Minister voices concern over potential for dark money campaigns to sack MSPs

A Scottish minister has expressed concern that anonymous campaigns could spend millions in bids to oust MSPs if a Bill to allow the public to sack those elected to Holyrood is passed.

Jamie Hepburn, the minister for parliamentary business, told Holyrood’s Standards Committee the Government supports the principles of the Scottish Parliament (Recall and Removal of Members) Bill.

But he said concerns remain around the transparency of election finances and the influence of anonymous campaigns to fire politicians.

The legislation, proposed by Conservative MSP Graham Simpson, would provide a route for constituents to recall MSPs.

MSPs can currently only lose their seats if they are sentenced to 12 months or more in prison. At Westminster, a recall petition can be initiated if an MP is sent to prison or suspended for 10 sitting days.

Mr Simpson’s Bill would lower the threshold in Holyrood to six months and would allow for a similar petition to be called if the MSP in question has been sentenced to jail or suspended from the Parliament for 10 sitting days.

For a recall petition to be effective, 10% of the MSP’s constituents must sign it, which would result in them losing their seat.

Martin Whitfield, the Standards Committee convener, said unknown groups could seek to influence the recall system in order to oust MSPs.

“It could be a group – invisible, unknown – on social media with letters sent to constituents anonymously,” he said.

“Now, the Government will have to take a decision on the financial instruments and that.

“So what is the Government’s concern about, in essence, an unknown campaign spending millions and millions of pounds to oust an MSP? Does it have any concerns?”

The Labour MSP said there are “legitimate examples” of anonymous campaigns aiming to influence elections, pointing to an election in Jersey in 2022.

He said: “I think back to the Isle of Jersey, where they have effectively a none of the above option where there’s only one candidate.

“In the last election there, there was a very orchestrated, anonymous campaign to ensure that none of the above won.

“But you couldn’t identify who was funding it. You couldn’t identify where the correspondence and the social media posts were coming from. And clearly it was successful.”

Mr Hepburn said the issue of anonymous political finances is an “area of concern”, adding transparency is needed in all elections.

He told MSPs: “Those are areas I think I can safely say the Government would be concerned about.

“We should have a line of transparency in terms of how much is being spent, who is spending it, and where that money and expenditure is being derived from.

“I think these are important parts of our democratic system, and we recognise that is important in terms of people being elected to this place, indeed other parts of a democratic system – we recognise it as important there.

“I think we should also recognise it as being important in terms of any recall process too.”

The minister signalled it is unlikely the member’s Bill, which is at stage one, will be fully enacted before the 2026 Holyrood election.

He told the committee: “The Bill prescribes that everything should be in place within six months of royal assent.

“Candidly, no, I am not confident. Now, if you were to ask me that, if this had been legislated for two years ago, I’d probably say, yeah, we probably could do that within six months.

“I should caveat this with a reassurance that I see nothing in the parliamentary timetable or the timescale we have that means you can’t pass this Bill before the end of the session, but if we are required to implement it all within six months, that’s going to be pretty exact, and that’s going to be pretty challenging.

“I think it would be very difficult to do it and to do it with justice in the timescale prescribed.”