CAMPAIGNERS against the proposed elected North-East assembly have called for the ballot papers to be scrapped, saying they were misleading.

With less than a month to go before ballot papers are sent to the region's 1.9 million voters -and with printing under way on Tyneside 'North-East Says No has called for the preamble to the referendum to be removed.

The statement includes the phrase "the elected assembly would be responsible for a range of activities currently carried out mainly by central government bodies, including regional economic development".

North-East Says No chairman John Elliott said it was misleading and that the assembly's limited powers over economic development would be within national priorities drawn up by the Government.

The wording was agreed by the Electoral Commission and passed by Parliament last year, but North-East Says No leaders said the problem did not arise until assembly powers were revealed in a Bill.

Mr Elliott said: "If the Government wants a fair referendum, it must make this chan-ge or risk accusations of abu- sing the electoral process."

An Electoral Commission spokesman said: "As the law requires, the commission was consulted on the wording of the referendum questions.

"We looked at issues of intelligibility and fairness and made a number of suggestions for improvements.

"The Government made changes as a result and we believe that the intelligibility of the materials has improved significantly as a result.

"However, we recognise that the issues involved are not straightforward. We have no doubt that public understanding of the choices will develop as the referendum campaign gets under way."