Examination of Witnesses (Questions 120-139)
DAVID CAIRNS
MP, MR GERALD
MCHUGH
AND MS
SHEILA SCOBIE
13 NOVEMBER 2007
Q120 David Mundell: But with respect,
Minister, none of the other political parties were in the position
that you were as a minister, and the Secretary of State was, to
actually influence the decisions, were they?
David Cairns: I do not accept
that at all. The phrase he uses is all political parties "contributed
to the final decisions". Those are Mr Gould's own words.
Q121 David Mundell: But they did
not make the decisions, you and the Secretary of State made the
decisions.
David Cairns: Yes, of course we
did, and Mr Gould says quite clearly: " ... while responsibility
for taking these decisions lay with the Scotland Office and the
Scottish Executive, all political parties in Scotland were involved
in the long-running debates, contributed to the final decisions
and shared in the failure to prioritise the interests of the voter."
My view, as I have said repeatedly now, is from a reading of the
entire report it is very clear that is what he is saying and in
that sense I agree with you that the letter does not change the
report materially. What I think the letter is doing is responding
to the fact that there had been a couple of days of intense media
coverage and speculation by commentators and other political parties
as to what Mr Gould actually meant, which in my view did not accurately
reflect what Mr Gould actually meant. He is saying in his letter
very clearly that his report should not be read as saying that
Labour ministers were taking decisions in the interests of the
Labour Party; he is quite clearly not saying that. On the first
point that you made in terms of exonerating, the second paragraph
of Mr Gould's letter of 25 October said: "I said when I published
my report that my intention was not to assign blame to individuals
or institutions. It remains my view that discussion of my report
should proceed on this basis."
Q122 David Mundell: Is this not just
a reflection that you seem to know what is in Mr Gould's mind
when it suits your interpretation and you do not know what is
in his mind when it does not?
David Cairns: I said you will
have to ask Mr Gould what was in his mind, I do not presume to
know what is in Mr Gould's mind. I am reading out what he wrote.
I am not psychically divining it through the ether or through
the magic of reading, I am telling you what he wrote. He said:
" ... when I published the report my intention was not to
assign blame to individuals or institutions." It is perfectly
within the normal political discourse for people to take a report
and infer from that what they want to infer and to use the report
to buttress their pre-existing points of view. That is politics
and I do not in any sense quibble with that, I am just telling
you what Mr Gould himself said, that is all.
Q123 David Mundell: He did not write
though that Labour ministers did not promote Labour Party interests
in the letter, did he?
David Cairns: He did not say that
in the report.
Q124 David Mundell: He did not say
it in the letter but you have drawn that conclusion as to be his
thinking in the evidence you have just given to us.
David Cairns: I am not doing anything,
I am just reading out what he said: "I did not suggest in
the report that specific actions were taken by Ministers to advance
their own party's interests..." That is what he said.
Q125 Mr MacNeil: Minister, I would
like to ask do you agree with the two following statements: "At
first glance the statement on the ballot paper `you have two votes'
could be misleading" and, secondly, "Certainly having
entirely different voting systems for elections on the same day
leaves the door open to confusion". Do you now agree with
those statements?
David Cairns: I agree with the
statements that you made in the committee. I do not agree with
the bit of your statement that you have missed out, which is you
said "you have two votes could be misleading", but you
went on to say, "It should say `you should vote for your
preferred party in most but not all situations to ensure that
it gets your vote and your voice'." I do not agree with that
bit, which was what you said. I agree with the first bit and the
last bit, but not the middle part.
Q126 Mr MacNeil: Do you agree with
those two statements? They were part of the contribution to the
debate. Do you agree with those statements that I read out to
you just now?
David Cairns: What I am saying
is that clearly the people were confused by the ballot paper.
Now, I do not know to what extent, and even having read Mr Gould's
report many times I do not know to what extent, which particular
parts contributed to the general levels of confusion. Despite
the fact Mr Gould has looked at many ballot papers, which is more
than we have, he is not able to say that X% was on this and Y%
was on that. What I am saying is I acknowledge those two statements
as the two statements that you made in the committee.
Q127 Mr MacNeil: One of those was
not my statement.
David Cairns: I am sorry. The
first one, "you have two votes", and then there was
what you suggested should replace that which seemed to me to be
even more confusing.
Q128 Mr MacNeil: I am just surprised
that after all this confusion you do not agree with those statements.
David Cairns: What, sorry?
Q129 Mr MacNeil: The statement that
having two different voting systems with elections on the same
day leaves the door open for confusion and that having two votes
on the ballot paper could be misleading. After all this you do
not agree with those statements.
David Cairns: No, I have not said
that I disagree with those statements.
Q130 Mr MacNeil: What has been learned
from all of this if you do not agree with it?
David Cairns: What I said was
you made the first statement in our debate—
Q131 Mr MacNeil: Regardless of who
made it there are two statements. Do you agree with them or not?
These were part of the contribution to the debate and, as Mr Mundell
has pointed out, contributions were made to the debate but the
decision was yours.
David Cairns: Strictly speaking,
the vote was by the committee. The decision was taken by the committee,
of which you are a member, and I do not recall you voting against
it.
Q132 Mr MacNeil: The second thing,
outwith the committee, part of the contribution to the debate
was having two different systems on the one day.
David Cairns: The decision to
have two different systems on the one day was a decision of the
Scottish Executive. It was the Scottish Executive who changed
the electoral system for local council elections from first-past-the-post
to STV. That was a decision taken by the Scottish Executive.
Q133 Mr MacNeil: So is Jack McConnell
to blame?
David Cairns: The second decision
was the decision of the Scottish Parliament to combine the elections
on the same day. Neither of those were my decision. If you are
asking me am I in favour of local council elections being done
by the single transferable vote then let me tell you I am not.
Q134 Mr MacNeil: You asked "if",
I was not asking that, I was asking were you interested in having
them on separate days?
David Cairns: I think they should
be on separate days. That is what Mr Gould says and—
Q135 Mr MacNeil: Progress on one
statement.
David Cairns: What I am saying
is the decision to have them on the same day was a decision taken
by the Scottish Parliament. The recommendation of the Arbuthnott
Commission to decouple the elections was a recommendation to the
Scottish Executive. Valiant attempts were made to effect that
in the Scottish Parliament and it was the Scottish Parliament
that voted to keep the elections on the same day. Mr Gould is
saying, for a variety of reasons, he thinks the elections should
be held on different days, and I agree with that. Genuinely, I
think it is a finely balanced judgment because what I looked at
and what I think the Executive looked at at the time was turnout
figures. If you look at the turnout figures for the elections
that were held just for local council elections throughout the
1980s and 1990s, the last time turnout in a local council election
got to 50% in Scotland was 1974. It has been over 50% in the three
elections that were combined. If you look at the turnout in the
elections that took place for the council up to the first unitary
vote in 1996 it was in the low forties, but it goes back up in
1996 when we can speculate as to why people of Scotland were really
motivated to go out and vote in 1996.
Q136 Mr MacNeil: When you were thinking
of turnout, was there any partisan component in that?
David Cairns: No. Turnout was
a factor because we believe we should do everything we can to
maximise turnout. We want people to vote in elections. It is clear
to me that an analysis of turnout before they were combined and
after they were combined shows that turnout was 8% to 10% cent
higher before the combination of elections. What none of us know
is what will happen to turnout when the elections are decoupled;
none of us know that.
Mr Wallace: Minister, leaving the political
bit aside, the allegations of political interference, and it is
important because it is a suitable umbrella for some people to
talk about the politics, if you read Ron Gould's letter he does
in the last line on the second page confirm: "...for the
record my findings remain the same". I am not so outraged
or worried so much about the politicising of it, but when you
read through the report what is actually totally obvious is the
rank incompetence in the administration of the procedure. You
can talk about the politics but the job of the Scotland Office
was to administer the electoral system. All the evidence that
we have seen, including evidence from the Society of Local Authority
Lawyers and Administrators, from SOLACE, which is the chief executives,
from the Electoral Commission, marked down three very important
functions that they feel the Scotland Office have failed to do
or decisions they took that directly led to this farce. The first
one would be late policy decisions. The Electoral Commission said
just before you came in, Minister, that the late drafting of the
orders and presentation of orders directly contributed to the
confusion. SOLAR also said: "It is the strong view of SOLAR
that the failure to communicate the final format of the ballot
paper by the Scotland Office in particular was the first major
link in the unfavourable constellation of events which produced
the late postal ballots and consequent failures". On page
five they also said, as did others, and it ties into your opening
answers to questions, that you are not able to tell people, election
officers and people who run elections often what to do, but you
did because throughout the process the Scotland Office ignored
advice from the Electoral Commission, from the chief executive
officers at the local authorities and from the electoral officers.
Throughout that process you did ignore those and, for example,
the case of separation of the day of poll from the day of count
seemed incontrovertible but ministers insisted on imposing an
overnight count. In at least three main areas the Scotland Office
ignored advice and pressed ahead and administered it incredibly
poorly. What I take from this report is—forget the politics
of it—the Scotland Office was not up to its job under your
leadership and that of the Secretary of State of administering
the Scottish Parliament elections.
Q137 Mr Davidson: Yes or no?
David Cairns: It is not the job
of the Scotland Office to administer the electoral system. It
is not the job of politicians to administer the electoral system.
We have an Association of Electoral Administrators, of whom I
am not a member because I am not an electoral administrator. It
is the job of Parliament to set the electoral framework and to
set the conduct and rules. We live in a country where politicians
do not run elections and I think most people are quite pleased
that we live in a country where politicians do not run elections.
Elections are administered by professional electoral administrators,
that is why they are called electoral administrators. I do not
accept the criticism that we failed to administer the electoral
system, which was your criticism.
Q138 Mr Wallace: Okay, the electoral
legislation, you failed to administer the electoral legislation
in a timely order.
David Cairns: Let me deal with
the three allegations that were made. There was a late policy
draft and there was, yes. There is a world of difference between
being accused of taking too long to produce a draft and trying
to rig an election.
Q139 Mr Wallace: I never made that
accusation.
David Cairns: There is a world
of difference between both of those allegations. I accept that
we did take too long to produce that draft. Let me tell you the
sequence of events that led up to the late draft. First of all,
we had prolonged legislative ping-pong here over the Electoral
Administration Act, particularly over the issue of individual
identifiers on registration, and that took longer than it should
have done because we were going backwards and forwards to the
House of Lords.
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