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Electoral Commission Committee

Volume 460: debated on Monday 21 May 2007

The hon. Member for Gosport, representing the Speaker's Committee on the Electoral Commission, was asked—

Scottish Parliamentary Elections

19. If he will make a statement on the Electoral Commission's review of the Scottish parliamentary elections. (137946)

21. What reviews the commission is undertaking of the recent elections to the Scottish Parliament. (137948)

The Electoral Commission has a statutory duty to report on the Scottish parliamentary elections. Following a request by the Scottish Executive, it will also report on the local government elections in Scotland. The commission has appointed an international specialist in electoral administration, Mr. Ron Gould, to lead a review of the elections. It announced the broad scope of the review on 14 May and further details are being announced today. I have asked the commission to place details of the approach and the timetable in the Library of the House.

My hon. Friend will be aware that I have little faith in the Electoral Commission and think that it gets into all sorts of areas that it should not, but surely if there is any point at all in the commission it must sort out the debacle in Scotland, which was more characteristic of a banana republic. Can we have assurances that the report will be robust and quick?

Indeed. Mr. Ron Gould’s report will be independent and it will be published in full. He has been asked to look at all aspects of the elections, but with a particular focus on the high number of rejected ballots, the electronic counting process, the arrangements for postal voting, the decision to hold parliamentary and local government polls on the same day, the decision to combine the two parliamentary votes on one ballot sheet, the process by which key decisions were made and the role of the Electoral Commission itself in the preparation of the elections.

Bearing in mind the fact that the Electoral Commission bears much of the responsibility for the fiasco in Scotland, should there not be a fully independent inquiry, in which the Electoral Commission plays no part, so that we can get to the root of what happened, rather than having the same people making the same decisions and looking into the same issue?

It is true that Parliament has laid on the Electoral Commission two specific sets of responsibilities: one is to assist in the electoral process and advise returning officers, and the other is to report on elections. When the Electoral Commission makes a report and it has itself been involved in the matter in an operational role, it is always its practice to appoint an outside expert to advise on that so that its own role can also be scrutinised.

In the long list of things that the Electoral Commission will look into with regard to the Scottish elections, the hon. Gentleman did not mention proxy voting. He mentioned postal voting and there were problems with that, but in my constituency, where I have a large a number of constituents who work offshore, it has become increasingly clear that those people applied for postal votes when they should have been encouraged to apply for proxy votes. There was little information or publicity about proxy votes versus postal votes, and the importance of a proxy vote for those who were going to be away from home for some time before the election.

It is quite true that the issue of proxy voting was not in the list that I gave to the House. However, Mr. Gould will be instructed to look at all aspects of the elections and I will undertake to ensure that the hon. Lady’s point is drawn to his attention.

The Electoral Reform Society has claimed that the Scottish local government elections, in which as many as 45,000 people may have been disfranchised, were a “resounding success”. Will the hon. Gentleman ensure that, whatever form the report from the Electoral Commission takes, it contains a good deal more intellectual rigour than that report?

I have looked at Mr. Gould’s curriculum vitae. He has an exceptional record of supervising, or assisting at, more than 100 elections in 70 different countries. I am confident that he will produce a rigorous report. Of course, it is the Electoral Commission’s statutory duty to report. Mr. Gould’s review will inform the Electoral Commission’s report.

Will my hon. Friend encourage Mr. Gould in particular to examine carefully the security of the postal vote system and to make urgent recommendations on how we can prevent its misuse?

The Electoral Commission has gone on record as saying that it would prefer to have individual registration, which it thinks would assist in tightening the postal voting system. However, I will ensure that Mr. Gould’s attention is drawn to the specific point raised by my right hon. and learned Friend.

Because two different voting systems were to be used, the Arbuthnott report recommended that the Scottish local and parliamentary elections should not take place on the same day. It said that that would reduce complexity and confusion and restrict the number of invalid ballot papers, yet the Labour party chose to blunder on, which led to many thousands losing their votes. Will my hon. Friend confirm that the Electoral Commission’s report will investigate how that could have happened and exactly who was responsible?

It really is disconcerting that many of the problems that arose on 3 May were not only foreseeable, but foreseen. In 2004, the then Secretary of State for Scotland set up the Arbuthnott commission to examine the problems arising from having four separate voting systems in Scotland. My hon. Friend is correct that the commission recommended that the parliamentary and local elections should not be held on the same day. The decision that they should be held on the same day was taken by the Scottish Executive.