Scottish Parliament (Elections etc.) Order 2010

The coincidence of elections with foot and mouth, or with events such as conflicts, may be things we have to live through. I understand all that. I will not rehearse a speech I made at a Committee stage; the Minister was in the House when I made it. My point then was that I concede that there are, in some circumstances, arguments for what I call analogous elections, where the same parties are competing broadly over the same body of policies, either at local, regional, mayoral or national elections. There is some argument for combining them. My point, which I thought he understood, was that there is a strong body of academic, analytic and political opinion that says, ““To conduct a referendum, which because of the nature of a referendum involves cross-party working and confusion, potentially against a background of party-political politics, with a party-political contest, is designed to confuse””. My point in the other debate, which I will allude to briefly, was that, particularly in Scotland, where our media is and will be dominated by arguments from London, this will do an extraordinary disservice to the Scottish people and the Scottish Parliament. Of all Members of this House, the Minister, having been a Member of that Parliament, and knowing how much it is valued by the people of Scotland, should recognise that. He should have listened to that Parliament’s view.