Fixed-term Parliaments Bill

My hon. Friend makes a more informed contribution than I do, but I was just getting to the Gould report. It was an independent review by the Electoral Commission, and its conclusions and recommendations stated:"““One of the more controversial issues in the 3 May 2007 elections was whether the Scottish parliamentary and the local government elections should have been combined on the same day. We were not surprised by the concerns that were expressed to us about this issue because pursuing combined or separate elections involves a trade-off of different objectives.""If local issues and the visibility of local government candidates are viewed as a primary objective, then separating the…parliamentary from the local government elections is necessary in order to avoid the dominance of campaigns conducted for…parliamentary contests. In addition, separating the two elections would result in minimising the potential for voter confusion.””"