Current Petitions

As convener of the cross-party group on Gaelic, I have a great deal of sympathy with the petition, particularly given the guidance in Bòrd na Gàidhlig’s national plan for Gaelic that the language should be given equal respect, although the guidance says that that does not automatically mean identical treatment for Gaelic and English in all circumstances.It is unfortunate that the campaign for a bilingual ballot paper was not started earlier, as that would have given the Electoral Commission time to test such a paper. I note that the commission’s response states that it would take about 10 weeks to test the paper. However, given that the Scottish Independence Referendum Bill has been passed at stage 3, there is little scope for that to be done. Had the Government advised us of the commission’s 10-week timescale, we might have been able to do a bit more earlier.It is noticeable that no similar request has been made for a bilingual ballot paper for any other election to date. We should also take on board the views of the Electoral Management Board for Scotland, which cites voter confusion. Gaelic speakers might find that that is a spurious argument for not having a bilingual ballot paper.We have only to look back to 2007 to see what damage voter confusion can do to an election. However, the petitioner makes an interesting suggestion in the final paragraph of his response to the Scottish Government’s response. Although he acknowledges that it might be too late for the Electoral Commission to do an assessment of a bilingual question for the referendum, he suggests that it might be an idea to do a general assessment now rather than later for future referendums and elections. Would the committee be minded to write to ask the Scottish Government to consider that suggestion with a view to future elections?

I would be content with that. Although we are closing the petition, can we expect a response from the Government?

Some of us failed in not raising the issue during the passage of the bill. For the life of me, I do not understand the Government’s position. I support Angus MacDonald’s proposal.

I considered lodging an amendment at stage 3, but the advice that I received from the Government led me to believe that there was no purpose in doing that, given the timescale.