Scottish Greens welcome BBC election ruling

Patrick Harvie will take part in the BBC and STV leaders' debates ahead of the Scottish Parliament election on 5 May

The Scottish Greens have welcomed a decision by the BBC that should increase the coverage the party gets ahead of the Holyrood election.

In its election guidelines, the broadcaster said its programmes should ensure that the party get a "proportionate share of the coverage".

The Scottish Greens said the move was a "victory for common sense".

But it attacked a ruling by Ofcom that could limit the amount of coverage it gets on commercial TV stations.

The broadcasting watchdog, which regulates commercial broadcasters such as STV, has formally classed the Scottish Greens as a "smaller party" for the purposes of the election, meaning it will get less guaranteed airtime.

Leaders' debates

The Scottish Greens said they were "angry" about the Ofcom ruling, which they said risked "relegating us from daily coverage of the election campaign" on commercial stations.

The BBC's draft guidelines had previously suggested that the Scottish Greens - who had two MSPs elected in 2011 - should be classed as a smaller party, meaning they would get less coverage.

But the corporation confirmed earlier this week that the Scottish Greens would be represented in both of its televised leaders' debates ahead of the election on 5 May.

The Scottish Greens are hopeful of adding to the two MSPs they had elected in 2011

In its finalised election guidelines, which were released on Friday, the BBC said that the SNP, Labour, the Conservatives and the Liberal Democrats should receive broadly similar levels of coverage during the election campaign.

The guidelines added: "In some programmes and formats, the Scottish Green Party may receive similar levels of coverage to the four largest parties.

"This may include debates, items detailing distinctive policies, as well as sequences of interviews with party leaders or other senior party figures or candidates.

"In BBC Scotland, programmes should ensure that the Scottish Green Party is getting a proportionate share of the coverage each week."

Responding to the move, a Scottish Greens spokesman said: "With our positive polling, surging membership and a strong figurehead in Patrick Harvie, we look forward to taking part in the full range of BBC programming in the run-up to an election that will be crucial in deciding the future direction of our parliament."

BBC Scotland programmes will give the Scottish Greens a "proportionate" share of coverage ahead of the Holyrood election

The Scottish Greens had argued that they have "consistently outpolled the Liberal Democrats" in recent opinion polls, and pointed out that the party has been represented at Holyrood since the parliament was established in 1999.

The party also said its membership had increased from about 1,200 in January 2014 to "over 9,000 people" in January of this year, which is said was more than the Scottish Liberal Democrats' membership figure.

But in its own ruling, Ofcom said that parties had sometimes been elected to the Scottish Parliament with "relatively low levels of electoral support".

The fact that the Scottish Greens have had MSPs since 1999 "is not in itself evidence of significant past electoral support", it stated.

Ofcom also said that the Scottish Greens:

• did not demonstrate significant electoral support in the 2015 General Election in Scotland (1.3%)

• achieved between 0.2% and 4.4% in the 2007 and 2011 Scottish Parliament elections

• achieved 8.1% in the 2014 European Parliamentary elections in Scotland and 2.3% in the 2012 Scottish local elections

• has not demonstrated significant levels of current support in opinion polls in Scotland.

The watchdog concluded: "We do not consider that the relevant evidence justifies this party's inclusion on the list as a larger party in Scotland."

Responding to the Ofcom ruling, a spokesman for the Scottish Greens said: "The thousands of Scots who signed our petition calling on Ofcom to give us parity with Holyrood's four other parties will be angry and we share that anger.

"The simplistic larger/smaller distinction is meaningless in the modern political landscape.

"Ofcom admit that the Lib Dems have not performed well, yet they get to keep their privileged position. On any measure - polling, membership, satisfaction with party leaders - the Scottish Greens are clearly streets ahead of the Lib Dems."