Referendums

Tuesday 5th March 2013 Lords Chamber

Question

14:54

Asked by

[Baroness Quin]

To ask Her Majesty’s Government whether they are considering further legislation concerning the holding of referendums in the United Kingdom.

[Lord Wallace of Saltaire]

My Lords, the Government believe that the legislative framework set out in the Political Parties, Elections and Referendums Act 2000 has worked well. We have no immediate plans to amend this framework. Each referendum held under the Act, however, requires its own separate primary legislation to set the date and question, and to make any other necessary technical changes.

[Baroness Quin]

My Lords, as many with long memories will know, the first national referendum on Europe in 1975 had quite a lot to do with tackling internal divisions on Europe within the Labour Party. Now it seems that we are to have a referendum on Europe principally for party management reasons as the Prime Minister seeks to appease his party critics. Does the Minister think that this is a satisfactory way of deciding on referendums? If not, will he heed the report of the Constitution Committee of this House, which advised Governments against holding referendums for ad hoc tactical reasons and advised building up a wider political consensus about when and if they should be used?

[Lord Wallace of Saltaire]

My Lords, I had indeed reread that section of the Constitution Committee’s report, which said, as the noble Baroness has remarked,

“we regret the ad hoc manner in which referendums have been used, often as a tactical device, by the government of the day … Where possible, cross-party agreement should be sought as to the circumstances in which it is appropriate for referendums to be used”.

Let us hope that we can reach cross-party agreement on such matters in the future.

[Lord Tyler]

My Lords, given the precedent of the Scottish independence referendum next year, is it now the Government’s position that any future national referendum with long-term consequences should extend the franchise to 16 and 17 year-olds?

[Lord Wallace of Saltaire]

My Lords, we have debated this before and I do not want to go too far down this road. The Scots have decided that for this one referendum they would like to extend the vote to 16 and 17 year- olds. No doubt we will discuss time and again how much further that should be extended.

[Lord Foulkes of Cumnock]

My Lords, has the Minister read the article by our friend, the noble Lord, Lord Hennessy, in the Tablet? In it he reveals that the Cabinet has taken two decisions: first, a wise decision not to have any pre-negotiations with the Scottish Government in advance of the referendum; and secondly, what is in my view an unwise decision not to have any contingency plans to deal with the situation in all our areas of concern if the referendum gives a yes vote. Will he ask his colleagues in the Cabinet to reconsider this? We will all be fighting to ensure that there is a no vote, but in the unlikely but unfortunate event of a yes vote, we have to be ready to deal with the consequences.

[Lord Wallace of Saltaire]

My Lords, I congratulate the noble Lord on the catholicity of his tastes in reading. I had indeed read that article because the noble Lord, Lord Hennessy, was kind enough to give it to me.

[Lord Hamilton of Epsom]

My Lords, as it was a Liberal Democrat commitment to have a referendum on Europe, surely there should not be too much difficulty for the coalition partners in agreeing that this is the way forward?

[Lord Wallace of Saltaire]

My Lords, we will wait to see what is in the manifestos of all the parties for the coming election. The proposal by the Prime Minister in his capacity as Conservative Party leader is to hold a referendum, after some considerable further renegotiation, in the mid-point of the next Parliament.

[Lord Tomlinson]

Does the noble Lord recall that we spent a long time a couple of years ago debating the extension of referenda to transfers of power to Brussels? Does he agree with my understanding that the fact that we have had no such referendum called indicates that Brussels is not always acquisitive of our powers?

[Lord Wallace of Saltaire]

My Lords, I vaguely remember some discussions on the subject. The question of whether we are heading towards treaty change is not primarily a matter for Brussels; it is much more a matter for different national Governments. The opinions of the French, German and Polish Governments and others weigh very heavily in this.

[Lord Taverne]

My Lords, will the Minister recommend to his colleagues in the Government the address of Edmund Burke to the electors of Bristol, its comments on the role of Members of Parliament and its relevance to the current addiction to referendums?

[Lord Wallace of Saltaire]

My Lords, I am surprised that the noble Lord has not also called in aid Mrs Thatcher’s comment in the mid-1970s on the dangers of sliding from parliamentary democracy to plebiscitary democracy. Our political system depends on the principle of parliamentary sovereignty and that is something that we have to cling to.

[Lord Pearson of Rannoch]

My Lords, further to the supplementary question of the noble Baroness, Lady Quin, does the Minister agree that opinion polls consistently show that more than 80% of the British people want a referendum on our membership of the European Union? Perhaps that should be of some significance even to our present political establishment.

[Lord Wallace of Saltaire]

I am glad that the noble Lord is such a man of the people in all these respects. I recall that, three months before the 1975 referendum, opinion polls were overwhelmingly in favour of leaving, but that, in the course of the campaign, opinion was informed and thus altered.

[Lord Grocott]

While we are reflecting on the wisdom of the British people, would the Minister like to reflect on some very successful referendums that have been held in the past two or three years: first, on the good sense of the public in rejecting any notion of a fancy new electoral system for Westminster parliamentary elections; and secondly, on nine out of 10 British cities rejecting fancy directly elected mayors? On the basis of this, might it be a good idea to hold just one more referendum, on deciding whether the elections to the European Parliament next year should be on the basis of first past the post?

[Lord Wallace of Saltaire]

My Lords, the noble Lord, as always, demonstrates what a splendid conservative he is on all matters of constitutional reform.