Scottish Parliament (Elections etc.) (Amendment) Order 2007

I could perhaps be forgiven for feeling a little sorry for myself. I do an order on the Companies Act 2006 and the noble Lord, Lord De Mauley, regrets that it is not being answered by my noble friend Lord Jones of Birmingham. I am then told by the noble Lord, Lord Steel, that he would prefer the Advocate-General to be answering these Scottish questions, and accuses me of having no genuine interest in Scotland. I have been spokesman for Scotland in your Lordships’ House for four years, I gather, although I thought it was five. I have an interest in Scotland and it is perhaps rather parochial to suggest that you can speak on Scottish order only if you are Scottish. I shall deal first with why the order is in Grand Committee, because the noble Duke, the Duke of Montrose, said he was unhappy about that. Notice was given on Wednesday 4 July of our intention to take the order in Grand Committee. The House agreed on 5 July to refer the order. We require notice from any party that is unhappy with a referral to give us the opportunity to consider how that can be addressed. We received no such notice until this afternoon. The order requires approval before the Summer Recess, so if it is to go through—as I am sure we all want it to—it will unfortunately not be possible to take another route on it. I will answer the questions I have been asked as best as I can. The noble Duke, the Duke of Montrose, and the noble Baroness, Lady Carnegy, asked why the order is not limited to the current election. A form of drafting providing the commission with access to ballot papers as part of its statutory review under Section 5 of the PPERA, along with a sunset provision limiting the order to the 2007 elections, was an option that we considered. On balance, however, the Government felt that if the commission were given access to ballot papers, the more prudent use of parliamentary time was not to introduce legislation that applied only to these elections but to provide a mechanism capable of being used in the future, should that be necessary. This was a fine judgment, but we believed it to be correct. Ultimately, given that the order is subject to affirmative resolution, it will be for Parliament to decide.