I am happy to confirm that we have had discussions with the Electoral Commission—I am sure they will continue—about early or pre-designation, which will be an essential part of the alternative that I
am suggesting to the hon. Gentleman. That will ensure that the 10-week official referendum period is not eaten into, leaving too short a time for a proper airing of the issues. I know that he is concerned about that.
While I am sure that the recent general election campaign was fascinating in all possible respects to everybody in this Chamber, it is possible, given that it started rather earlier than normal because of the Fixed-term Parliaments Act 2011, that in the minds of one or two of our constituents it might have dragged a bit by the end. I am sure we all had cases of knocking on doors when we were out canvassing during the campaign and people saying, “Oh God, I wish the whole thing was all over.” We need to take care not to go to the other extreme—I know that my hon. Friend is not suggesting this—of having an election campaign that is too long. We are already beginning the referendum campaign—it is clearly starting to gear up—and we need to be careful about going too far the other way.
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Amendment 10 was also tabled by my hon. Friend, who is concerned about, as he put it, the tentacles of Europe reaching ever further into our lives and potentially skewing the result—or skewing the way in which the campaign is done. I shall start by making a very clear statement of principle, which is that I share his concern to make sure that the European Union is not involved in funding things directly. As he said, the European Union says it does not believe that it would be eligible to be a direct donor for the upcoming referendum. I can confirm that even if it thought it was eligible, legally it would not be so, under the terms of PPERA. Not only would it not want to or feel unable to—it would not legally be allowed to, in any case.
My hon. Friend talked about some of the organisations that are allowed to donate. There are very great existing protections to stop external non-British interventions in British elections of all kinds, including this one.