Scottish independence: Referendum date not a ‘barrier to an agreement’

However, he said there needed to be to be an agreement about having a “single core question on the core issue of independence”.

He was speaking the day before the UK Government published the responses to its referendum consultation.

It received almost 3,000 responses, while about 21,000 people responded to the Scottish Government consultation, which closed last week.

The Scottish Secretary repeated his call to the First Minister to hold further talks with him over how the crucial vote should be staged.

The UK Government and opposition politicians have repeatedly argued voters should be given a straight choice between staying in the UK or becoming independent.

While Alex Salmond has stated his preferred question is “Do you agree that Scotland should be an independent country?” he has also said that if there was wide support for including the option of increased powers for Holyrood, this should be on the ballot.

The administrations also clash on whether to allow 16 and 17-year-olds the vote, with the Scottish Government in favour.

While Mr Moore said there was “plenty to discuss” he also said there was “plenty of scope for agreement”.

He added: “I hope that the First Minister will agree to my proposal last week that we resume talks to deliver the legal, fair and decisive referendum that is in all of Scotland’s interests.

“We’ve always said that the referendum should be sooner rather than later, and it’s strange that the First Minister would want to delay the referendum that he’s spent his professional life working towards.

“We’ve indicated that we don’t anticipate the date being a barrier to an agreement.

“But we do need agreement on delivering a single question on the core issue of independence.”

Mr Moore stressed both governments “need to work together if we want to move beyond process and get to the real debate”.

The Scottish Government proposes holding the independence referendum in autumn 2014, but after David Cameron was reported to have said he was “not too fussy” about the date, Nationalists claimed Mr Moore had “fallen into line” with the Prime Minister.

SNP constitutional affairs spokesman Pete Wishart said: “David Cameron’s cave-in on the date of the referendum left the Scottish Secretary and indeed his own Scottish leader looking very silly - and Michael Moore has now fallen into line.

“The Westminster Government’s insistence that the referendum had to be in 2013 was clearly all a big act.”