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‘Modest progress’ in independence poll talks
Alex Salmond said “modest progress” has been made in talks with the Scottish Secretary about the independence referendum.
The Scottish First Minister discussed how a vote could be staged when he met Michael Moore in Edinburgh yesterday.
Afterwards, Mr Salmond said there were still two key issues of disagreement.
These, he said, were whether or not the ballot should also give Scots the option of backing greatly-enhanced powers for Holyrood – dubbed devo-max – and whether 16 and 17-year-olds should be entitled to vote.
However, Mr Moore also identified the time of the referendum as an issue.
The Scottish Government has said it wants the vote to take place in the autumn of 2014 but Mr Moore said he still wanted it to be “sooner rather than later”.
The talks between the two men had been scheduled to last about an hour but ended up going on for approximately 90 minutes.
Mr Salmond will also hold talks with Prime Minister David Cameron on Thursday.
The First Minister said those discussions, and the talks with Mr Moore, were being held “with a view to getting agreement on the manner in which the independence referendum will be held”.
He added: “I think there was some modest progress this morning but I suspect the key points of disagreement have been identified as one or two questions, 16 and 17-year-olds voting.”
The First Minister said he did not anticipate any agreement between Holyrood and Westminster on the issues until after the consultations that both governments are staging.
But he said it was “useful that it was clarified today that the Westminster Government were willing to listen to their consultation on these matters”.
Mr Salmond said the Scottish Government had an “open mind” aon having a devo-max option on the ballot paper.
He also said they were “favourable to 16 and 17-year-olds getting the vote” but was awaiting the results of a consultation exercise before reaching an agreement.
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Saturday 26 May 2012
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