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Scottish Elections 2007

I also thank the Secretary of State for advance sight of his statement. Ron Gould is to be congratulated on the report. It is a thorough and authoritative analysis of what happened in May and he has clearly defied those who said that he would not be able to produce such an independent piece of work. I regret to say, however, that the Secretary of State's statement today raised almost as many questions as it answered. He is right: all parties had a role to play in this process. Only one party, however, took decisions—his party and that is a fact from which there is no hiding. The role of the Secretary of State's predecessor, the right hon. Member for Paisley and Renfrewshire, South (Mr. Alexander), requires close examination. Essentially, the Secretary of State has come to the House today to say that a wee boy done it and ran away, which really is not good enough. It has been observed that the Scotland Office does not have much to do. In fact, the organisation of elections is the only executive function that it retains. The Gould report is a detailed and damning critique of the Department's failings. Today, it seems that another Department has been added to the list of those that are not fit for purpose. It is regrettable that the Secretary of State is not prepared to acknowledge today that the logical and sensible next move would be to give the Scottish Parliament control over its own elections. The Secretary of State says that he is yet to be persuaded of that, but he does not offer any reason why the law should continue to defy logic in such a way. The report is about more than administrative failings in the electoral process; it is about the politics that led up to that process. The Secretary of State has already referred to Mr. Gould's comments, and expanded on Mr. Gould's reference to ““partisan political interests””, but the House should be aware of the whole paragraph in which that phrase is used. It speaks of Ministers who"““were frequently focused on partisan political interests in carrying out their responsibilities, overlooking voter interests and operational realities within the electoral administration timetable. At worst, the Ministers disregarded the highly negative and disruptive influence on the elections caused by their delays in arriving at key decisions. At best, they either overlooked or were poorly advised with regard to the serious operational consequences that could and did result.””" It is clear from that paragraph that the process within the Scotland Office was removed from the normal Government process. Some personal explanation by the Secretary of State's predecessor is therefore required. The Secretary of State will be judged on how he responds to the report, and on whether he ensures, in the interests of the voter, that we will never again face the problems that we faced on 3 May, but the matter does not end there. The conclusion that I draw from the report is that the right hon. Member for Paisley and Renfrewshire, South, was responsible for a crisis that brought into question the fundamental integrity of our electoral process. It is wrong that he should evade responsibility simply by virtue of taking on a new job in Government. A villain who has left the scene of his crime is still a villain. He must explain his actions to the House, and if no satisfactory explanation is forthcoming, the Prime Minister should remove him from Government.