My hon. Friend makes an important point. I have more knowledge and a higher comfort level when it comes to speaking about the concerns of Welsh speakers than of those who speak Gaelic, but I recognise that my hon. Friend, in drawing the House’s attention to the issue of Gaelic translation, is making an extremely important point. Both my hon. Friends, the Members for Cardiff West (Kevin Brennan) and for Ilford South who have intervened thus far have, through their specific points—including one I have raised a number of times—essentially made the broader point that there has been a huge consultation deficit with this Bill. That is most unlike the way in which referendums usually take place. It is sad, if I may put it this way, that my hon. Friend the Member for Ilford South has had to seek to address particular aspects of that consultation deficit by forcing the Minister for Europe and, indeed, the Bill’s sponsor, to consider the issue of Welsh translation and of Gaelic translation, too.
Let me come back to the broader point I was making about the need for proper consultation with the Electoral Commission and the need for sufficient time to allow that commission to do the thoughtful work that all who have an interest in this referendum want it to do. My concern is that the further work that the Electoral Commission has said in its statement is necessary would not be available to the House of Commons to discuss.
It is true that the further work of the Electoral Commission might be available for the deliberations in the other place. It is possible that the other place might amend the Bill, in which case it could come back to this place, but there is absolutely no guarantee that the other place would pass an amendment to this particular part of the Bill, allowing this House, the primary Chamber, to consider the Electoral Commission’s further work. It would be some irony, would it not, if the other place were left to make the key decisions on a Bill that is being presented as the chance to win back powers for the House of Commons?
We know how important it is to get potential referendum questions right. There was protracted and lengthy debate in Scotland about the wording of the question for the referendum that is due to take place next year. After proper consultation had taken place there, the First Minister was forced to back a new form of words. Hon. Members will also recall the debate surrounding the wording of the most recent referendum to take place across the whole of the UK—the alternative vote referendum, which asked the electorate whether they preferred the alternative vote system over the traditional first-past-the-post electoral system.
I suspect that some of us will find it less comfortable than others to recall the result of that referendum. However, as the hon. Member for Cheltenham (Martin Horwood) noted in Committee, referendums are sometimes nothing like as clear-cut as the EU referendum was and can instead be decided by “minute percentages”. The referendum on whether Quebec should stay part of Canada, for example, was decided by less than 1% back in 1995. It is absolutely vital to consider carefully the wording of the question. It is also vital to ensure that we have a fair process to determine what the question should be and that we think through the psychological impact that a particular form of words might have on the question.