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The Absent Voting (Elections in Scotland and Wales) Bill 2024-25

The Absent Voting (Elections in Scotland and Wales) Act 2025 received Royal Assent on 27 October 2025. This briefing tracked the passage of the legislation through Parliament and consequently refers to the bill throughout.

Progress of the bill

The Absent Voting (Elections in Scotland and Wales) Bill received its second reading on Friday 17 January 2025. It is a private member’s bill introduced by the ballot process. The MP in charge of the bill is Tracy Gilbert who came twelfth in the private members’ bill ballot.

The bill was considered in committee on 11 June. Report stage and third reading took place on 4 July 2025. It was passed with only technical amendments.

The bill had its second reading in the House of Lords on 5 September 2025.

Provisions of the bill

The  bill would allow for the alignment of rules on absent voting arrangements between reserved and devolved elections in Scotland and Wales.

Absent votes are postal or proxy voting arrangements made by a voter who cannot vote in person at a polling station.

Devolved elections are those where responsibility for the rules have been devolved to the Scottish Parliament and Senedd Cymru. These are local council elections in Scotland and Wales and elections to the Scottish Parliament and Senedd.

Reserved elections are those where responsibility for the making of rules is reserved to the UK Parliament. These are elections for the UK Parliament, all local elections in England, police and crime commissioner elections (PCC) in England and Wales, and all elections in Northern Ireland.

The Elections Act 2022 made several changes to absent voting arrangements, but these only applied to reserved elections. This has led to a divergence in the rules for absent voting arrangements. In turn this causes additional burdens for electoral registration officers and can cause confusion for voters.

The Absent Voting (Elections in Scotland and Wales) Bill would allow for Welsh and Scottish ministers to make regulations to allow voters to apply online for devolved election absent votes in Scotland and Wales. It would also allow regulations to align rules with reserved elections on providing a national Insurance number when applying and align renewals for absent votes.  

The bill and accompanying explanatory notes were drafted with the assistance of the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government. Tracy Gilbert told the House of Commons that the provisions had been discussed with Scottish and Welsh Ministers, who had agreed them.

The Conservative Party welcomed the bill, with the shadow spokesperson, Paul Holmes, saying it was, "A pragmatic and necessary step towards improving voter access and protecting the integrity of our electoral processes, by bringing absent voting practices in devolved elections in line with the rest of the UK."