Scottish Parliament (Elections etc.) (Amendment) Order 2009

I thank all noble Lords who have contributed to what has been a fascinating debate. We all start from the premise that everyone sees the Scottish elections in 2007 as being less than perfect in a number of ways. That is what the Gould report was commissioned to look into and what the Government recommendation, through this order, seeks to put right. I shall deal first, because it is a procedural matter, with the question of the Advocate-General. I am sure that he would have shown even more enthusiasm than I have, had he been able to, but he is representing Her Majesty’s Government at an important court case in the High Court of Justiciary in Edinburgh, which is why your Lordships have a poor substitute in myself. The noble Duke, the Duke of Montrose, made a good point when he asked when we are going to have some rationalisation and consolidation of this. A full consolidated version of the elections order is being put together and is in an advanced form. We hope to put it in place six months before the 2011 elections. I hope that that will meet some of those concerns. A number of questions were asked about the Gould report and the aspects that were not accepted, including the question of adopting a returning officer. We can go through them as they are quite easy to deal with. Gould recommended moving to a daytime count. We have heard many complaints about the 2007 elections, but I do not think anyone has made the argument that the overnight counting was responsible for any of the confusion. We believe that a randomised order on the ballot paper would be confusing to voters. We consulted widely—we even used the dreaded focus groups to find out what people thought about it—and there was a confirmed preference for keeping the alphabetical list and trusting politicians’ mothers when it comes to giving their children names that begin with an early letter in the alphabet. No, that last part is not a serious point. The main recommendations have been confirmed in this order and, I hope, subject to the questions that I am now seeking to answer, command your Lordships’ support. A number of questions were asked by my noble friends and the noble Lord, Lord Steel, about devolving powers for Administrations. The Government have established a steering group that will look at the recommendations made by the Calman report, and we will consider this recommendation as part of that process. One learns very quickly, in what in my case will probably be a short political career, that giving assurances is easy to do but difficult to recant. I will therefore resist the temptation to give any assurances, other than that I will ensure that this debate will be made known to my colleagues so that, in any discussions that take place tomorrow on another Bill, they will be well aware of the points that are being made. My noble friend Lord Jones asked whether Ministers saw the ballot paper in draft. They saw early samples but not the final versions, which were prepared under the auspices of the Electoral Act 2007 steering group and the e-counting project board.