There are other LCMs that we expect to bring forward. At this stage, we do not have any confirmed introduction dates from the UK Government for the Tobacco and Vapes Bill, the digital information and smart data bill, the planning and infrastructure Bill, the railways bill, the employment bill and the artificial intelligence bill, but that will give you an indication of what is likely to come before us. We would go through the usual process and identify the relevant committees and, where this committee was involved, we would seek to engage with it as soon as possible.

It is early days. The relationship seems to be productive thus far, but that will ultimately be determined by practical experience. It is a little early to say. To be fair—and I can, on occasion, be fair—the UK Government was elected near the start of our summer recess. It wants to hit the ground running and to bring legislation forward fairly quickly, but that comes up against our own timescale, which is not ideal. There is certainly some indication of an understanding of our perspective, but the proof will be in the pudding.