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Scottish Elections 2007

I am glad to hear the Secretary of State emphasise that the lessons in the report go beyond Scotland, because we are not considering simply a little local Scottish difficulty. Some of the issues, especially sloganising party names, problems with postal votes and the construction of the ballots, are covered by the Political Parties, Elections and Referendums Act 2000. If the Electoral Commission does not have the discretion to deal with those issues, especially ruling some party names and slogans out of order, we need to examine the legislation, which covers the UK and all the elections in it. It is important not to lose sight of that in our discussions.