Referendum The Referendum Commission is to change its website this morning, following a complaint from the Labour Party that it encouraged people to view partisan information in favour of the citizenship referendum.
Labour's general secretary, Mr Mike Allen, wrote yesterday to the commission asking it to remove a link to the home page of the Department of Justice. Mr Allen said that this encouraged people who were seeking impartial information to visit a site which contained information arguing for a Yes vote.
A spokesman for the commission said last night that its objective had been to allow people view the legislation on citizenship in the event of a Yes vote.
However, in the rush to get the site operational, the commission had inadvertently included a link to a page which contains links to statements by the Minister for Justice arguing for a Yes vote.
The spokesman said that from today, the link would be amended to ensure Internet users are moved directly to the page which contains only the Government's proposed legislation.
Earlier, the Labour Party had protested at the link from the Commission's site to "contentious and strongly disputed matter issued by the Department of Justice, Equality and Law reform".
Mr Allen said material on the Department of Justice website includes a recent statement by the Minister for Justice, Equality and Law Reform on the Chen case, "the conclusions of which are not accepted by the Labour Party and which are also strongly disputed by other lawyers".
He said it was "quite unacceptable" that the commission should be directing people to highly contentious and strongly disputed material produced by the Government Minister sponsoring the referendum, such as his statement on the significance of the Chen case.
In a letter he called on the commission to remove the link to the website unless a similar link was provided to at least one organisation that takes a different view.