The independence referendum will take a step forward amid further concerns that the proposed question is "leading".
Holyrood's Referendum Bill Committee is expected to rubber-stamp new legal powers that will allow MSPs to pose the question, set the date and give the vote to 16 and 17-year-olds. The changes were approved by the UK Government in Edinburgh last month but they still have to be signed off by the Scottish and UK parliaments.
The committee will also take evidence from constitutional expert Dr Nicola McEwen, from Edinburgh University, who is concerned that the SNP administration's proposed question "may be construed as leading voters toward a positive answer".
She has welcomed the "robustly independent" Electoral Commission's involvement in testing the question. But MSPs will also be told that the Commission's guidance is not binding and will examine a case where the UK Government actually rejected the Commission's initial advice for other referendums.
In a submission to the committee ahead of her appearance, Dr McEwen said: "The proposed question, 'Do you agree that Scotland should be an independent country?', has the advantage of being clear and succinct, but it may give rise to a number of potential issues.
"First, by inviting agreement, the question may be construed as leading voters toward a positive answer. It might thus be more fairly expressed if the phrase 'do you agree' was supplemented by the words 'or disagree', with the optional answers then phrased as 'Yes, I agree' or 'No, I disagree'. Alternatively, a plain language alternative, requiring a more simple yes or no answer, may be 'Should Scotland be an independent country?'"
During the last meeting, committee convener Bruce Crawford, the SNP MSP who led the Scottish Government's initial referendum negotiations with the UK Government and is now chairing the impartial scrutiny of its implementation, asked Holyrood's librarians to examine whether the Electoral Commission's recommendations have always been followed.
In response, the Scottish Parliament Information Centre (Spice) prepared a note which confirms that the commission cannot compel ministers to follow its advice, and details a case where that advice was actually challenged by the UK Government.
The commission tested a question on council tax referendums in England and called for it to be redrafted. The UK Government felt that the commission's suggested revision was "misleading" and ordered further rewrites.
After more than six months of exchanges, both parties agreed on a form of words which were not subsequently retested, but which the commission believed would present a "low risk" of confusion.
