diff --git a/src/taggingbackends/data/labels.py b/src/taggingbackends/data/labels.py
index a962b57bf18fae3ece4da2ab3ea82197daca793f..5106134f6a7eec29467f87952b7a81c378d84fb5 100644
--- a/src/taggingbackends/data/labels.py
+++ b/src/taggingbackends/data/labels.py
@@ -343,8 +343,8 @@ class Labels:
     """
     @property
     def decoding_label_list(self):
-        labelspec = self.decodingspec
-        if labelspec is None:
+        labelset = self.decodingspec
+        if labelset is None:
             return self.encoding_label_list
         if self.secondarylabelspec:
             labelset = labelset + self.secondarylabelspec