Our final petition is PE1921, from Maddy Dhesi, on behalf of Hands Off Our Vote, calling on the Scottish Government to confirm that it will not introduce voter identification in devolved Holyrood or local elections in Scotland and that it will communicate that to voters.
In its submission, the Scottish Government confirms that it has no plans to introduce voter ID in devolved elections. It notes that that contrasts with the UK Government’s Elections Bill, which is at its second reading in the House of Lords.?The submission explains that the UK bill would require voters to show an approved form of photographic identification before collecting their ballot paper to vote at UK Parliament general elections in Great Britain, local elections in England and police and crime commissioner elections in England and Wales.
The Scottish Government?is also aware of concerns regarding confusion in the event of a UK poll occurring on the same day as a Scottish poll with different identification requirements for each contest. It also notes the additional responsibility that that would place on presiding officers at each polling station to police the ID requirement.
The Parliament has already made a decision on the matter. It was not a unanimous decision but a majority decision that there would be no voter ID. We should close the petition, because the Scottish Government has made it abundantly clear that it will not introduce voter ID. However, in closing the petition under rule 15.7 of the standing orders, it would be important for us to write to the Government about the possibility of confusion occurring if UK and Scottish elections took place on the same day. That is unlikely but, in the event that it happened, it would be useful to get a view on it. However, the decision has been made and voter ID will not be introduced, so we can close the petition.
That concludes the public part of our meeting. The committee’s next meeting will take place on Wednesday 9 March. We will now move into private session to discuss our final agenda item.
The type of each item (debate, statement, questions, members’ business and so on) and the times shown are worked out by this site from headings, the chair’s opening words and the Official Report’s running timestamps. They are not the Parliament’s own classification. Text: the Scottish Parliament Official Report.
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