 Fy ff Davshazol ym mwy o'r rhaglen ymlaeniau ym mwy o'r rhaglenau А5307 i ddiolchiau Glair Baker o felly 10 miliwn fwrddwch. Ff pogwysbelyddiwynd yn holygau ei wneud o fod cynnig gael, ac yn mynd i'n cael ei lleidio i ddweud am yr ysgol. A chi'n gobeithio â ddweud hynny, ffurthwch chi ddibwyd ymddug sydd oedd ti gwellio i ddweud hynny. Mae grwydant yn mwy o'r rhaglenau Glair Baker wrth y ddiw yn dweud o'r rhaglenau seven-minus yn dweud, Ms Baker. I would also like to thank the members who have signed my motion enabling the debate this evening. We are now less than 100 days away from the Scottish Parliament election and thoughts are now focusing on how we secure those votes, but as the day's motion highlights we are facing a significant challenge in electoral registration. Electoral registration undermines our democratic system. The accuracy, the comprehensiveness and the integrity of the register is vital to a healthy democracy. That is why the reports from the Smith Institute, 10 million missing voters and Hope Not Hates report into individual electoral registration and the boundary review are so concerning. It is feared that hundreds of thousands of voters in Scotland will be lost from the electoral register as a result of the rush to change to a new electoral registration system. Originally due to be finalised in December 2016, the UK Government shortened the transition period to December 2015. During the transition period, voters on the existing register had to be verified. Those who couldn't be verified within the shortened timescales were then removed from the register. Scotland is one of the most affected areas in the UK by this. This level of unregistered citizens risks undermining our democracy as we lead up to the elections this year and to next year's local authority elections and the EU referendum. That will also have a profound impact on the upcoming review of the Boundary Commission into Westminster constituency seeks across the UK, leading potentially to distorted electoral maps and underrepresentation of minorities, students, renters and young people. That is something that should concern us all and something that we should all work together to address as a Parliament. We have a responsibility to not ignore this situation. The Smith Institute's report headline figure refers to 10 million voters and includes those who decide not to register to vote to some 7.5 million people across the UK. What the rush changes to the electoral system will do, changes that were pushed through a year early by the Conservative Government against the advice from the Electoral Commission, is to increase that figure by 2.5 million voters, 2.5 million people who are expected to fall off the electoral register. As the Smith Institute report states, what is at stake here is not just the prospect of party political advantage but the integrity and value of the democratic process. This is not about the merits of household registration or individual registration, but the household registration system was introduced through the 1918 representation of the People Act and has changed very little in the intervening century, so this is a significant change and it is one that needs to be properly managed. The Electoral Commission has been calling for individual registration since 2003 and it is broadly supported, but the pace of change, the lack of piloting and the strain on public finances to manage the change is leading to a situation where people who were previously registered are being removed from the register. One of the main reasons that the Government gave for this rush was voter fraud, but electoral fraud is difficult to quantify. It is serious, but it is rare and I do not accept this argument merits disenfranchising so many voters. Evidence shows that those changes will have the highest impact on urban areas among private sector renters, young people, especially attainers, students and those not born in the UK. People who are more likely to move home frequently are at high risk of being removed from the register. I was pleased to see that Shelter Scotland and the Electoral Commission have this week launched a voter registration campaign to target potential voters that live in rented, homeless or temporary accommodation. Electoral Commission research has found that only 63 per cent of those who rent from a private landlord were registered to vote in 2014. That is compared to 93 per cent of people who own their own home and 89 per cent of those who own their home with a mortgage. The rush change to introduce individual voter registration is expected to have a negative effect on those figures and widen the gap between homeowners and renters. According to HopeNotHates research, Scotland stands to see a 5.5 per cent drop-off and those registered to vote compared to the 2015 general election, which equates to just over 231,000 voters. That is the second biggest drop in the UK behind only London's drop of 6.9 per cent. A breakdown of the Scottish figures shows that Glasgow will be the worst affected losing a staggering 67,000 voters. Edinburgh is due to lose 24,000 voters and in my own region, Fife, we are due to lose just over 15,000 voters. Those are people who were registered under the previous system, but will be removed from the new register. They had a vote at the general election, but they have now been taken off the register. That is just wrong. No political party should be bringing forward a system that is seeing 1.9 million people fall off the electoral register across the UK, a figure that is likely to increase to 2.5 million due to changes to the student registration system and people in the private sector moving home. That undermines our democracy. In addition to that, we have a Boundary Commission review, which is due in the year ahead. As a result of the Coalition Government's parliamentary voting system and constituencies act, there will be a reduction in the number of Westminster constituencies from 650 to 600, and Scotland is set to see a reduction of seven seats. All constituencies are to be set within 5 per cent of the UK electoral quota, so therefore no seat will have fewer than 73,000 voters and no more than 8 to 1,000 voters. However, registered voters are not population. That could have a significant impact across the UK. The new boundaries will be drawn up based on the new register, which was compiled on 1 December last year. You could argue that that is the weakest point in terms of the completeness, validity and integrity of the electoral register on which to base a Boundary review. There are huge disparities by registration. During the process of verification, some authorities were able to verify 100 per cent of their registered voters. For example, Hackney had only 23 per cent of its register that were unverified, so they lost 23 per cent of their registered voters. In Glasgow, 67,000 unverified voters equate to almost one whole seat for the city. The rush process of verification and transition to a new system means that it will be difficult for the Boundary Commission to avoid generating distorted electoral maps and constituencies. What can we do about that? The opportunity to annul the UK Government's decision to bring forward individual electoral registration by a year has passed, but there are ways that we can make progress. As I say, I was pleased to see Shelter's campaign and we need to encourage universities to work with the Electoral Commission to promote registration to new students. We need to ensure that local valuation joint boards are funded and that they are active in supporting registration. More could be done to promote online registration and raising awareness through schools and colleges. However, there is also action that we, as a Parliament, can take. Credit must go to Anne McTaggart for promoting the holiday drops campaign to encourage voter registration among young people. I hope that there is more that we can do as a Parliament between now and April to increase voter registration in Scotland and regain some of those lost voters. I hope that we can all join together and agree in principle for a cross-party and Parliament-led voter registration drive ahead of the Scottish Parliament elections in May to demonstrate how much we value voter participation and our democratic structures. I now turn to the open debate speeches of four minutes, please, and I call Christian Allard to be followed by John Lamont. Thank you very much, Presiding Officer. First of all, I thank Claire Baker for bringing about this important motion to Parliament. I think that it's a very good motion and it's very important to talk about it today. I will maybe have a different tone and maybe a bit stronger about it, because let's remember that the right to vote is part of our human rights. It's something that we should be not only cherished but we should safeguard and we should be very strong about it. I've signed the motion and I noticed that he had something missing in it. The exclamation mark tells me a million missing voters, Presiding Officer. The exclamation mark said the title of the briefing report on the failing of the new electoral registration system written by Jane Thomas from the Smith Institute. I was surprised as well. The Smith Institute, I didn't realise there were several Smith Institute with Adam Smith Institute and now this Smith Institute, who happened to be the John Smith Institute, who says that it is independent. I get a bit confused about what always think tank. Some of them are very right wing from London, so I needed maybe a little clarification of what source it was. I was surprised as well to see that very little talked about in the report about Scotland. Only five words such bring Scotland and twice it brings Scottish. Most of them were on a footnote. It was a little footnote to on the bottom of page four which reads an article from the Herald which said that a local council in early 2015, some 22% of residents in Glasgow had so far failed to switch over to the new system of individual voter registration. The paper warn that as many as 800,000 people who sign up for the Scottish referendum may not be eligible to vote as the 2016 Scottish Parliament election. So, you know, the numbers are huge, you know, we should make a big deal about it. It's not small numbers and it's people who have registered before, who certainly are asked to register. We all have a busy life and some people have got a busy life than we have and maybe will not realise how important it is. But we knew what happened then and we knew why and the report did say that as well as many as 230,000 and Claire Baker said voters could be missing in Scotland too. I think, as I said, I think it's a human right issue and I was surprised that the Smith Institute did not say so but it was a human right issue and that so many people in the UK are going to be denied the right to vote. I would encourage every MSP to meet the assessor and electoral registration officer. I met Ian Milton a few years back, the assessor and electoral registration officer for Grampian a few years ago and I'd like to thank him today for some of the numbers he gave me. He gave me one of the numbers, it's quite important and that's to show some other missing voters. One of those numbers was 18,491. The number of EU citizens with GOK markers on the rich stuff for Aberdeen, Abernishire and Moray. Those 18,990 presenting officer plus one myself, this French North East MSP will be able to vote on me as a service but just like we have been allowed to vote in many elections before Scottish election and local election for years and is a two constitutional referendum in 1997-2014 missing voters despite the progressive attitude that we have seen since the evolution and missed many votes and will miss the EU referendum vote unless the courts decide otherwise. It was very important to see that many MPs, 190 of them from the Labour benches, voted against me being able to vote in the EU referendum. And presenting officer, it's not only about me, the outrage is that more than two million constituents of Westminster MPs have been denied the human right to vote in this referendum coming on. So we have to be very careful of the human right of these constituents. There are constituents living in the UK and that I'm not talking about 16 and 17 years old, some 100,000 of them who voted in that referendum who will be able to vote in the 5th of May but won't be able to vote in Westminster election in 2015 when not able to vote on that one or in the EU referendum. Democracy is not a tab, it's not a tab but you open and close and hoping that people will register and they register and vote in some election and none of us. Democracy is a right, is a human right to go and vote and which chamber has to be very very strong about this human right to vote. I would like to conclude presenting officer to Frank Clairbeck for talking about the fantastic campaign that the Scotland Central Commission has done because it's not only about people who live in the house, it could be about homeless people, about anybody living in this country should have the right to vote and we should fight very hard for it. Another democratic deficit we need to address, Britain is definitely us shrinking democracy and that's the Smith's Institute saying it. Let's remind the UK government and people living here that the democracy to work we need people to vote, presenting officer. Thank you and I call John Lamont to be followed by Malcolm Chisholm. Thank you, Deputy Presiding Officer. It's my pleasure to be able to take part in this debate and let me start by making it clear that I absolutely share the desire to move towards an electoral register which is complete and as accurate as possible and therefore commend Clair Baker for bringing this issue to the Parliament and I agree that all political parties need to work towards increasing the percentage of Scots registered to vote. However, I am concerned that this motion conflates the transition to individual electoral registration with the broader issue of under registration. Deputy Presiding Officer, it is important to bear in mind that the purpose of individual electoral registration, or IER, is to reduce electoral fraud. The electoral court judgment in Tower Hamlets was a wake-up call about the vulnerability of our democratic system and it would be naive of us to presume that Scotland was immune from electoral fraud. The former system required a head of household to submit an application on behalf of all those residents at an address. That sounds like something from the 19th century and indeed it was, the system was introduced around 1832. We can all recognise that this is an outdated system and there was indeed need of reform. The new system gives each individual control over their own registration and also introduces a new online application process. It is also worth bearing in mind that the new IER has increased the number of registered overseas voters and has also resulted in an increase in the overall number of people on the register. It is my view that people can't and shouldn't be forced to register and that everything was done to support people in the transition to the new system. The transition took place over several months. The vast majority of voters were automatically transferred and those electors who could not be verified were contacted on nine separate occasions. I would also urge caution over taking the Smith Institute's report out of context. Their central conclusion that up to 10 million people are missing from the electoral register is certainly alarming. However, that figure is based on an estimation from the Electoral Commission from May 2015, a figure that has since fallen of the number of people left on the register under the transitional arrangements but have not been verified or contacted. It is wrong to claim that those people have been disenfranchised. What is happening is that the electors who have moved, died or do not exist are being removed. The Smith Institute inflated this estimate number to £2.5 million but failed to explain why and to this the added £7.5 million who were estimated to have not registered under the old system. I agree that under registration is clearly a major problem but it is a problem that has little to do with the new system. Under registration is a different issue from cleaning up the electoral register. The answer is not to stuff the electoral roll with the names of people who simply do not exist. We should all be encouraging take-up in the new system. In Scotland, we have an opportunity to capitalise on the increase in political engagement following the independence referendum. I appreciate the member taking intervention. I know that John Lamont is a reasonable man. The Electoral Commission said that it had concerns about the short and the timescale that it really felt another year would have been more helpful in terms of the transition to make sure we have an accurate register. It is difficult to explain a way that looks pre-evidence based that the people who are no longer on the register are a high proportion of people who are living in private rented accommodation within there. It is difficult to explain that away on people who have died or who have left the country or those other explanations. I think that the Government should have followed the Electoral Commission's advice on that. John Lamont, you can have time back. We should equally be aware of the election court's ruling in Taro Hamlet and the risk of fraud. The fact that the vast majority of voters were automatically transferred on to the new system, and for those who could not be verified, they were contacted on nine separate occasions to try to verify their identity. I think that there has been a change over to a new system, but procedures have been put in place to ensure that the robustness of the system that we now have is as secure as it possibly can be. As I was saying earlier, we have an opportunity with the increased political engagement following the independence referendum to re-engage with voters' residents who are not on the register and can still apply by post. For the first time, they can do so online. We should be doing all that we can and we should be playing our bit to encourage constituents to do just that. Many thanks. I now call Malcolm Chisholm to be followed by Alison Johnstone. I thank the Smith Institute for laying bare a situation that perhaps the majority of people are not aware of. It is important for us to debate this today. Of course, the particular Scottish context is a massive turnout in the referendum based on a very high level of registration. It would be a tragedy if all that good work was undone because of the speed of the transition on to a new system. Of course, there is another problem, as Claire Baker and the motion highlight, that this is happening at the same time as new boundaries are being formed for Westminster. As others will have a very big impact on that. Of course, 10 million is the headline figure, so various people have disaggregated the different parts of that. However, 2.5 million people being missing purely because of the transition to a new system is a very high number of people. That is borne out by other reports as well. In the motion, it refers to hope not hate. The figure for Scotland is there of 230,000 people at risk of disappearing from the register. Although that was a 5.5 per cent drop-off since the general election, I think that it is much higher percentages for Glasgow and even for Edinburgh. Of course, there was also an article in The Herald last week, the 20th of January, in fact, which did a poll of local councils. It came up with the figure of 22 per cent of residents in Glasgow not having registered. It said that if that was repeated across Scotland, it would amount to 800,000 people. Of course, as Clare Baker has emphasised, it has a particular effect on certain demographics. People living in private rented accommodation have been emphasised in particular, but we could also mention students. As an example from England, in the Smith Institute report of 3,500 students having registered in East Sussex, I presume that it is related to Sussex University, and that number has fallen now to 377, because previously universities could register a whole hall of residents, but now they cannot. There is no doubt that there is plenty of evidence of a problem. The related issue, of course, is that the registers that are being formed will be used as the basis for the redrawing of the Westminster map. Fifty seats will disappear. The stated intention is to have constituencies that are more equal, but perversely, the new constituencies could be exactly the opposite of what is intended, because many seats will have many more missing voters than others. That is already an issue, but, of course, that issue will be accentuated because of the new register. The sephologist and academic Lewis Baston has said, and I quote, that the result could be a fiasco that would also be extremely vulnerable to the charge of being a gerrymander. We all need to act together to deal with the situation. I congratulate what Anne McTagger has done in relation to holiday drocks and younger voters, because they are particularly important in relation to this. I should also pay tribute to Jeremy Corbyn, because he has appointed Gloria Dupiro as a dedicated shadow minister for young people and voter registration. Fundamentally, it is not, of course, a party political priority, but a democratic priority that we should take action in relation to this. It would be tragic if young people, and many other people, particularly those who have the most need for political change, are the ones to be increasingly disenfranchised and left out of the political process. It is important that we come together on this issue and take whatever action we can to deal with it. It is probably too late to change the mind of the UK Government, but we must certainly campaign to minimise the risk to democracy posed by what has been put into law. As political parties, we have a tendency to focus on the number of votes that we might get. I think that we pay too little attention to the number of votes that could be, but are not cast even by those who are registered. However, there are recognised barriers to voting, literacy, lack of access to IT, ill health, homelessness, work and family commitments, but given the importance of people voting in any democracy worthy of the name, we must push the lack of engagement up the agenda and acknowledge that, while we enjoy a fairly advanced level of democracy, there is much to be done to progress it. We must ask how democratic we are when large numbers of our population are not taking part in the operation of our democracy. What are we doing or failing to do in order to get those missing millions back? The changes to voter registration that the motion focuses on are clearly having a negative impact on the numbers of voters registered at the moment in Scotland and a negative impact that must be addressed. In fact, some of us in this chamber might have experienced or know someone who has experienced a problem with this new system. I know people who have completed the verification process and then received a letter demanding that they do so and telling them that they are not yet registered. Some of those have been really concerned individuals who have wanted to know that they are registered, and they have insisted on written confirmation that they are on the register, which is of course time-consuming and expensive but understandable. However, I would like to use the short time remaining to cover some broader issues relating to non-participation in our democratic process. Perhaps the minister, when he is closing, can tell us more about why companies—some companies—are given access to the register for marketing purposes. I know that this concerns many people and how much money is raised by this practice and where does that money go. Perhaps ring ffencing some of that money to increase voter turnout or improve registration might be helpful, because we have to start to bring the numbers down. The numbers who are not registered and the numbers who are registered simply choose not to vote. Why do people feel that voting is a waste of time? Is it because they become disillusioned when they have taken part in umpteen consultations and their views have been rejected out of hand? If we look at the turnout here in the 2011 elections for this Parliament, it was just over 50 per cent, so almost two million Scots who could have voted chose not to. That is right, they chose not to. When we think about it, we take the freedom to do so for granted, but that freedom has been very hard won by many people. How might Scotland change if those non-voters exercise their democratic right if we could do more to convince them that it was worthwhile? I think that we need to look at sharing power downwards and outwards. The size and areas of population numbers considered local in Scotland would be regarded as regional government at a level above local government in most other European nations. Perhaps our winner takes all political culture as an unappealing turn-off for many people. It is a system that values conflict. We have roaring and cheering in this very chamber—that adversarial punch-and-duty show. It is fair to say that no other walk of life would this be considered. The German constitution, in fact, would forbid national government interference in more regional government matters. Angela Merkel could not suggest a council tax freeze, for example. Regardless of what you think about the impact of that freeze, I think that that means that power is taken away from local people. We have an unelected house of lords and we have an outdated divisive electoral system that forces politicians to ignore huge parts of the population. We need a democracy that encourages a culture where we collaborate with people and we include everyone. To a great extent, the referendum demonstrated that millions who do not vote in local, national and UK elections are interested and more than engaged when they believe that they have the power to change things. It is important that we as a Parliament take all the action that we can to ensure that individual registration is properly resourced and administered, so that no-one loses the right to vote. However, let's do all that we can. This is not a party political issue. We have to encourage all in Scotland to participate in our democratic process. Many thanks. I now invite Jo FitzPatrick to respond to the debate. Minister, seven minutes or so please. Thank you, Presiding Officer. I begin by thanking Claire Baker for bringing forward this important and very timely debate. I welcome the consensus across the chamber today. The transition to individual electoral registration began in Scotland on 19 September 2014, immediately after the independence referendum. As Malcolm Chisholm said, that referendum saw an unprecedented engagement in the electoral process and engagement in that, I think, we all have a responsibility to foster for future elections whatever side of the referendum we were on. The Government shares Claire Baker's concerns that the UK Government's actions around IER undermines all of our efforts and risks thousands of people being disenfranchised. IER replaces the system where one person in each household completed the annual canvas form with a requirement for each person to apply individually to register and for their identity to be checked against other records. As Claire Baker and John Lamont said, the UK Government's rationale is that moving to individual electoral registration would reduce the risks of electoral fraud. During the transition period, all existing registered electors whose names and addresses match data held by the DWP or local authorities were transferred to the new IER registration system as confirmed electors. From 19 September 2014, the identity of all new registrations had been verified before they were added to the new register. If they could not be verified, the individual has to provide other evidence of their identity. As members will be aware, the Government was absolutely opposed, as were colleagues on other benches, to the Westminster Government's decision to bring forward the end of the IER transition period to 1 December 2015. We welcomed opposition in both houses at Westminster but unfortunately neither of those motions to annul were successful. The Westminster Government's decision to end the transition period a year early stands and our electoral registration officers were left to try to minimise the loss of franchise. The figure of 230,000 voters in Scotland being removed from the register quoted in the Smith Institute is concerning. It came from an electoral commission report, which was based on the register as that May 2015, as John Lamont said. That figure was the number of electors at that point who were registered but who had not had their identity confirmed or verified and were therefore only on the register because of their transition arrangements. Had the transition arrangements been continued, then they would have still been on the register. It would allow them to temporarily remain on the register. However, at the time, the commission also acknowledged that the canvas activity, which would be undertaken between July and November 2015, would reduce that figure significantly. Unfortunately, Scotland-wide statistics on the size of the register post the end of that transition period and the autumn canvas activity are not yet available. However, if we take one area as an example, then hopefully that will give us an indication of just how the numbers have changed and just how successful our EROs have been. However, I preface that with an understanding that there may very well be regional variations that we need to look at. However, in Grampian, the number of unconfirmed electors has reduced from 19,222 on 27 February to 10,636 on 9 October, which is still significant. By 30 November, the number remaining had fallen further to 3,893. Clearly, those are people who we would want to be verified, but clearly our EROs have done a considerable job in reducing that number. The number that is declined was because unconfirmed electors either updated their details themselves as part of the process, which allowed their identity to be confirmed, or the electoral registration officers established that they were no longer resident and were therefore removed from the register. That reduction of 80 per cent in the number of electors who were on the register but who had not been data matched and our EROs should be congratulated for their efforts in doing that. However, that is still recognised that there may be regional variations that we need to be very alert to. The minister would recognise that the Smith Institute report also talks about the potential for growth in numbers as new students go to university, and there is no longer the system that is highlighted by Malcolm Chisholm, where the university can register the students. Has the Government got any views on how they can encourage universities in that aspect? I was going to come to that later, but I will come to it now. It is something that has been recognised by EROs and the Electoral Commission, and they are working together with universities to try to tackle that. If we think back to the referendum, young people who voted yes, young people who voted no, they were the big exciting thing that happened in the referendum, the engagement of young people. If there is a risk of losing them from the next election, that would be a disaster. I know that our EROs and the Electoral Commission are working with universities and colleges to try to make sure that we can increase those student registrations in spite of the difficulties. Going forward, putting aside our opposition to the United Kingdom Government's policy, I am sure that we have heard across the chamber that Parliament agrees that it is important that we have as complete, accurate and electoral register as possible. I hope therefore that members would find it helpful if I could give a brief summary of the new IER canvas and how that compares to the old one, which we are most used to. Under the old household registration system, the annual canvas form was completed by one person in each family, and once returned to the ERO used that information to add any new voters and remove any who were no longer resident at a particular address. That meant that all the changes could be made before the register was published on 1 December, and that is no longer the case. The annual canvas in its form no longer exists, and it has now been replaced by the household inquiry form. Those forms were issued in August last year, and, like the annual canvas, they requested information on those resident in a property who were eligible to vote. The difference is that, unlike the annual canvas, that is no longer the end of the process, and that denies to be a second stage to the process. When a name is deleted on the returned household inquiry form, EROs have to find another piece of evidence to support the removal of the name from the register. They can now normally find that through co-operation with local authorities that provide them with the data. Similarly, before adding a name to the register, EROs need an application to register from the individual. Every potential elector who has identified on a household inquiry form during the recent canvas has now been sent an individual invitation to register. In addition, every invitation that is issued is subject to a follow-up procedure that involves two reminders and a physical visit to the address. That is a process that is currently under way, and we should all congratulate EROs on how thoroughly they are falling out of the process, which has got those numbers down significantly. Every potential voter who has been identified on the household inquiry form will receive at least three letters and a visit to encourage them to register. Since the transition to IER started 16 months ago, anyone who was on the register at that time and who has not yet been data matched will have, as John Lamont said, received at least nine letters and a personal visit encouraging them to register for their vote. In addition to EROs and the Electoral Commission, EROs and the Electoral Commission are continuing with their efforts to encourage voter registration. That goes further than the £2.5 million and into the £7.5 million that the report covered in terms of those folk, some of the folk who have never registered and we want to get on to the register in time for the Scottish Parliament elections. In the run-up to our elections in May, the commission is planning to run a mass media public awareness campaign across a mixture of TV, digital and social media, and we will be providing resources that can be used as part of EROs and local public engagement work. The main campaign is scheduled to launch on Monday 14 March, with advertising appearing on digital channels from next Monday. However, as Clare Baker mentioned, there has been some work already and we saw the work of Shelter on the telly just last night. That is part of the commission's national campaign, which is targeting the sorts of group that Alison Johnstone mentioned. We are a real focus on those groups that research has identified as being less likely to be registered. People who have recently moved home, homeless people, people who rent their home, students, as we have talked about, are already young people and people from some back-and-minority ethnic communities. There is absolutely no sitting on our laurels. There has been a huge amount of progress taken. It would have been better if EROs had another year to do that process, but they have done a great job and they are working really hard to go even further to get more people on the register. I hope that information reassures members that the electoral community right across Scotland is working together to ensure that the electoral registers are as complete and accurate as possible in time for the Scottish Parliament elections in May. Again, I thank Clare Baker for bringing this debate to the chamber at such a timely moment. Thank you Minister. That concludes Clare Baker's debate. 10 million missing voters and I now close this meeting of Parliament.