Parliamentary Voting System and Constituencies Bill

I was just going to make a point about the report on those elections that was commissioned from the Canadian expert, Ron Gould, who considered the matter in great detail. He looked at education and information, but concluded that the sensible approach was to de-combine the elections; that made much more sense and was a better safeguard. Indeed, he said that a problem with combining has to do with the confusion that it creates among the electorate. I do not agree with some of the comments from the Deputy Prime Minister and others that that is somehow demeaning to the electorate. The experience is there and it is recent. That report was widely welcomed by representatives of the coalition parties both in the House and in the Scottish Parliament in 2007. I fail to be convinced by the suggestion made by the Deputy Prime Minister earlier in the debate that by working with the Electoral Commission and the electoral administrations, the issue can be dealt with. I remind the House that during preparations for the 2007 elections, there was considerable—some might say interminable—discussion between civil servants, electoral administrators and the Electoral Commission in Scotland, none of whom spotted the problem that was about to befall us and all of whom immediately afterwards, good and diligent people though many of them may be, were involved in a blame game about whose fault it was that the confusion occurred in the first place. There is a relatively simple solution. If we are to have a referendum, it should be transparent and give confidence in the result. That could be achieved by holding it on a distinct date. That could be a month earlier, a month later or in the early autumn, so that there is a gap between the sets of elections. It will be incumbent on the Government Front-Bench team to consider that during the Committee stage, given some of the amendments that may well be proposed.