Fixed-term Parliaments Bill

I thank my hon. Friend for that information, and I do not think that Government Members appreciate that aspect. What we are talking about is not a local government election that we might be facing next year or in 2015. The elections we are talking about are not less important than general elections for people in Scotland, because people in Scotland consider the Scottish Government to be the Government of the country for the purposes for which they have powers. They are a Government: they have a First Minister, a Cabinet and a national aspect in the sense that they are the Government in a Parliament that covers the part of the UK that is Scotland. I am not trying to ignore Wales or Northern Ireland at all in this, and the same principles apply to them. If we respect what we have achieved through devolution, it is important that we do not allow that to be swamped. We have those different debates and policies, and people have their chance to vote differently, which they do—I am not for a minute going to suggest that people will not vote differently on the same day, because I know that that can happen. The genuine ability to separate out these areas of politics and to allow each legislature its real place and presence within our constitution is simply being ignored by these measures. As I have said, it seems to me that there is no reason for that.