Referendum (Scotland)
Oral Answers to Questions — Home Department
5:58 pm
David Mundell (Parliamentary Under Secretary of State, Scotland; Dumfriesshire, Clydesdale and Tweeddale, Conservative)
I welcome the hon. Lady’s welcome for the agreement and her contribution to the debate that has led to it. It is important that the agreement sets out a clear role for the Electoral Commission in relation to both the question and the funding of the campaigns. It is difficult to envisage circumstances in which the Scottish Government would want to ignore the Electoral Commission’s recommendations. As she said, no Government have ever done so, and there would be not just a procedural problem but a significant political price to pay for any party that sought to do so.
We should never underestimate the Scottish people. It is wrong to suggest that they could somehow be duped into supporting independence by any form of chicanery or trickery that might come from either side of the debate. They are much too sensible for that, and I have every confidence that when the referendum comes, whatever the form of the question and however the campaign has been funded, they will make the right decision.