Let me move on a little and perhaps reassure my hon. Friend. I am prepared to be persuaded that, despite my bewilderment that so much importance is being given to the procedure, we should bend over backwards to reassure my right hon. and hon. Friends that the Government are acting in good faith and will hold the campaign in a serious way. So I accept that 5 May 2016 is verboten—absolutely ruled out. It is a sacred day in the next two years on which it is not possible to put an additional question on the Scottish referendum—[Hon. Members: “European.”]—on membership of the European Union. So it has been decided not to hold it on 5 May.
I could not care less on which precise date the referendum is held, as long as it is held properly. I do not think that 5 May is a remotely important subject. I might have argued that it would have been a good idea to raise the turnout in our electoral process. There is an argument that if elections for various things are held on the same day, the turnout for some elections might go up from its current pathetic level. Apparently, however, it is thought that the poor electorate would be puzzled and confused—that they would vote in their local council election thinking that the Germans were playing a key role in the whole thing and that the questions would be too complicated and they would muddle up the documents.
2.30 pm
I will not, however, deride an argument to which I am prepared to concede. I listened to the right hon. Member for Gordon (Alex Salmond) move the amendment on behalf of the Scottish National party, and I am prepared to say that I am wrong and he is quite right. I hope he is reassured that 5 May 2016 is now firmly ruled out: on that day the public shall not be asked whether this nation’s future lies in or out of the European Union. As Members may gather, I do not take that particular point as seriously as I obviously should. Everybody else felt passionately about it on Second Reading, but I do not think it is important.