My Lords, first, I take the point about Gibraltar. The drafters of the Bill had not chosen to distinguish between Gibraltar and the Channel Islands. The drafters of the Bill did not include Gibraltar; that was included at the express request and instruction of the other place. The situation of the Channel Islands was of course discussed in the other place. There are of course constitutional differences between the two but I will, of course, take that away and we will be in touch.
I apologise to the noble Lord, Lord Kerr, if he thinks that I have been in any way deficient or impolite in dealing with the points that he made in the previous Committee sitting. He raised the point then that he would be bringing the issue of timing, for instance, up on Report, and I was hoping to get a sensible time between Committee and Report to discuss exactly those matters with him. That was my intention; if I have not been prompt enough in dealing with that, then I apologise. It is certainly not my intention to turn my back on sensible points so responsibly made.
I hope that those noble Lords with their names to the amendments in this group will forgive me if, once again, I say that they are unnecessary. The rules of conduct for most polls, including general elections, are set out in secondary legislation rather than in an Act; that is the custom. The appropriate, nuanced arrangements—I hope that they will be nuanced, the term that the noble Lord, Lord Triesman, so sensibly used, because one has to be sensitive to the differing circumstances of the time—are taken care of in Clause 3. Clause 3 stipulates that the arrangements will be based in due course on the published recommendations of the Electoral Commission, which will come back to the House at an appropriate time.