House of Commons

Friday 5th July 2013 Commons Chamber

Friday 5 July 2013

The House met at half-past Nine o’clock

Prayers

Friday 5th July 2013 Commons Chamber

[Mr Speaker in the Chair]

09:30

[Mr Peter Bone (Wellingborough) (Con)]

I beg to move, That the House sit in private.

Question put forthwith (Standing Order No. 163), and negatived.

European Union (Referendum) Bill

Friday 5th July 2013 Commons Chamber

Second Reading

09:35

[James Wharton (Stockton South) (Con)]

I beg to move, That the Bill be now read a Second time.

It is an honour to introduce a Bill that has at its heart the heart of our democracy. Power should reside with the people. In introducing the Bill, I speak for many in the House, but I speak for millions more outside the House.

[Nadhim Zahawi (Stratford-on-Avon) (Con)]

It is regrettable that the right hon. Member for Doncaster North (Edward Miliband) is not in the Chamber. Has my hon. Friend received representations from the leader of the Labour party, Len McCluskey, on what he thinks the position of the Labour party should be on this important issue?

[James Wharton]

I thank my hon. Friend for that ingenious intervention. I have not yet heard from Mr McCluskey, but I am sure that when the Labour party has decided what its position is on giving the British people a say on our relationship with the European Union it will let us know. In introducing the Bill, as I said, I speak for many in the Chamber and for many millions outside. It was in 1975 that a Labour Government gave the British people a say on our membership of the then European Community. How things have changed: politics has moved on, and the European Union has moved on.

[Mr Dennis Skinner (Bolsover) (Lab)]

In 1971, I voted against the then Common Market, and I voted for a referendum in 1975. Sadly, the country did not follow my advice, or we would not be doing what we are doing today. However, the Bill is deficient in one respect: it does not ask for a referendum until 2017. What we need is a referendum before the next election. Will the hon. Gentleman give that guarantee?

[James Wharton]

For the first time, I find myself agreeing with at least part of the hon. Gentleman’s comments. I wish more people had listened to him in 1975, and I am sorry that they are not going to do so now.

As I shall come on to explore, it is important that we secure the best possible deal from the European Union and put a real choice to the British people. It is sensible that we set a time frame within which that must be done. That is what the Bill does, and that is why I have introduced it.

[Heather Wheeler (South Derbyshire) (Con)]

First, I congratulate my hon. Friend on securing the debate. Secondly, I totally agree that—and I think he will probably explore this—it is important that this will reinforce the hand of our marvellous Prime Minister in negotiations with Europe, and then give the public a say. The public deserve a say.

[James Wharton]

My hon. Friend is absolutely right. This is about giving the public a real say—a real choice between the best possible deal that we can get from the European Union and, if the public so choose, leaving it, if that is what they want to do. That is what we on this side are offering the British public: I think that Members on the other side should consider their position very carefully indeed, because at the next election the public will not forgive Members who do not trust them.

[Several hon. Members]

rose—

[James Wharton]

I want to make a little progress, then I will give way.

There is—and we can see it already—a debate to be had about whether our national interest is best served by being inside the European Union or by coming out. That debate, however, is not for today.

[Mr Gordon Marsden (Blackpool South) (Lab)]

Will the hon. Gentleman give way?

[James Wharton]

This is a debate about the Bill that is before—[Interruption.]

[Mr Speaker]

Order. The hon. Gentleman is not giving way at the moment. I think that that is clear.

[James Wharton]

Thank you, Mr Speaker.

This is a debate about the Bill that I am bringing forward and which I am proud to bring forward. The Community that we joined all those years ago was primarily one of free trade, though aspects of it even then—

[Sheryll Murray (South East Cornwall) (Con)]

The first time I voted was in 1974. My son and daughter have never had the opportunity to make that democratic decision. Does my hon. Friend agree that that is what we should be doing today? That is why I sponsored my hon. Friend’s Bill.

[James Wharton]

Of course I agree with my hon. Friend. She was lucky if she had the opportunity to vote. I was, as one hon. Member whispered in my ear as she made her contribution, but a twinkle in an eye at that time. I did not have the opportunity to vote.

[Mr Lee Scott (Ilford North) (Con)]

Does my hon. Friend agree that any party that does not trust the British people does not deserve the trust of the British people?

[James Wharton]

My hon. Friend will be staggered, I am sure, to find that of course I agree with him. But what matters is not that I agree with him; it is that the people who are watching this debate, who care about the issue, who want to have their say—the great British people—agree with him. They will make their views very clear, come the next election.

[Mr Andrew Tyrie (Chichester) (Con)]

Does my hon. Friend agree that one of the most important reasons for the Bill has already been mentioned—that a whole generation has not had a chance to have a say? But there is a second reason, which is that the EU is a fundamentally different creature from the one on which we voted in 1975, and it is on that issue that the country must have a say.

[James Wharton]

My hon. Friend is right. That is a fundamental point. The European Community that the British people voted to be a part of in 1975 is not the same as the European Union of today.

[Mr Marsden]

Will the hon. Gentleman give way?

[James Wharton]

I will give way, then I want to make some progress.

[Mr Marsden]

I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman. He is making his points more usefully than some of his Whips have done so far—[Interruption] but is he aware of the fact—[Interruption.] Tory Members should calm down. Is the hon. Gentleman aware that 40% of UK exports go to the EU tariff-free, and that business leaders in this country have said that it would be dangerously destabilising if a referendum were to go ahead. Does he think—[Interruption.]

[Mr Speaker]

Order. There needs to be rather more calm in the Chamber. Interventions need to be shorter. I should point out that well over 40 colleagues want to speak. I want all of them to do so. They have an interest in minimising the noise level and maximising the progress. I call Mr Gordon Marsden—briefly.

[Mr Marsden]

Does the hon. Member for Stockton South (James Wharton) think it is in the interests of this country that we should have four years of uncertainty for business from his Bill?

[James Wharton]

The hon. Gentleman read his intervention very well, but the British people deserve a say and they deserve to be given a real choice. They should be given a choice between the best possible relationship with the European Union that we can offer, and leaving.

[Thomas Docherty (Dunfermline and West Fife) (Lab)]

The hon. Gentleman has done a great job in coming up with this idea for a Bill, but has he had an opportunity to talk to representatives from our territory of Gibraltar about the impact on them and whether he plans to give them a say in the referendum?

[James Wharton]

The hon. Gentleman raises an interesting point. Despite being a young and new MP, as I am, he knows very well that parliamentary procedure is one of the greatest challenges that the Bill will face. Were it a large and complex Bill, it would be easier for him and his colleagues to slow its progress and wreck the chances of it getting through and delivering what the British people want. So although I hear what he says and I know he is deeply concerned about anything that will allow him at a later stage, should the Bill go forward today, to slow it down and bog it down in parliamentary procedure, I hope he will resist the temptation and allow us to get it through so that his constituents and mine can vote whichever way they want and have their choice and their say on such a fundamental issue.

We have already discussed the fact that the European Community is not the same as the European Union. What we joined has changed. Those who voted yes in 1975 believed that they had bought a ticket to a clear and certain destination—to a free trade area that would benefit Britain’s economy without undermining our sovereignty. They did not buy a ticket for a never-ending journey to ever-closer union, destination unknown.

[Angie Bray (Ealing Central and Acton) (Con)]

I congratulate my hon. Friend on this excellent Bill. Does he agree that we have heard from many businesses in the form of Business for Britain, who have said that businesses in this country also want to see the terms of our membership of the EU renegotiated? They also believe that finally giving the public a vote on this massive issue will create more stability than there is at present.

[James Wharton]

My hon. Friend is right. There are hundreds of businesses that support the campaign for a say on our membership of the European Union. An important point about the Bill, which I should make clear to Members on all sides, is that I am not arguing today that we should be in or that we should be out. I am putting forward an argument that we should trust the British people to make that decision and have a say.

[Mr Graham Stuart (Beverley and Holderness) (Con)]

I regret that I disagree with my hon. Friend. He is wrong to say that the Opposition have not made up their mind. They are quite clear: they do not believe in a referendum, they do not believe in renegotiating in Europe to get a better deal for this country, and most of all—they have made this absolutely clear—they do not believe in giving the British people a say.

[James Wharton]

I am the eternal optimist. It may appear that the Opposition are united against the British people in refusing them a chance to have their say, but I do not believe that is true. I believe that at least a substantial number of them are split. They know that the people need to have a say on this important issue and even though their leader has chosen not to be here and lead them today, I hope he will summon up the strength in the future to take a firm position and will back the Bill.

[Mr Frank Field (Birkenhead) (Lab)]

When we joined the European communion—[Laughter]—the European Community, it certainly was that. We thought we were joining a union that would increase economic prosperity and give even greater political stability. We cannot now say that to new members, given the economic problems within the European Community. As things are going on in not far distant countries, after their next elections there will probably be serious fascist representation in France, in Spain and in Italy. Is it not just in the interests of this country for the Prime Minister seriously to renegotiate, but in the interests of the whole of Europe?

[James Wharton]

The right hon. Gentleman is right. We are talking about a European Union that is changing before our eyes. No one knows where it will be in a few years. It is the right approach that rather than rush headlong now to make a decision, we should negotiate to get the right deal and to understand what future membership of the European Union would mean. Whatever the result of that process and whatever our understanding might be, ultimately it must be put to the British people so that they can choose whether to renew their consent to membership or to withdraw it. That is what we must do and why we are here today.

[Mr Aidan Burley (Cannock Chase) (Con)]

I congratulate my hon. Friend on securing the debate today. Neither he nor I was alive at the time of the last referendum on the EU, and we are now sitting here in the House as MPs. Does he agree that it is high time that our generation had a say on our membership of the European Union?

[James Wharton]

My hon. Friend is right. We have generations of people who have not had a say and we have generations of people who, when they had their say, voted for something which is not what exists today. Taken together, the changes that we have seen to the European Union and the length of time since the British people gave their consent in that original vote are significant. They make the case for a fresh referendum an obvious one and one that should be supported. The times have changed, the European Union has changed, and public sentiment has changed. It is time we had a referendum, it is time we gave people a choice, and that is why we are here.

[Simon Hughes (Bermondsey and Old Southwark) (LD)]

I voted enthusiastically yes in the ’70s and I cannot imagine any circumstance in which I would not vote yes in any future referendum. Why do we need this Bill when we have already legislated for a referendum anyway, and when I hope the hon. Gentleman’s constituents, like mine, believe that the priorities are jobs and growth and investment, not putting the whole of the European investment links at risk for the next few years?

[James Wharton]

It never ceases to amaze me—I hope my colleagues on the Government Benches will allow me this indulgence—how the Liberal Democrats change their position as the wind blows. On this important matter Liberal Democrat MPs campaigned at the last election to offer the British people a referendum. They have now changed their mind because it looks a real prospect. I hope that they may change their mind again and agree with what some of us are trying to achieve.

[Sir Tony Baldry (Banbury) (Con)]

Following on from the comments of the right hon. Member for Bermondsey and Old Southwark (Simon Hughes), it must be made clear that the Bill is not put forward just by those who are inherently Eurosceptic. There are many of us who campaigned vigorously in the 1975 referendum for our entry into the European—

[Mr Speaker]

Order. Appealing though it is to look at the back of the hon. Gentleman’s suit, it would be quite nice to see his face.

[Sir Tony Baldry]

I apologise, Mr Speaker. There are many of us who campaigned for yes to Britain in the 1975 referendum campaign, but to paraphrase Goethe, that which thy forefathers bequeath thee, one must earn anew if one wants to possess it. There comes a point where one has to demonstrate the wholehearted consent of the British people to our membership of the European Union if it is to be valid for us and for them and, importantly, for the whole of the European Community.

[James Wharton]

We perhaps come at this from a different angle, but I think we reach the same conclusion, and it is welcome that we do so.

[Several hon. Members]

rose—

[James Wharton]

I want to make a little more progress, if I may.

We know that the European Union has changed from the European Community that was voted on in 1975. We know that generations did not get a choice. But what of the question of having a referendum itself? This was once seen to be alien to the British political system. It was not what we did. Well, I would contend that we live in the age of the referendum. We have had referendums on whether Scotland should have its Parliament and whether Wales should have its Assembly, and on the alternative vote. We had a referendum on whether we should have a regional assembly for the north-east of England, and my hon. Friend the Member for Harwich and North Essex (Mr Jenkin) came up to the north-east and campaigned in that referendum. He campaigned against and he was remarkably successful. I would like to give him the chance to campaign in a referendum again, not on an issue of regional government, but on one of national Government that affects us all.

[Martin Horwood (Cheltenham) (LD)]

On the subject of consistency within the coalition that the hon. Gentleman just mentioned, we both voted for the European Union Act 2011 only two years ago. I am still happy with it. Is he?

[James Wharton]

Yes, I am.

It is important when we look at referendums to understand what they mean. They go to the heart of what democracy is about. They go to the heart of giving the British people their say on fundamental matters of importance.

[Robert Halfon (Harlow) (Con)]

I am grateful to my hon. Friend for giving way and for his excellent Bill. Which does he think the British public will trust—the last Government who refused to give us a referendum on the Lisbon treaty, or this Government who have vetoed an EU treaty, cut the EU budget, passed legislation on EU sovereignty and given us an in/out referendum?

[James Wharton]

My hon. Friend makes an important and valid observation. It appears that the Leader of the Opposition does not even trust his own party, because he cannot lead them one way or the other on this important matter, but he has ordered them to run away from the debate.

[Kate Hoey (Vauxhall) (Lab)]

I want to point out that it is important to recognise that the majority of Labour voters in the country want to see a referendum.

[James Wharton]

The hon. Lady is of course right. We know that the majority of people in this country want a referendum. I would extend to her on this issue the hand of cross-party co-operation and friendship, and to any of her colleagues who would like to join in what we are trying to do to deliver that, not just for Labour voters, not just for Conservative voters, but for everyone, whether they believe that we should be in European Union or should leave it.

[Stephen Pound (Ealing North) (Lab)]

On the subject of cross-party activities, I was keen to follow the example of Margaret Thatcher in 1975 and vote enthusiastically for Europe, and I would do so again. However, is the hon. Gentleman aware that the late Baroness Thatcher happily quoted Clement Attlee’s comment that referendums are devices of demagogues and dictators.

[James Wharton]

I had forgotten the hon. Gentleman’s record of having voted against every referendum brought forward by the previous Government. It had slipped my mind that he had such a distinguished and principled position on this matter. However, we must also recognise that things change, which is why in my earlier comments, not long into my speech today, I said that we are in the age of the referendum. We have had so many referendums on so many things. It would seem farcical then to try to deny the referendum on such an important thing that matters to so many people.

[Alec Shelbrooke (Elmet and Rothwell) (Con)]

Thanks to that well known source of information Guido Fawkes we have here the Labour party briefing, which says:

“Labour does not support this Bill...This is a Conservative Party Bill that sets out the Tory Party’s position—which we are opposed to.”

[James Wharton]

I thank my hon. Friend. He has made clearer the position of the Labour party than the Leader of the Opposition has yet managed to do. There may be a vacancy there for him soon if he were to choose to apply for it.

[Mrs Anne Main (St Albans) (Con)]

It may help my hon. Friend, who is doing a wonderful job here, if I could just refer to something that was put out by the Liberal Democrats at the last election, which said that the reason for giving a real referendum was that it was over 30 years since the British people last voted, and although they wanted to campaign to stay in, they firmly believed that length of time justified having the referendum.

[James Wharton]

I thank my hon. Friend. That leads me neatly on to my next point, which is that I have no objection in a referendum to those who would want to campaign to stay in, just as I could have no objection to those who would want to fight to come out. I do wonder, though, at a democratically elected Member of Parliament who would seek to deny the British people that choice. That is the fundamental area of disagreement, and beyond that I am sure we can reach across parties to find agreement and deliver a Bill that is so important and long overdue.

[Michael Ellis (Northampton North) (Con)]

I congratulate my hon. Friend on this excellent Bill. I have just learned that the leader of the Labour party has apparently cancelled an engagement today and he is not in the House. Does my hon. Friend think that he is sitting at home Buddha-like, contemplating whether to give the British people a say?

[James Wharton]

The Buddha-like qualities of the Leader of the Opposition are well-known of late. However, I would not choose to speculate on what he is doing. It may be something to do with the unions, it may be something to do with the television; it certainly is not something to do with leading his party in the right direction.

[John Mann (Bassetlaw) (Lab)]

A majority of my constituents appear to agree with me rather than with the Prime Minister that the problem with Europe is that there is too much labour market flexibility, and that people are coming in and taking jobs here. Does the hon. Gentleman agree with me and my constituents that in the renegotiations we need to remove this labour market flexibility in Europe, or does he agree with the Prime Minister that what is needed in renegotiation is more free flow of labour?

[James Wharton]

I am delighted that the hon. Gentleman sees the value in a renegotiation and in getting a new deal. We may disagree on what that deal should look like, but his support is much appreciated, and I hope that he will back the Bill so that he can campaign for it when we get it.

[Stephen Metcalfe (South Basildon and East Thurrock) (Con)]

I congratulate my hon. Friend on bringing forward the Bill. Does he agree that at its heart lies the issue of trust? That is what this is about. The parties that trust the British people will support this, and the parties that do not trust the British people will not support it.

[James Wharton]

My hon. Friend is absolutely right. As I have said, I do not mind whether people want to campaign to be in or out. I do not seek to influence in this debate or in this Bill how the British people might vote. I believe that we must give them a say.

[Dame Angela Watkinson (Hornchurch and Upminster) (Con)]

Does my hon. Friend agree that Europe is in a very volatile state at the moment? The eurozone is in an even more volatile state. Between now and 2017 there will be vigorous negotiations to try to repatriate powers that are best used in our own country. By 2017 the public will be able to see whether those negotiations have been successful and to make an informed decision.

[James Wharton]

My hon. Friend is absolutely right. That takes us to one of the key points about the Bill: it makes provision for a referendum by the end of 2017. I believe that it is right that we should look to secure that better deal, that we should go to Europe and negotiate a better settlement that is more suited to the British interest. I believe that is possible. There are those who say that it cannot be done, but I believe that in reality the Germans will want to continue selling us cars and the French will want to continue selling us wine, just as much as we will want to continue trading with them. I think that a deal can be achieved and that it could be a great improvement.

[Mr Jim Cunningham (Coventry South) (Lab)]

I note that the hon. Gentleman did not answer my hon. Friend the Member for Bolsover (Mr Skinner). Why can we not have a referendum next year, and why is the Prime Minister not leading this debate?

[James Wharton]

As I was explaining, I believe that we need to put a real choice before the British people: either the best possible Europe we can get or coming out, if that is what they choose. I believe that that can be delivered, that we can return powers, renegotiate and get a better deal, but I also think that it would be to cheat the British people to deprive them of the opportunity to benefit from that better deal. This is about serious politics and delivering a real choice, not just playing party political games, as some Members seem keen to do.

[Dr Matthew Offord (Hendon) (Con)]

I am grateful to my hon. Friend for bringing forward the Bill. He talks about serious politics. Does he agree that Members on the Opposition Benches, and indeed some sitting just below us, say one thing in this Chamber and another in their constituencies, demonstrating that they are not serious politicians, that they are not serious about a Bill, and that it is only us who will ensure that this happens?

[James Wharton]

Again, I will endeavour to be generous in my interpretation, excluding our Liberal Democrat colleagues, who often say one thing in one place and another somewhere else. Opposition Members are not consistent within their party, but I am sure that they are consistent as individuals. The truth is that the Labour party is split down the middle on this issue, because it knows that the British people want and deserve a say, but its leader is too weak to lead and refuses to offer it direction.

[Andrew Percy (Brigg and Goole) (Con)]

Does my hon. Friend share my shock at the way the Bill has been mocked by Opposition Members—there are one or two honourable exceptions—the people who are supposed to represent the very communities, such as mine in Goole, that have been most affected by uncontrolled EU immigration and by our membership of the EU? It is those people who want a say, and it is those people whom Opposition Members are mocking today.

[James Wharton]

My hon. Friend makes the important point—the hon. Member for Vauxhall (Kate Hoey) alluded to this earlier—that as many Labour voters want the Bill to succeed as do Conservative voters. This matters across the political divide, which is why I welcome those hon. Members, from whatever party, who have said that they support what we are trying to do, and I am grateful to the Prime Minister and the Conservative party leadership for getting full square behind what we are trying to do. I think that this is something that unites the nation in agreement: we trust the British people and want to give them a voice.

[Huw Irranca-Davies (Ogmore) (Lab)]

I thank the hon. Gentleman, who is being very generous in giving way. On the matters of substance referred to by the hon. Member for Brigg and Goole (Andrew Percy), will he make clear his position on whether the EU has gone too far in protecting the employment rights of workers in his constituency and mine?

[James Wharton]

I believe that more of what is done by the EU should be done by this Parliament and by the British people. It should be for the British people to decide what they want to be legislated on, who they want to support and who they want their Government to be.

For many years, and under different parties, our leaders have disappeared into Europe, only to return to this House to present their failures or successes, and whatever happens is invariably presented as a success. This House has had its say on those measures, but the British people have not been given a say in over a generation. I think that it is time they were given a say. I want a British Prime Minister who goes to Europe to negotiate not simply in order to come back to this House and present what they have done, but to present what they have done for the British people so that they can finally decide.

[Kelvin Hopkins (Luton North) (Lab)]

I thank the hon. Gentleman for giving way and support his Bill—[Hon. Members: “Hear, hear.”] Would he like to explain to the workers of Greece and Spain about workers’ rights in those countries?

[James Wharton]

I thank the hon. Gentleman. I suspect that the workers of Greece and Spain would welcome a referendum, just as the workers in the UK would, and I hope that they might get one.

[Several hon. Members]

rose—

[James Wharton]

I will give way to my hon. Friend the Member for Shipley (Philip Davies), but then I must make some progress, as I want to draw to a conclusion.

[Philip Davies (Shipley) (Con)]

I absolutely support my hon. Friend, who is doing a massive service not only to Parliament, but to the country as a whole. May I suggest one improvement to the Bill that I think would find favour with the Prime Minister? It relates to a question I asked him recently. If the British people voted in a referendum to come out of the European Union, is it my hon. Friend’s intention that that should be that, so we would not have the usual European Union tactic of having yet more referendums until they get the result they want? Perhaps it would be better to make it clear in the Bill that if the British people voted to come out of the European Union, that would be that.

[James Wharton]

I welcome my hon. Friend’s intervention and have no doubt at all that whoever is Prime Minister at the time—I am confident that it will be the current Prime Minister—would be unable to defy a vote of the British people in a free and fair election with a proper debate. If the British people voted to come out, I am sure that that would happen. I am conscious, however—this point was made earlier—that this is a private Member’s Bill and so has limited time. Any amendments or changes, or anything that lengthens our considerations, will give the minority of Members who wish to wreck it, not by force of democratic argument, but by misuse of parliamentary procedure, too much opportunity to do so. I would therefore resist further amendments, but I understand and sympathise with my hon. Friend’s important comment.

[Several hon. Members]

rose—

[James Wharton]

I will give way to my hon. Friend the Member for Enfield North (Nick de Bois), but then I really must make progress.

[Nick de Bois (Enfield North) (Con)]

Does my hon. Friend agree that what irks the people of this nation more than anything else is the democratic deficit that exists in the EU, and that deficit has grown time after time as a result of the treaties that Labour Members signed up to? His Bill will remedy that democratic deficit by giving the British people trust?

[James Wharton]

My hon. Friend makes an important point. All of us in this place know that the great British public’s level of trust in politicians of all parties is not at its highest level. We need to restore that trust by engaging with them and giving them that choice—

[Mike Gapes (Ilford South) (Lab/Co-op)]

On a point of order, Mr Speaker.

[Mr Speaker]

I hope that it is a point of order, rather than a point of frustration.

[Mike Gapes]

It is. In answer to an earlier intervention, the hon. Member for Stockton South (James Wharton) said that Members of this House who propose amendments to the Bill would be misusing parliamentary procedure; he said that to do so would be a “misuse.” I seek clarification, Mr Speaker: would it not be perfectly in order for any Member of this House to propose many amendments to the Bill if it gets a Second Reading?

[Mr Speaker]

The situation the hon. Gentleman describes in his point of order will arise if the Bill gets a Second Reading. I heard what the hon. Member for Stockton South (James Wharton) said and think, if I may say so—and I may—that it is a point of debate. The hon. Gentleman was making a point of debate to which others can respond if they wish.

[James Wharton]

Many hon. Members in this place have made the case and raised their concerns about our relationship with the European Union over many years. I am pleased to stand here today and speak for them, for those who have dedicated countless hours to pursuing the cause of democracy in holding the European Union and our relationship with it to account. However, I am bringing forward this private Member’s Bill not just for me, the Conservative party and my colleagues: I am bringing it forward for the people as a whole. I therefore hope that we can drive it forward and make it a success.

[Ms Gisela Stuart (Birmingham, Edgbaston) (Lab)]

There seems to be a tendency for trust in the people to wane when a party gets into government. Given that a private Member’s Bill is a rather precocious creature that could easily be killed, if this is so important and if the Conservative party trusts the people, why can we not have that trust expressed before 2015, rather than waiting until 2017?

[James Wharton]

Of course, one of the challenges the Bill faces—and it is the reason it is a private Member’s Bill—and the reality of the parliamentary dynamic that the hon. Lady observes exists, is that the Government include not just Conservative Members, but Liberal Democrats, who have gone back on their manifesto pledge, do not want to support it and, sadly, despite my best efforts to persuade them, will not yet give it Government time.

[Andrew Rosindell (Romford) (Con)]

I commend my hon. Friend for putting this Bill forward; he is doing our nation a great service. Does he agree that we should have listened to Mrs Thatcher on this subject years ago and rejected political union?

[James Wharton]

My hon. Friend has a consistent and principled track record on this matter that I am sure this House recognises and appreciates. He makes a helpful contribution that reminds us of the historical reality within which we are operating. Over the years, many Members have warned us about what was happening in the European Union, yet those warnings have not always been heeded.

This Bill is about making good the central promise of our democracy: that we are the servants of the people and not their masters. We want to give the people a voice. I was born in Stockton-on-Tees, a town that I am now proud to represent in this place. I am also proud to be presenting this Bill, which will give not just the people of Stockton but the people of the United Kingdom—[Interruption.]

[Mr Speaker]

Order. Mr Wharton is developing his argument, and I think it is very clear to the hon. Member for Caerphilly (Wayne David) that he is not currently giving way.

[James Wharton]

I am proud to represent the people of Stockton in this matter, but also the people of this country as a whole. It is about time we gave those millions of British people who want a say the chance to do so—from Stockton and beyond. This Bill would legislate for that and give them confidence that they will get their say and that it will be at the right time and in the right way. We have a chance to give the British people a voice through this Bill, and I commend it to the House.

10:09

[Mr Douglas Alexander (Paisley and Renfrewshire South) (Lab)]

Let me begin by congratulating the hon. Member for Stockton South (James Wharton) on achieving first place in the ballot and on introducing this Bill.

Any judgment about an in/out referendum on the UK’s membership of the European Union has to be based on what is in the national interest. We do not believe that an in/out referendum in 2017, as anticipated in the hon. Gentleman’s Bill, is in the national interest. The Bill reflects an arbitrary date unrelated to the likely timetable of major treaty change, it represents an unrealistic and uncertain negotiating strategy, and it is brought forward by a party divided between those seeking consent and those seeking exit.

[Andrew Percy]

rose—

[Mr Alexander]

I will give way in a moment or two, but let me make a little progress.

Only this week, the hon. Member for Stockton South faced criticism from none other than one of his own Conservative councillors, who called it

“a cynical, pointless stunt, nothing more”.

The Conservative councillor for Yarm and Kirklevington went on to say:

“I think it should have been something to get the economy moving or to speed up help to get women into work.”

I could not have put it better myself.

[Mrs Main]

Surely the right hon. Gentleman and his party must accept some responsibility for this uncertainty. In 2012 they cheated the British public with a tidying-up exercise on the Lisbon treaty, and now, again, there has been a broken contract with the British public. This Bill is a full contract with the British public that they have confidence in. I hope that he would at least go back and establish a bit of trust with the public on this matter.

[Mr Alexander]

I sense that the hon. Lady is so used to attacking the Government of 2012 that she has forgotten it was a Conservative Government.

[Several hon. Members]

rose—

[Mr Alexander]

Let me keep going and make a little progress.

Let us get to the nub of the argument advanced by the hon. Member for Stockton South about why this Bill is before the House today. The Bill is not being debated because Conservative Back Benchers trust the public; it is being debated because Conservative Back Benchers do not trust the Prime Minister. That is the reality.

[Andrew Percy]

Can the shadow Foreign Secretary explain why he believes that a Scottish independence referendum is not in the national interest but voted for the Bill to allow it to happen, yet believes that this Bill is not in the national interest and will not vote for it to become law? Where is the consistency there? He is saying that it is good enough for the people of Scotland to have a referendum but not good enough for the rest of the country.

[Mr Alexander]

Let me try to help the hon. Gentleman with his understanding of devolution and, indeed, democracy. The last time I checked, there was an election in Scotland in 2010 that resulted in the Scottish National party, which had committed to a referendum in its manifesto, securing a majority in the Scottish Parliament. By contrast, not one of the principal political parties that stood at the last general election in the United Kingdom and secured representation in this House advanced what is proposed in this Bill. There is a fundamental difference because a majority was secured in the Scottish Parliament.

[Geoffrey Clifton-Brown (The Cotswolds) (Con)]

Will the right hon. Gentleman give this House an absolute assurance on behalf of the Labour party that it will not change its mind about opposing a referendum for the British people before the next election?

[Mr Alexander]

We have maintained our position that any judgment in relation to an in/out referendum has to be based on the national interest. Our judgment is that the national interest is not served by this Bill, and that is why we do not support it. If there is a leader of a political party who has changed his position on a referendum, I think I am looking at him right now.

[Christopher Pincher (Tamworth) (Con)]

rose—

[Sir Gerald Howarth (Aldershot) (Con)]

rose—

[Mr Alexander]

I am keen to make a little progress, and then I will happily take further interventions.

I just mentioned the Prime Minister, so let us remember how far he has travelled. This is what he said at the Conservative party conference when he became leader:

“For too long, we were having a different conversation. Instead of talking about the things that most people care about, we talked about what we cared about most. While parents worried about childcare, getting the kids to school, balancing work and family life—we were banging on about Europe.”

Three years into government, this is a Conservative party still banging on about Europe—a party talking to itself and not to the country.

[Sir Gerald Howarth]

Can the right hon. Gentleman give the House an indication of what a Labour Government would do, were this country to have the misfortune of him and his colleagues assuming power in 2015, if this Bill becomes law, which the British people want, and many of his hon. Friends want, as well as us? Will he undertake that they will not seek to repeal legislation passed today?

[Mr Alexander]

Many people who have advocated the position taken in this Bill have argued in the past that, given the sovereignty of Westminster, no Parliament can bind its successor. There are a number of stages of scrutiny that the Bill needs to go through, so it is a little presumptuous to presume that it will reach the statute book today.

[Several hon. Members]

rose—

[Mr Alexander]

Let me try to make a little progress.

For many years, Conservatives have argued for national Parliaments to have a greater say in European affairs, yet since 1997 all previous Bills that legislated for referendums that actually took place have had their stages debated on the Floor of the House, including a Committee of the whole House. Instead of that, with this private Member’s Bill the Conservatives are apparently planning to try to cut short the time that we have to debate it. It seems that the Government are willing to let it progress without going through these vital stages. That should be a matter of regret for all Members who continually assert the importance and sovereignty of Westminster.

[Robert Halfon]

The right hon. Gentleman says that he does not want a referendum in 2017. When does he want a referendum? Why did his party support a referendum on a monkey in Hartlepool but will not support a referendum for the British people on the European Union?

[Mr Alexander]

If there is a significant transfer of sovereignty from Britain to Brussels, there will be a referendum; that is the law of the land. It is not a matter of opposition to referendums in principle.

[Several hon. Members]

rose—

[Mr Alexander]

I had better try to make a little progress.

No doubt when the Foreign Secretary gets to his feet in a few moments’ time he will make a characteristically witty and engaging speech; there is certainly material available to him. However, we all know that he has been drawn into supporting this Bill out of weakness, not strength. In November 2011, he argued that committing then to an in/out referendum would put the economy at risk, undermine jobs and growth, and compromise vital British interests. This is what he said on that occasion—

[Andrew Selous (South West Bedfordshire) (Con)]

rose—

[Nadhim Zahawi]

rose—

[Mr Alexander]

I think it is important that hon. Gentlemen listen so that they understand where their Front Benchers were then and so that we might understand where they have ended up.

In November 2011, the Foreign Secretary said:

“a referendum on Britain’s membership of the EU, especially at this time of profound economic uncertainty, is not the answer.”

At that time, he also said at the Dispatch Box:

“The deficits of recent years, and the slowness of growth in all western economies, make this a difficult and uncertain time for many individuals and firms. The eurozone is clearly in crisis, and to pile on that uncertainty the further uncertainty of a referendum on leaving the European Union, when half the foreign direct investment into Britain comes from the rest of the European Union, and half our exports go out to the rest of the European Union, would not be a responsible action for Her Majesty’s Government to take.”

[Wayne David (Caerphilly) (Lab)]

Further to that, does my right hon. Friend agree that, although many Conservative Back Benchers say they support the Prime Minister, in reality they do not want renegotiation; they want us to get out?

[Mr Alexander]

I agree entirely with my hon. Friend. The difficulty for the Prime Minister was that his attempt to secure brittle unity in his January speech was achieved only through the device of obscurity. We have heard it again today in relation to employment and social rights. We have all read the Beecroft report and know that the real agenda is to bring powers home to take rights away, but the Prime Minister could not even find it in himself to talk about unemployment and social rights in his speech at the end of January. The fact is that he knows and understands that the gap between what his Back Benchers want and what Europe could possibly countenance remains achingly wide.

Let me return to the Foreign Secretary, who back in November went on to say about a referendum:

“It would not help anyone looking for a job. It would not help any business trying to expand. It would mean that for a time, we, the leading advocates of removing barriers to trade in Europe and the rest of the world, would lack the authority to do so.”

That last point seemed to pass the Prime Minister by when he made his point in County Fermanagh 10 days ago. The Foreign Secretary went on to say:

“It would mean that as we advocate closer trading links between the EU and the countries of north Africa as they emerge from their revolutions, helping to solidify tremendous potential advances in human freedom and prosperity, we would stand back from that. That is not the right way to respond to this dramatic year of uncertainty and change.”—[Official Report, 24 October 2011; Vol. 534, c. 55.]

[Gavin Barwell (Croydon Central) (Con)]

I am grateful to the right hon. Gentleman for giving way. In answer to my hon. Friend the Member for Harlow (Robert Halfon), he actually clarified Labour’s position a little. If I heard him correctly, he said that his view was that if there was a substantial change in the relationship, the law provided for a referendum. Will he therefore confirm that if there were a Labour Government and there were no substantial change to the relationship, there would not be a referendum on our membership of the European Union?

[Mr Alexander]

I was simply making the straightforward point that, given the terms of the sovereignty clause, there is no objection in principle to referendums, because we are mandated—indeed, it is the law of the land—in such a way that if there is a transfer of sovereignty a referendum will take place.

When the Foreign Secretary makes his speech, will he provide a view on the following quotation? We heard from his Department back in November 2011, in answer to a parliamentary question I posed him:

“European markets account for half of the UK’s overall trade and foreign investments and as a result, around 3.5 million jobs in the UK are linked to the export of goods and services to the EU.”—[Official Report, 12 July 2011; Vol. 531, c. 256W.]

When I asked the Foreign Office the same question last week, it decided to pass it to the Treasury—I see that the Chancellor has left his place on the Front Bench—which came back with the intriguing reply that the Government have made no estimate. Well, there we are—that’s leadership for you.

What is to be made of that answer? The Government have gone from such a positive estimate just 11 months ago to being unable to give any estimate of the economic benefits of Europe today. One would almost think that they are frightened of facts, because facts are intolerable to their own Back Benchers.

Incidentally, I have a further point for the Foreign Secretary to consider when he makes his speech. Do he and the Prime Minister agree with their Cabinet colleague the Secretary of State for Education, who is also not in his place on the Front Bench but who said the following—this is a direct quote—about our membership of the European Union:

“Life outside would be perfectly tolerable, we could contemplate it, there would be certain advantages.”

Is that the view of the Government? Perhaps that is the answer being passed to the Foreign Secretary.

Then, as now, our judgment is that the priority must be to deliver stability, jobs and growth for the British economy. In fact, the irony is that even the Bill’s proposer has himself acknowledged that Parliament should be focusing on more important things. In a press conference on 15 May in Westminster, he said:

“I think the reality is that we need to be seen to be talking about the things that matter to people in places like Stockton South that I represent on Teesside, which is the cost of living, immigration, jobs, the economy, things that we need to get right to improve people's lives.”

[Stella Creasy (Walthamstow) (Lab/Co-op)]

I thank my right hon. Friend for giving way. There has been a lot of talk this morning about the national interest. I have been listening to the director general of the CBI, who has said that the most important thing in the British national interest is to bang the drum for Britain’s interests in Europe. Does my right hon. Friend think it would be easier to hear that drum if we were in the room fighting for British interests or if we ran away after shutting the door, as some in the Government seem to want to do?

[Mr Alexander]

I find myself in agreement with my hon. Friend. It is not simply the head of the CBI who is saying that. Some of the most distinguished leaders of British business, including Richard Branson, WPP and a range of others, wrote to the Financial Times in January in response to the Prime Minister’s speech. They made very clear their deep concern about the reality of the negotiating strategy, which the Prime Minister cannot even be explicit about with his own Back Benchers, because if he is explicit on this side of the channel it is deemed unacceptable on the other side of the channel.

[Huw Irranca-Davies]

My right hon. Friend has paid tribute to the impeccable oratorical skills of the Foreign Secretary and I agree with him on that, but is he looking forward, as I am, to hearing him argue his way out of the impeccable logic he has displayed in the past—his quotations apply as much today as they did back then—not least when 3.5 million jobs in the UK are dependent on our membership of the EU? I look forward to hearing the Foreign Secretary deploy his impeccable rhetorical skills to explain how black is now white.

[Mr Alexander]

I think we are all looking forward to that, but let us stick to the theme of the economy. Since November 2011, when the Foreign Office was at least willing to answer my question about the economic benefits—it now seems to have lost its nerve in the face of Tory intransigence—the number of people claiming jobseeker’s allowance for two years has increased by a staggering 173%. In the past six months alone, there has been zero growth in the economy. Since the Chancellor’s first spending review of 2010, the UK economy has grown by just 1%, compared with the 6% forecast at the time and the growth of nearly 3% in Germany and nearly 5% in the United States. Today almost 1 million young people are unable to find work and long-term unemployment is up by more than 100,000 since the last general election. This is the slowest economic recovery in the United Kingdom for more than 100 years. That is the reality of what people are talking about in constituencies the length and breadth of the country.

[Mr Steve Reed (Croydon North) (Lab)]

Does my right hon. Friend agree that the Prime Minister and the Foreign Secretary seem to be prepared to put at risk the jobs and investment that Europe brings just to satisfy the obsessions of their Back Benchers?

[Mr Alexander]

None of us doubts that Europe needs substantive change or that there needs to be reform; the tragedy for the United Kingdom is that the intransigence of the Conservative Back Benchers behind the Prime Minister means that he cannot address those needs in a sensible, straightforward manner. He did not wake up in January with a sudden democratic impulse that had somehow eluded him in the preceding years. He is being driven by weakness, not strength. This is about external electoral threats and internal leadership threats. This is not about trusting the people; it is about these Back Benchers not trusting the Prime Minister.

[Sir Gerald Howarth]

Will the right hon. Gentleman give way?

[Mr Alexander]

I will not give way, because I want to make progress. The Conservative approach to Europe undermines the prospects for growth, because, as my hon. Friend has just made clear, it creates unnecessary uncertainty that could undermine investment, because it risks Britain sleepwalking to the exit of the European Union precisely when the economic benefits of membership are most needed, given the stagnating economy. At least we have the courage to acknowledge that membership of the European Union is vital to the economy of the United Kingdom, not least because of the benefits of free trade and integration in the world’s largest trading bloc.

[Mr John Baron (Basildon and Billericay) (Con)]

I thank the right hon. Gentleman for giving way. He is a reasonable fellow, but what he does not seem to grasp is the fact that this debate—this issue—is about the principle of a referendum, not the relative merits of in or out. He also seems to fail to understand that this is about trust between politicians in general and the British electorate, given that too many promises have been broken in the past, including Labour’s promise of a referendum when it came to the EU constitution and Lisbon. Why will the Labour party not trust the people on this issue?

[Mr Alexander]

Why does the Conservative party not trust the Conservative Prime Minister? When will it release the Downing Street One? That is the question. He is sitting on the Front Bench like a hostage, not a leader.

Let me address the hon. Gentleman’s point. He was generous enough to describe me as a reasonable fellow and I return the compliment. As a reasonable fellow, he will be keen to defend and protect the jobs of his many constituents who work at places like Ford’s Dunton technical centre. I am sure that he is concerned for those jobs. Perhaps when he has the opportunity to speak he will explain to them why the European chief executive of Ford has said:

“All countries should have their sovereignty, but don’t discuss leaving a trading partner where 50pc of your exports go… That would be devastating for the UK economy.”

I am sure that the hon. Gentleman’s constituents will be very interested in that.

[Several hon. Members]

rose—

[Mr Alexander]

I am keen to make a little progress.

I believe that the case for membership of the European Union is clear and, as I have acknowledged, that the case for change is clear. That is why reform and not exit is the right road for the UK.

[Mr Brian Binley (Northampton South) (Con)]

Will the right hon. Gentleman give way?

[Mr Alexander]

I am keen to make a little progress. I have been generous in taking interventions.

In the face of such a severe economic crisis, Europe needs to be better focused on promoting growth across the continent. That is the priority for national Governments and that should be reflected at a European level. There is of course pressing work to be done, on which I hope there is cross-party agreement, such as the completion of the single market and its extension into digital, energy and finance. The rescue of the currency, protections for the single market and the revival of the prospects for growth should be Europe’s priorities for change.

On so many issues that matter—jobs, growth, trade and security in central Europe and the middle east—the EU remains an indispensable force multiplier for all its members. That includes the United Kingdom. Our membership gives us access to the single market, a stronger voice on international trade and amplified influence on international diplomacy. That is why, when today’s spectacle of a Tory party talking to itself is long forgotten, we will continue to make the case for Britain’s place in Europe and for change in Europe.

10:31

[The Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs (Mr William Hague)]

It is kind of Opposition Members to look forward to my speech. After the speech of the shadow Foreign Secretary, that is not altogether surprising. Rarely in this House—[Hon. Members: “More!”] Rarely in this House has a speech accusing others of causing uncertainty been so totally shrouded in uncertainty itself.

After the right hon. Gentleman’s speech, he has still not said whether the Opposition will vote for or against or abstain on Second Reading. He has managed to speak for half an hour without even saying what their position is on the Second Reading of the Bill—a feat almost unknown in this House and in all the Second Reading debates that I have attended in the past 24 years.

The parliamentary Labour party briefing, of which I have helpfully obtained a copy—they are left all over the building in surprising places—states:

“This is a Conservative Party Bill…which we are opposed to.”

If the Opposition are opposed to it, presumably they are going to vote against it. The shadow Foreign Secretary is not able to answer that question. Not only does he not know what his policy is; he does not even know whether he is going to vote against something that he is opposed to.

Opposition Members are asking when the Prime Minister will leave, but the Leader of the Opposition is not even here. He is presumably sitting somewhere, wondering whether his instructions will come in a phone call from Unite or from divine inspiration through the ether. There is no other way in which he is able to decide on the Bill.

[Mr Steve Reed]

Will the right hon. Gentleman give way?

[Mr Hague]

I will make a bit of progress before giving way.

My hon. Friend the Member for Stockton South (James Wharton) is to be applauded for introducing the Bill and for his excellent speech. Huge numbers of people across the country, as well as in this House, will thank him for it. The matter before us is about Europe’s future, our country’s place in it and, above all, democracy. It is about giving the people of this country the decisive say that is their right.

[Mr Reed]

rose—

[Mr Hague]

I will give way in a moment.

At a time of profound change in Europe, this Bill would give the British people the power to decide one of the greatest questions facing Britain: whether we should be in the EU or out of it.

In deference to my hon. Friends in the Liberal Democrat party, I must say that I am not speaking for the whole coalition. As will be obvious to the House, I am speaking on behalf of the Conservative party.

Two years ago, we passed the European Union Act 2011 to ensure that no Government could agree to transfer areas of power from Britain to the EU without a referendum. It met complete indecision from the Opposition, who resolutely and bravely abstained. However, support for it is now their official policy. Two years later, they have adopted our policy and we are pleased that they have done so. Today, with this Bill, we discover a similar wave of indecision on the Opposition Benches and we look forward to their adopting this policy in due course. Perhaps the hon. Member for Croydon North (Mr Reed) will clarify that point.

[Mr Reed]

The right hon. Gentleman tells us that he is against uncertainty and indecision. Perhaps he will tell us how he would vote in an in/out referendum.

[Mr Hague]

Opposition Members will have to do better than that. The policy of the Government, which was set out in detail in the speech made by my right hon. Friend the Prime Minister, is to achieve a reformed European Union and a better settlement with it. We do not agree with the status quo and we want to be able to campaign for Britain to stay in a reformed European Union.

[Philip Davies]

For the avoidance of doubt, I would vote to leave the European Union. The Foreign Secretary said that he was not speaking for both parts of the coalition. Is he sure about that? Surely he recalls how, in the last Parliament, the leader of the Liberal Democrats, the Deputy Prime Minister, marched his MPs out of this Chamber when they were denied the opportunity to move an amendment to have an in/out referendum. My right hon. Friend cannot be telling us the exact truth when he says that he is not speaking for both parts of the coalition. Perhaps he will clarify that, because I thought he was speaking very much for the Liberal Democrats as well.

[Mr Hague]

When my hon. Friend said that he would vote to withdraw from the European Union, he was not avoiding doubt—I do not think we were in any doubt about that at the beginning. He makes a fair point about our hon. Friends the Liberal Democrats. I will helpfully explain my view on their position during my remarks.

[Peter Luff (Mid Worcestershire) (Con)]

On the subject of democracy, despite the resolute irresolution of Her Majesty’s official Opposition, does my right hon. Friend agree that it is important for democracy that Members have a chance to record their support for the Bill in a Division? If a Division is not called, there are strong supporters of the Bill—myself and my hon. Friend the Member for The Cotswolds (Geoffrey Clifton-Brown)—who stand ready to enable such a Division, to ensure that right hon. and hon. Members may show their support for the Bill.

[Mr Hague]

I am grateful to my hon. Friend. That may well be necessary given that Opposition Members, despite being opposed to the Bill, have not decided how they will vote. They have a few hours to decide.

[Dame Tessa Jowell (Dulwich and West Norwood) (Lab)]

rose—

[Mr Hague]

I will get through a few more paragraphs, but then I will give way to the right hon. Lady.

I do not need to remind the House that it is almost 40 years since the British people last had a vote on what was then the European Economic Community. Since then, there have been major treaties—four in the last quarter of a century—all of which would have required a referendum had the 2011 Act been in force at the time. Through those treaties, the EEC has become the European Community and now the European Union, and not once has there been a referendum on any of it. Some of us campaigned for referendums on the treaties of Amsterdam, Nice and Lisbon. Everyone can concede of Maastricht, Amsterdam and Nice that the party in government had said that it would ratify them in the general election campaign.

The Lisbon treaty is in a special category, in that there was no mandate in a general election or a referendum from the people of this country. Persisting with the Lisbon treaty with no mandate from either a general election or a referendum—[Interruption.] The hon. Member for Wrexham (Ian Lucas) asks where I was when Maastricht took place. Is he not aware that there was a general election in 1992? There was no mandate for the Lisbon treaty from a general election or a referendum, and the Labour party deeply undermined the democratic legitimacy of the European Union when it took that decision.

[Dame Tessa Jowell]

May I press the Foreign Secretary on the question put by my hon. Friend the Member for Croydon North (Mr Reed)? In the forthcoming referendum that the Foreign Secretary is advocating, which way will he vote? The Prime Minister has indicated that he will vote to stay in the EU. How will the Foreign Secretary vote?

[Mr Hague]

The Prime Minister and I are in exactly the same position. Of course we will vote to stay in a successfully reformed European Union. Now perhaps the right hon. Lady will tell us how she will vote on this Bill—[Interruption.] No, Opposition Members still do not know how they will vote on this Bill.

When Ministers from other countries ask me why public opinion here is disillusioned with the European Union, I point out that there have been referendums on the EU in France, Denmark, the Netherlands, Spain, Luxembourg, Sweden and Ireland—often twice, of course, in Ireland—yet there has been no referendum for more than a generation in the United Kingdom. The efforts of those who wanted to build European integration without bringing the people with them have been utterly self-defeating. The EU now lacks democratic legitimacy because so many of those most enthusiastic about ever-closer union have been afraid of asking what the British people might think of it.

[Mr William Cash (Stone) (Con)]

My right hon. Friend is completely right in what he just said. Furthermore, with respect to Maastricht, how far the Conservative party has come! The other day my right hon. Friend the Prime Minister actually stated that he believed there should have been a referendum on Maastricht—and he was right.

[Mr Hague]

As always we enjoy my hon. Friend’s robust support on these issues, and I am grateful for that.

[Several hon. Members]

rose—

[Mr Hague]

I will not give way for a moment, but I will later on.

No institution can survive without the people’s support, and the EU that will emerge from the eurozone crisis may look very different from the EU before the crisis. Every country in the EU will have to make potentially fundamental choices about their place in Europe as a result, and the future shape of Europe for decades will be determined by those choices. But whatever the outcome of the crisis, the EU needs reform if it is to be democratically sustainable for all its members, which it will not be if ever-greater centralisation sucks ever more powers from its member states. As the Dutch Government’s recent report stated,

“the time of ‘ever closer union’ in every possible…area is behind us”.

They are right.

Our policy is therefore to seek reform so that the EU can be more competitive and flexible for the modern age, so that powers can come back to the countries of the European Union, and so that national Parliaments—the indispensible vessels of democracy—can have a more powerful role and then put the decision in the hands of the British people, as this Bill would do.

[Michael Ellis]

We hear a lot nowadays about the surveillance powers of the state. Could my right hon. Friend use the powers open to him to establish where the Leader of the Opposition is?

[Mr Hague]

I think I would get into trouble if I used our powers for that particular purpose, but we will no doubt discover in due course where the Leader of the Opposition is today. We hope he is thinking hard about what Labour’s policy will be.

[Mr Marsden]

rose—

[Mr Hague]

I will give way to the hon. Gentleman and then make a bit more progress.

[Mr Marsden]

I am extremely grateful to the right hon. Gentleman, who, as Foreign Secretary and previously, has played a distinguished part in supporting EU expansion in eastern and central Europe. Given his reference to national Parliaments, will he tell the House what sort of message he thinks it sends to countries that have recently acceded to the EU that he is orchestrating a cynical attempt to bring us out?

[Mr Hague]

I think the Bill sends the message that we are a robust democracy too. We welcomed Croatia into the European Union, and it had a referendum about whether to join. Therefore, it does not find discussion about referendums in other parts of the European Union surprising. That is why every Member of the House who is a true democrat can and should unite behind the Bill. It is about letting the people decide.

Those who like the EU just as it is—not me, but evidently some Labour Members—can campaign to see the EU regain its democratic legitimacy in this country. Those, like me, who want to see Britain succeed in reforming the EU can see what success we have in changing it, and then put the choice to the people. Those who want Britain to leave the EU come what may will also have the chance to persuade the British people. Ultimately, it would be up to the voters to decide, and that is the essence of democracy. That is why my right hon. Friend the Prime Minister said that

“in 2015”

we

“will ask for a mandate from the British people…to negotiate a new settlement with our European partners in the next Parliament.”

The Conservative party is ready to trust the voters with this Bill, and we are happy that the Democratic Unionist party is of the same mind. The Scottish National party is not here but it is content with a referendum next year, which means that the people of Scotland will vote twice on whether to leave the European Union. It is completely open to Members of other parties to support this Bill. Liberal Democrats can support this Bill. They are democrats and I remind my hon. Friends in the other part of the coalition of their last election manifesto, which stated:

“The European Union has evolved significantly since the last public vote on membership over thirty years ago. Liberal Democrats therefore remain committed to an in/out referendum the next time a British Government signs up for a fundamental change in the relationship between the UK and the EU.”

[Martin Horwood]

The right hon. Gentleman is a fine Foreign Secretary and he bangs on about Europe very eloquently indeed. He will recall that at the time of the Lisbon treaty, the Liberal Democrats voted for an in/out referendum, not in four years’ time, the next Parliament or at some point in the future, but then and there. Will the right hon. Gentleman remind me whether we were supported by a single Conservative MP at that time?

[Mr Hague]

My hon. Friend must remember that had our Liberal Democrat colleagues voted with us for a referendum on the Lisbon treaty, there would have been a referendum in 2008. Some Labour Members support a referendum. We have heard from some of them already, and this Bill is their chance; it is the best chance currently available to make it happen. Not only would it be a badge of honour for them, but it would help to show their weak leadership some real leadership that is sorely needed.

This is not the first time that the question of whether to consult the people has caused unmitigated dither, muddle and confusion in the Labour leadership. When the previous Prime Minister, the right hon. Member for Kirkcaldy and Cowdenbeath (Mr Brown), was trying to decide whether to call a general election in 2007, he asked the current Leader of the Opposition, the current shadow Foreign Secretary and the current shadow Chancellor, resulting in the decision taking so long that they never made a decision at all and never held a general election. The impulse to trust the people is not exactly their hallmark.

Now we wonder: what is Labour’s policy? The shadow Defence Secretary, the right hon. Member for East Renfrewshire (Mr Murphy), who is not here, said in October:

“I think at some point there will have to be a referendum on the EU. I don’t think it’s for today or for the next year, but I think it should happen…My preference would be an in-or-out referendum when the time comes.”

In January, the Leader of the Opposition told the House,

“we do not want an in/out referendum”—[Official Report, 23 January 2013; Vol. 557, c. 305.]

The shadow Foreign Secretary said that Labour will not commit to an in/out referendum now, but might do later—apparently that is the way to avoid uncertainty.

The shadow Chancellor said:

“I don’t think we should set our face against a referendum and I certainly don’t think we can ever afford to give the impression that we know better than the voting public”—

although that was never a problem for him when squandering tens of billions of pounds of taxpayers’ money. Will Labour make up its mind or not? Its chief strategist, the noble Lord Wood, said the week before last on whether Labour would offer a referendum:

“It’s conceivable because we are going to make up our minds before the next election.”

Last week, the shadow Chief Secretary to the Treasury said, “No, no, no. There’s no change of policy and there’s no prospect of a change of policy”.

With some in favour, some against, some adamantly in favour of not having a referendum, some adamantly for deciding later, at some point, perhaps before the general election but who knows?—with such a shambles of confusion and weak leadership, no wonder Labour Members are wondering what they are here for and where their leader is today. One day Unite will give them their orders on how to vote on these matters.

The Leader of the Opposition and his closest friends are being asked to make a decision—to vote one way or another and be held accountable for it. The position of the Labour party on this vital national and international issue is that Labour Members would rather not be asked and they would rather not be here.

[Keith Vaz (Leicester East) (Lab)]

As the Foreign Secretary knows, I am with him on the idea of a referendum, but would he help me with this? As someone who has attended many, many summits over the 24 years that he has been in Parliament—as a Minister, of course, he has attended many summits—does he think the Prime Minister will have the time and space between 2015, if he is re-elected as Prime Minister, and 2017 to go around the whole of Europe to get the concessions he needs in order to secure reform of the EU?

[Mr Hague]

My right hon. Friend the Prime Minister is tirelessly—now, in this Parliament, never mind in the next Parliament—going around Europe making sure this country gets what it needs. The Opposition do not have a policy to reform the EU, but we do and he is pursuing it. Labour never cut the EU budget, but he already has. Labour signed Britain up to eurozone bail-outs and he has got us out of them. Labour surrendered part of the rebate and he has never surrendered part of the rebate, so the right hon. Gentleman can rest assured that my right hon. Friend will be well equipped to go round Europe preserving our national interest.

[David Morris (Morecambe and Lunesdale) (Con)]

Looking at the maths in the House of Commons today, we have 30 Labour MPs and I have lost count of how many Conservatives there are. Is that not testament in itself to the fact that we trust the people of this country?

[Mr Hague]

I agree with my hon. Friend. The note circulated by Labour Whips—which has also come into my possession—said:

“We will be looking for suitable speakers so that the chamber is not completely empty”.

They need not have worried that the Chamber would be empty, because there are hundreds of us here, determined that the people will have their say.

I believe it would be right for the House to support this Bill today. It is the right Bill, at the right time, to give the British people their democratic right to have their say on this country’s future. We will do everything we can to make sure it becomes the law of the land, so that the people can decide, and in the next Parliament, the Prime Minister is determined that we will deliver on this commitment—a democratic commitment in a robustly democratic country.

10:49

[Mr John Denham (Southampton, Itchen) (Lab)]

I trust I will be judged a suitable speaker to make sure the Chamber is not completely empty.

I am delighted to speak in this debate, which has so far lived up to expectations. I would not have missed it for the world, because it must be one of the oddest debates ever held in this Chamber on a private Member’s Bill Friday. It is odd because of the politics of the occasion. I do not think there has been a private Member’s Bill Friday in the time that I have been in this House when the Prime Minister has been forced by his Back Benchers to come here to jump to their tune. Normally, Prime Ministers hold a sort of lofty disdain for private Members’ Bills, but our Prime Minister, in the eyes of Europe, has been humiliated here today by his own Back Benchers. That is one oddity about today. The second oddity is the reason the Bill is here at all, which I shall come to, and the third oddity is what is in it.

[Sir Peter Bottomley (Worthing West) (Con)]

The right hon. Gentleman may have observed that the Conservative Back Benches are full of volunteers supporting their leader. Has he noticed that there are fewer than 25 Labour MPs here and no leader?

[Mr Denham]

As I will explain to the hon. Gentleman and the House, the reason for that is that this is a Bill about the private problems and the private political difficulties of the Conservative party, so it is not surprising that so many Conservative Members are here today. These matters do not really affect the rest of us very much, except for—I will come to this—the damage that is being done by the antics within the Conservative party to the interests of this country.

[Philip Davies]

The right hon. Gentleman talks about the oddities of today’s Bill, and there are certainly some oddities in today’s proceedings. The greatest one I have heard so far is the shadow Foreign Secretary asking the Foreign Secretary how he will vote in a referendum in four years’ time, when the shadow Foreign Secretary cannot answer how he will vote on this Bill in less than four hours’ time.

[Mr Denham]

For my part, I very much doubt that I will be here in four hours’ time to vote at all on this Bill. Let me explain why.

[Heather Wheeler]

rose—

[Dr Offord]

rose—

[Mr Denham]

No, I will make a little progress.

[Jacob Rees-Mogg (North East Somerset) (Con)]

On a point of order, Madam Deputy Speaker. The right hon. Gentleman has said that he will not be here. I wonder whether you could give some guidance on how long Members should remain in their places at the conclusion of a debate to hear the winding-up speeches.

[Madam Deputy Speaker (Dawn Primarolo)]

Mr Rees-Mogg, I think you know the answer to that. Members are required to hear the speech before them and two after. We are on a private Member’s Bill today, not a Government Bill, and the Front Benchers have already spoken.

[Mr Denham]

I am not one of those who have been accused of abusing the courtesies of this House, but there is no requirement in the courtesies of this House to vote on a motion that is ridiculous, so I will not be voting on it.

There was a time, not so long ago, when private Members’ Bills were used for matters of great social reform, such as homosexual law reform and gay marriage. Issues of great constitutional importance were seen as the responsibilities of the Government. That may have changed. Gay marriage is an important social reform, so perhaps making it a Government proposal is progress—the Government’s gay marriage proposals certainly had many Government Members beside themselves. However, constitutional reforms, such as the Great Reform Act, the devolution referendum and the initial referendum on the European Union, which were the responsibilities of Government, have now been devolved by this weak and hopeless Prime Minister to private Members’ business. That is one great oddity.

[Mrs Main]

Will the right hon. Gentleman give way?

[Mr Denham]

No, I will make a little more progress.

Why has this situation come about? Why has supposedly the most powerful politician in the land come begging his MPs to support a private Member’s Bill? The Prime Minister’s position on the issue seems clear enough. He made a speech in January in which he said that after the next election, if there is a Conservative Government, he would aim to renegotiate our relationship with the EU, with an in/out referendum by 2017, come what may in those negotiations. That might not be wise—there is absolutely no guarantee of any negotiations being clear by 2017—but it is certainly a clear position, and it came from the Prime Minister.

Why was that not good enough for the Conservative Members who have turned up today? Of course, many of them just want to leave the EU. They do not care when, as long as it is as soon as possible, and they do not trust their own Prime Minister. As soon as the Queen’s Speech was published, they were after him. The hon. Member for Basildon and Billericay (Mr Baron) was first off the mark, moving an amendment regretting the failure to mention a referendum Bill in the Queen’s Speech. He was very clear why one was needed. He wrote in The Daily Telegraph:

“The Prime Minister made a historic pledge to the British people during his January speech,”

but

“where the Prime Minister’s pledge falls down is its believability.”

Let me repeat that:

“where the Prime Minister’s pledge falls down”—

this “historic pledge”, let us remember—

“is its believability.”

What an extraordinary statement! The reason we are here today is because the majority of Tory MPs do not believe that a historic pledge made by their own leader is believed by the British people. That is the only reason we are here, and that is why the Prime Minister is humiliated by these proceedings today.

[Mr John Baron]

I am afraid the right hon. Gentleman quotes very selectively from that piece. Having written it, I will correct him for the record. What I went on to say was that the issue was believability, not because there is an issue between the Prime Minister and his Back Benchers, but because the issue has been between politicians in general and the electorate, because far too many promises in the past have been broken, particularly by the Labour party and the Liberals, at every single general election. If the right hon. Gentleman is going to quote me, he should please do it correctly.

[Mr Denham]

I quoted absolutely verbatim from the hon. Gentleman’s article. Let me respond to his further point. I would expect a Conservative MP to say, “You can’t really believe what Labour MPs say”, and I would expect Labour MPs to say, “You can’t really believe what Conservative MPs say.” That is what we do here in this House. It probably does not do us much good with the general public, but that is what we do—we throw these things about. What I do not expect is a Conservative MP to say, “You can’t believe a Conservative Prime Minister,” and that is what the hon. Gentleman did. The Bill has arisen from the decision of Conservative Back Benchers—

[Mr Baron]

On a point of order, Madam Deputy Speaker.

[Madam Deputy Speaker (Dawn Primarolo)]

Order. It had better be a point of order, Mr Baron.

[Mr Baron]

It is a point of order Madam Deputy Speaker—or I hope it is. I seek your guidance. I have been misquoted by the right hon. Gentleman. [Interruption.] I promise the House that I have been directly misquoted. [Interruption.] I wrote the piece, so I seek your advice, Madam Deputy Speaker, on how one can correct the misquoting by the right hon. Gentleman.

[Madam Deputy Speaker]

The issue is a matter for debate, as the hon. Gentleman knows. I believe his name is down to be called in this debate and he will have ample opportunity at that point if he feels that the record needs to be corrected. I think he is experienced enough to know that these matters tend to be a point of debate rather than a point of order.

[Mr Denham]

The first point is that this is really a private matter for the Conservative party. Whether they believe that their Prime Minister is trustworthy or believable is primarily a matter for them, not for the rest of us. If they wish to humiliate their party leader, that is up to them. I do not intend to participate in the vote later today.

We know what happened. The humiliated Prime Minister was forced to let the Tory party publish a referendum Bill, and the hon. Member for Stockton South (James Wharton) was unfortunate enough, from his point of view, to come top of the ballot. He might have made his name by trying to improve the lot of carers, improve animal welfare or tighten gas safety, or by engaging with the traditional territories of private Members’ Bills, but instead he has introduced this Bill. I do not blame him for it, but the Bill is about the Tory party and not the national interest.

[Steve Brine (Winchester) (Con)]

Will the right hon. Gentleman give way?

[Mr Denham]

No, I am going to make a little more progress and then I will take another intervention.

The aim seemed clear enough: to put the Prime Minister’s promise on to a statutory basis. We know what the promise was: after the next election to have a renegotiation and then to have a referendum by 2017. So imagine my surprise when I read the Bill, because it does not commit to a referendum after the next election. The Bill is very clear: the referendum could happen as soon as the Bill has been passed. It is not about after the next election or after renegotiation—it is any time now. That is very odd, because the Prime Minister is on the record as opposing a referendum Bill now. Why, then, does the Bill, which was introduced by the hon. Member for Stockton South and drafted in Tory party central office, provide for the possibility of a referendum now? The hon. Gentleman gave the game away in an interview, again I am afraid, in The Daily Telegraph. Discussing possible amendments to the Bill, he said that the most difficult amendment to deal with would be one calling for a referendum before the next election, because

“many MPs would be sympathetic”

to such a move.

There we have it: the Bill has been drafted as broadly as it has, because if it accurately reflected the Prime Minister’s January speech and excluded a referendum before the next election, too many Tory MPs would have turned up demanding to amend it for an early vote. Far from showing the unity of the Conservative party, all the Bill has done is show how thin is the veneer of unity that they are trying to present. Again, this is private grief and is no business for the rest of us. Of course, it is entirely pointless, because no Bill of this sort can bind the next Parliament. Either the Conservatives win the next election or they do not—this is a pointless exercise.

[Steve Brine]

I thank the right hon. Gentleman and near parliamentary neighbour for giving way. I think that the people of Winchester and Chandler’s Ford, which are both near to his constituency, are clear that they want a choice on our relationship with Europe. He has called the Bill ridiculous. Will he explain why he is so sure that the people of Southampton, Itchen do not want a say on our future relationship with the EU?

[Mr Denham]

Let me turn to the point I was about to address on how the national interest is served by this discussion. The national interest is the one thing that has been entirely missing from the debate so far. It is a debate about the Conservatives, and that is not the national interest. It is not a debate about the future of our country, our influence in the world or what is best for our children, but what is best for the Conservatives as they run away from the UK Independence party.

The debate is not doing the Tories much good. The January speech intended to lance the boil of UKIP, and some may have noticed that it led immediately to the Conservatives coming third in Eastleigh and losing seats all over the country to UKIP in the council elections. Again, that is private grief and I want to talk about the national interest.

[Andrew Miller (Ellesmere Port and Neston) (Lab)]

It struck me as a little odd that both the hon. Member for Stockton South (James Wharton) and the Foreign Secretary missed out UKIP in their speeches. Does my right hon. Friend think that they are totally scared of mentioning UKIP?

[Mr Denham]

There is no doubt that this whole exercise is driven by the Conservative party’s terror of UKIP.

In answer to the hon. Member for Winchester (Steve Brine)—I will come on to the specific point on a referendum in a moment—I want our future to be as a confident part of a reformed European Union. There are people who say that we could be like Switzerland or Norway. They are fine countries, but I do not want to be like them. Clearly, the days of empire and global military might are long gone and rightly so, but I am still sufficiently confident in this country and sufficiently patriotic to believe that we can be a country of influence and leadership in the world. I am not going to join those who just want to scuttle away from the challenges of the world, as Eurosceptics do.

Yes, there is a case for a referendum in principle, and I see that. It is a long time since we had one, and to an extent the demand for it has taken on a life of its own beyond the issue of Europe. However, those of us who can see that case also have a responsibility to be clear about the conditions in which a referendum would serve the national interest. If we are to ask people to vote, the choice has to be clear. We need to know what the effect of saying yes will be, and we need to know what the effect of saying no will be.

The hon. Member for Stockton South and the Foreign Secretary both let the cat out of the bag. The hon. Member for Stockton South said that no one knows what the European Union will be like in 10 years’ time, and the Foreign Secretary said that it may be very different from the way it is today. Both those judgments are true, so how can we have a referendum when the consequences of leaving might be clear enough, but it is not clear what the consequences of staying will be. Clearly, we need to pursue reform and to reshape the EU so there can be a clear and settled choice. I am not one of those—not all of those in my party agree with this, but I do not mind there being a discussion in our party—who rule out a referendum on Europe. However, a referendum should only happen if it is in the national interest and if we can put to the people a clear and settled choice. That has not yet been delivered.

[Keith Vaz]

My right hon. Friend is making an important and thoughtful speech, and he is right to embrace the reform agenda. Does he agree that that reform agenda can start now, and that we can only conduct the reform agenda if we are at the top table of Europe? There is nothing to stop Ministers beginning that process immediately.

[Mr Denham]

My right hon. Friend is right. What worries me is that the Prime Minister represents a party in which that generation of confident patriots, who believed that this country could shape Europe to the benefit of Europe and in the interests of our country, has gone. The Conservative party is split. There are those who simply want to leave come what may. They are the people Lewis Carroll satirised 150 years ago when he had the Queen of Hearts say, “Sentence first, evidence later”. They have made up their minds. The other faction of the Conservative party simply believes in repatriation and repeal: returning to the country those rights that give working people decent protections—maternity pay, the right not to be maimed and killed at work, and paid holidays—in order to repeal them. Those are the only two positions that exist in today’s Conservative party. So when my right hon. Friend says that these negotiations should start now, the problem is this: yes, but you must have people who are going to be credible in those negotiations.

We send a Prime Minister who has been forced. He goes to meetings and everyone is laughing behind their hands, because they know that he does not control his own party, and that his strength to negotiate on our behalf is being shot away by the antics of the people behind him, who know that 2017 is an arbitrary date that bears no relationship to any decision-making processes in the EU, but is entirely about trying to head off—unsuccessfully, it has to be said—the threat from UKIP. That is not a way to approach the national interest.

I am not one of those who says, “These are only matters for general elections and that there must never be a point where people have a choice.” But to return to what the hon. Member for Winchester said, if I say, “Let’s have a choice”, my constituents have a right for the choice to be clear—clear about the nature of the European Union they could vote for or the nature of the European Union that they would leave. There is no clarity to that choice today. There is no reason to believe that there will be clarity to that choice on the arbitrary date of 2017.

[Several hon. Members]

rose—

[Madam Deputy Speaker (Dawn Primarolo)]

Order. Before I call the next speaker, it might be helpful if I inform the House that more than 43 Members wish to participate in today’s debate. There will not be a time limit, because there is not in private Members’ business, but it would help if all Members could bear in mind that many of their colleagues wish to speak and, therefore, perhaps, make their speeches just a little shorter, if possible.

11:11

[Sir Richard Shepherd (Aldridge-Brownhills) (Con)]

I just reflect that, after the last three contributions by Labour Members, I genuinely think that their policy is unsustainable; this will, I am sure, be changed before we get to a general election.

I commend my hon. Friend the Member for Stockton South (James Wharton) on moving a Bill to give the British people a referendum, and wish him well in this. It is a curious Bill for a private Member’s day, but I give a cheer for that as well, because, on 21 February 1992, I also introduced a private Member’s Bill—I was No. 1 in the ballot—to have a referendum on Maastricht. Unfortunately, in those days Mr John Major—Sir John Major as he became—was against the matter, so perhaps I was a Prime Minister or two short. I mention that because I also moved a referendum Bill during the Maastricht treaty considerations in 1993, one year exactly after the private Member’s Bill.

I also notice that there is a three-line Whip on this Bill; I think it diminishes it. I say that straight away, because I remember that when I tried to reform or failed to reform—I am sorry that this is a catalogue of failed private Member’s Bills—section 2 of the Official Secrets Act in 1988, so aggrieved were the Government, with movements on the Back Benches, upstairs, outrage and all the rest, that this was clearly not a matter for a Back-Bench Member of Parliament, that the then Conservative Government, under someone I respected greatly, put on a three-line Whip, again, against me. There is no paranoia in what I say, just realism.

I will say that, on the private Member’s Bill on the Official Secrets Act, there was a queue in Central Lobby of Conservative Members who had served in the second world war and were what used to be called, unlike me, knights of the shires, going into the Whips Office to tell them that this was a constitutional outrage, that their Fridays were being interrupted and that this was exclusively a space of time left for the consideration of Bills by private Members, and to bring forward Bills of great importance, as we all think of our own initiatives.

I wish my hon. Friend well and I shall most certainly vote for this Bill, because there would be a slight inconsistency if I did not—although that has never been a difficulty for most politicians in the past.

[Kelvin Hopkins]

I am most interested in what the hon. Gentleman is saying. He is right about three-line Whips. We Labour Members have not been three-line whipped. I have come here of my own volition. Are his colleagues being three-line whipped to attend or to vote for the Bill?

[Sir Richard Shepherd]

I assure the hon. Gentleman that I am not the progenitor of the Whip, but I respect my wonderful party, which at last has found a voice to express those they represent. I think that the Labour Front Bench is in genuine difficulties over this matter, because it is a rejection of a movement and feeling that is now effective in the country. This has been too long coming: an unconscionable period of time. I made a famous prediction, which I regret to say did not come about, with the experience and arrogance of youth, and in a television studio in Birmingham announced that this common market racket would be over in 10 years. That is, of course, now 32 years ago.

I learned from that the tenacity with which a particular class of those who lead us have sought to control this issue. There is no defence of conversation within a nation, or anything. All the way through this, an elite in our political parties, which rises to the top, forms judgments and changes its judgments. Peter Shore wrote perhaps the most balanced speech, titled “A thousand years of British history”, when we knew nothing, rather like the other day in the Commons, about what the Government’s intentions were in joining. That speech asks a series of questions. We know nothing about this. We wonder. We have to wait. The Conservatives also knew nothing about it and did not have to wait. So in the end they were great supporters of our joining what was called the common market.

[Graham Stringer (Blackley and Broughton) (Lab)]

Does the hon. Gentleman agree that there is a huge paradox in hon. and right hon. Members arguing against this Bill on the basis of the national interest, because the national interest cannot be determined by the nation while we are in the European Union under its current constitution?

[Sir Richard Shepherd]

I love the question. Years ago, when I was a very young Member, the BBC kindly asked me—I had been disobliging over official secrets, or whatever it was—whether I would do an essay and a short broadcast for it on the national interest. University being not so far away, I filled rooms with books. What came out on the national interest was that whoever has a majority in this Chamber is the national interest. We will debate it until the end of time, but in the end it is resolved by a vote here, ultimately.

I am more cautious about this grand expression of the national interest. I have the clearest view of what the national interest is: we should have immediately, as soon as possible, a vote on continued membership of the European Union. I would affirm that that is in the national interest. When I hear people casually throwing around questions about what is the national interest, my own truthful observation is that it is, as Madam Deputy Speaker would say, debatable. That is what I see as the national interest.

I want to say of my gyrations through my private Member’s Bills, and this matter, that this is about the most profound question that this House faces. It is not a narrow question of whether the country is interested in dogs, or this and that; the country is indeed interested in all those things. This touches on a living democracy.

The opponents of these measures never understand that this is an ancient collection of islands, an archipelago, in whose history, and in the lines of whose history, lies the very story of liberty and freedom, whether in Scotland or England, with our own Magna Carta. We forget that. This was the integrity.

During my unsuccessful speech in the past, there was a magnificent contribution by a Labour MP; it was Peter Shore. Some will remember him; he was a considerable figure in his own right. He made a contribution to the debate on my Bill, saying that I had

“managed, in a few words, to address two major points, the first of which is the role of the referendum, which offers one of the few possibilities to remedy a fundamental weakness in our constitution. We have no written constitution and no procedures to protect and entrench features of our national and constitutional life. Everything can be changed by a simple majority. Many other countries, as we know, have quite elaborate procedures requiring a majority of two thirds for changes in constitutional matters and arrangements, often backed up with public referendums.”

He continued:

“We have no such defence. Indeed, previously we did not need them, because only this generation of British parliamentary representatives has contemplated handing to others the great prizes of national independence, self-government and the rule of law under our own elected representatives. It would not have occurred to a previous generation to hand to others that which we prize most greatly and have given to other countries throughout the world in the past 50 years. That is the novelty of the proposition, against which, because we did not think it conceivable, we have no defences. A referendum is a major constitutional device for defending the rights of the British people and our constitution.”—[Official Report, 21 February 1992; Vol. 579, c. 590.]

That is what is at the heart of this matter; that is the question we always have to answer; that is what it is about. Why should we hand over our self-government, which we prize, to others? This is not a criticism of other nations’ wishes to do what they want; it is about our ability to judge for ourselves what is most appropriate. This is not a repudiation of our friendships and our commitments to our allies.

[Jim Dowd (Lewisham West and Penge) (Lab)]

Will the hon. Gentleman give way?

[Sir Richard Shepherd]

Not at the moment, if the hon. Gentleman will forgive me.

This is about not consigning to others the making of laws and treaties for ourselves; this is about ourselves. This vote, what we decide and what people in the future decide will determine the character and strength of our national constitutional history, which is being threatened. Why should we defer in such an adventure, when this is the most remarkable and ancient of all the democratic communities within western Europe? Why?

We have had a generation of politicians who have acceded and conceded. As we know, nothing was yielded over Maastricht. I therefore wish the Prime Minister and the Foreign Secretary well—God knows where they are in their travels—as they look at competences and all the rest of it. I believe that a referendum is inevitable for the British people, and I believe that what the Labour party decides on this matter is also important to the British people. Labour Members, like Conservative Members, have changed their mind a number of times on this issue. I profoundly believe, as I think all Members do if they reflect on our purpose here, that there should be a change in the law. When change comes from Europe, it comes from an authority greater than that of this Chamber because of the cravenness of a generation of British politicians who did not think that they could govern their own land or believe in their own country. The people must be able to make a judgment. Let the people speak.

11:23

[Mr Ian Davidson (Glasgow South West) (Lab/Co-op)]

I find myself agreeing completely with what I believe to be the three motivating thrusts of those who have brought forward the proposal we are discussing today. The first is the clear need for renegotiation of the terms of Britain’s relationship with the European Union; the second is the need for a referendum on Britain’s membership of the EU on renegotiated terms; and the third is the question of whether we trust the British Government. I find myself agreeing with Conservative Back Benchers that the Government cannot be trusted, so it is necessary to put things down in legislation in order to allow them no wriggle-room whatever.

I remember being one of those Members who voted with the Foreign Secretary on the question of a referendum at the time of Lisbon. I remember the Conservatives saying that when they got to power, they would have a referendum on the Lisbon treaty, yet no referendum on Lisbon did they hold. I think that in those circumstances words are not sufficient so legislation is necessary.

[Sir Gerald Howarth]

I was not quite sure whether the Foreign Secretary was going to seek to intervene on the hon. Gentleman. May I remind him that what the Conservative Front-Bench team said in opposition was that they would hold a referendum in the event that the Lisbon treaty had not been ratified by the time we came into office? That is why my right hon. Friend the Foreign Secretary went round a number of European capitals, urging them “Please, do not ratify”—unlike what the United Kingdom had done—so that when we came to power we would be able to veto it and have a referendum for the British people. It is that misunderstanding that is so important. This was not a categorical undertaking for a referendum; it would happen only in certain defined circumstances.

[Mr Davidson]

It sounds like a get-out to me. The clear impression created was that the Conservatives were against the Lisbon treaty and that a referendum would be held. When they got into power, was a referendum held? No, it was not. That is what people will remember. That is what the people out there remember; they remember that the Conservative party could not be trusted to abide by its promise to have a referendum on Lisbon. That is why I support the proposals before us today.

[Ms Gisela Stuart]

A small group of us here have shared these debates. For the benefit of those who did not, Governments have found ways to get out of having to comply with their promises once they are in government —and with the Tories it was about when to ratify. With the Lib Dems, they got out of having a referendum on the Lisbon treaty by suddenly wanting an in/out referendum —and now that they can have that, they want something else. The real lesson is: once in government, people do not allow referendums; in opposition, they are much more likely to promise them.

[Mr Davidson]

Absolutely. I was rebuking the Conservatives, but don’t start me on the snivelling Liberals. Those points have already been made far better than I could make them. Shooting the Liberals in a barrel is just too easy and too self-indulgent.

[Stephen Pound]

It is good fun, though!

[Mr Davidson]

Yes, shooting the Liberals is good fun, but it is too easy.

[Heather Wheeler]

Will the hon. Gentleman like to expand in his short and pithy speech on how he is going to vote today? Otherwise, he is not trusting the people.

[Mr Davidson]

Well, the Whips have been to see me and they deployed the ultimate threat. They said, “If you think of voting for this, we will send round Len McClusky.” I said, “I know Len McClusky. Len McClusky is a friend of mine. I had Len McClusky’s support in the last general election. I had the support not only of Len McClusky but of the GMB, Unison, UCATT and the Associated Society of Locomotive Engineers and Firemen, while opposing me were only Conservatives, nationalists and snivelling Liberals. And I got 60% of the vote.”

Now, in those circumstances, Len McClusky does not frighten me. I am drawing to people’s attention—this is only fair—the fact that, as I understand it, Len McClusky and Unite are in favour of Britain remaining in the European Union. They find themselves in these circumstances in agreement with the snivellers opposite. It is not necessarily the case that Len McClusky and Unite are right on all questions, as Members will be aware. Before I move on, I want to congratulate the hon. Member for Stockton South (James Wharton) on introducing this measure. He was obviously enjoying himself, and if he carries on like that he will undoubtedly be punished by being promoted to the Front Bench—sooner rather than later.

I also congratulate those who are really behind this proposal—and that is UKIP. [Interruption.] I am sorry, a sniveller. I give way to the hon. Member for Cheltenham (Martin Horwood).

[Martin Horwood]

Given the hon. Gentleman’s childish remarks about the Liberal Democrats, I can tell him that he has lost one member of Unite today. I am holding up my trade union membership card, which I have stuck to religiously since my days in the charity sector, but I can give it to him after the debate and he can do what he likes with it.

[Mr Davidson]

Well, I suggest the hon. Gentleman does not tempt me to do what I like with it, because what I might like to do with it is not necessarily what he would enjoy, unless he is not the man I think he is.

[Stephen Pound]

rose—

[Mr Davidson]

No, no; if you offer it to one, then you have to—Anyway, I will be having consultations in Room 220 in Portcullis house for those who wish to see me privately.

As we all know, it is really UKIP that has to be congratulated on this Bill. This would not be coming forward in this way if the Conservatives were not under pressure from UKIP. My side should not be unduly enjoying what is happening with the Conservatives and UKIP, because UKIP is also entirely capable of eating into our vote, as voting for UKIP is a vote against leadership and government by an elite that is seen to be out of touch. It is a revolt, in a sense, by those who see themselves as little people ignored by the existing system. While Europe has been the particular issue around which it has coagulated, that is not necessarily the only issue on which it sees itself as divorced from politics. However, the Conservatives have reacted to UKIP almost solely on this issue.

The Government’s position is much weaker than it appears. I was appalled to hear the Prime Minister say before the negotiations had started that he was going to be voting for Britain to stay in. That grossly undermines the Government’s negotiating position. Who goes into negotiations and says, “We will vote to accept the terms we are offered” before the negotiations have started? That seems to me to be an incredibly weak position.

After today’s votes and discussions, we ought to enter into a period of serious discussion of the terms on which we wish to seek renegotiation. What is it that we want to see? I want to spell out a number of points I think we ought to discuss, because, knockabout apart—and snivellers apart—these are serious issues that we have got to debate.

[Bob Stewart (Beckenham) (Con)]

Clearly that discussion is going to start now and go on for four years until 2017. If there was a vote now, I would vote to come out, but now we are going to have this alternative plan. It is good that we have four years to try and get it right, so the British people can then say, “Actually we like the end result that the Prime Minister has negotiated”—or they say that they do not and we leave. In my view, this makes a pretty good fist of dealing with this problem.

[Mr Davidson]

I have considerable sympathy with that point of view, but it is grossly undermined by the fact that the Prime Minister has already indicated he intends to vote for the terms that are offered after renegotiation, irrespective of what those terms are. That is an absurd negotiating position, and the silence now among Members on the Government Benches speaks eloquently to their support for my position.

What points for renegotiation should we be focusing on? The first is the question of ever-closer union. It is clear to me that we have to make it clear—absolutely clear, crystal clear—that we reject totally the concept of ever-closer union and the idea that the EU is a ratchet which only ever turns in one direction. I support devolution for Scotland on the principle that I believe powers should be moved downwards. I support the concept of subsidiarity, too, as I believe that in principle we ought to say that all powers held at any given level should be moved to the level below, unless a very strong case can be made for retaining them where they are. The onus ought to be on those who wish to hold them centrally to justify that position, rather than the converse. That has not been the position of successive British Governments up until now, and it should be, and I think we ought to make it absolutely clear that that is our position going forward, so that the inexorable expansion of the EU’s powers—like the Blob in the science fiction films that used to replicate itself every 24 hours and expand into new areas—is halted and constrained.

[David Rutley (Macclesfield) (Con)]

The hon. Gentleman has a reputation for being a straight-talking politician and he is making a powerful case, but the suspense is too much. Will he tell the House which way he is going to vote?

[Mr Davidson]

I will leave the hon. Gentleman in suspense for a little longer, if he does not mind, as I am worried that if Members know how I am going to vote, they will leave the Chamber with the question resolved.

[Claire Perry (Devizes) (Con)]

If the hon. Gentleman tells us, it will put us out of our misery.

[Mr Davidson]

I am glad to hear that.

The second issue is control of our borders. I do not believe that it is appropriate to have enormously tight restrictions on immigration from outwith the EU and have unlimited immigration from within the EU. That leads to a situation in which some of the restrictions on migration from outside the EU are, in my view, too tight, driven by a desire to keep down the numbers. It is meaningless to have restrictions on the outside and allow anybody who is given leave to remain in Spain, France, Greece, Bulgaria or Romania to come into the United Kingdom simply because those countries have given them citizenship rights. We have to have control over our borders, which means saying to our European colleagues that we do not accept unfettered free movement of people if it is not in the United Kingdom’s interest at any particular given time.

[Graham Stringer]

I agree with my hon. Friend’s general views on the EU, and I agree with him about the Lib Dems, and I agree with the points he is making about what renegotiation should consist of. In that, however, he is asking for fundamental changes to the treaty of Rome and many of the treaties that follow it. Does he really believe that the other 27 countries of the EU are going to vote to change those treaties?

[Mr Davidson]

I possibly have more faith in the Prime Minister than my hon. Friend does. Had the Prime Minister not to some extent sold the jerseys, I think all these issues could very well be negotiated with our colleagues, because we are not alone. I do not believe that Britain is the only country that wants to retain control over its immigration policy. I think many colleagues support the position we are taking on this question, and I will come on to the question of dates in a moment.

The next point we ought to be dealing with is the question of the common agricultural policy. That has been covered in this House on a number of occasions, so I will not delay us by discussing it, as has the question of the cost of the European Union, and the waste and extravagance.

The final point I want to make is that the Conservative drive for renegotiation seems to be driven by the sort of impulse that means every time Conservatives walk by a house and see a chimney, they regret that a small boy is not climbing up it. I think the Conservative party’s wish to repatriate powers over labour relations and working conditions is driven by a desire to drive down terms and conditions to the level of the 18th or 17th or 16th century, if they think they can get away with it. There is no future for Britain in the long term if we go back to having small boys climb chimneys. It is rules and regulations—and, indeed, red tape—that stop us having small boys climbing chimneys. Those Conservatives who say that the main drive behind renegotiating the EU treaties is to have a freer labour market have got to come clean and say whether they believe a search to the bottom is the way forward for Britain. I do not believe we should be seeking to compete by lowering working standards, and that is one of the points on which Len McCluskey and I would be as one.

If we accept the points that most of the Government Members, and many on our side, have been making, we would want to see three stages, and that is where I do agree with the Government. The first stage would be renegotiation and the second would be a referendum. I have an open mind on how I will vote at that time, because I recognise that the European Union has done many excellent things that I support, but, similarly, it has done many things that I do not support. How I vote in the referendum will depend on the balance reached in negotiations.

[Zac Goldsmith (Richmond Park) (Con)]

I hope that the hon. Gentleman does not mind me referring to an earlier point he made, because I was checking something online while he was giving his brilliant speech. It is worth pointing out that a number of trade unions are actively campaigning for a referendum. Indeed, the advisory board of The People’s Pledge, one of the great organisations calling for a referendum and which is running a successful campaign, was made up of at least three senior union representatives, including Bob Crow and Bill Greenshields, as well as a number of others—the list goes on. So to suggest that the trade unions are opposed to a referendum or in favour of continued membership or continued escalation of our union within the EU is not strictly true.

[Mr Davidson]

Sorry, I did not think I was actually saying that all unions were taking a particular position. I think that most of the unions will take the view that they either want or do not want a referendum. I know that many of them do want a referendum, and they will decide on the basis of what they believe is offered to their members once the renegotiations are complete. I support renegotiations, and I have always been clear about that. I am glad to hear that Bob Crow appears to have greater support from those on the Government Benches than he has from those on the Opposition Benches in some cases. Ever since he declared that he would be biting the heads off only three babies a day his popularity has increased among many Government Members. [Interruption.] It was four babies a day, then.

[Mr Laurence Robertson (Tewkesbury) (Con)]

This debate is not about what kind of trade union laws we should have; it is about who makes those laws. The hon. Gentleman referred to young boys going up chimneys, but that practice was ended not by the European Union but by this Parliament, just as slavery was abolished by this Parliament and as women were given the vote by this Parliament.

[Mr Davidson]

So now we have it: the hon. Gentleman wants this Parliament to have the power to put small boys up chimneys. I think he will find that there are rules in the European Union that prevent us from putting small boys up chimneys. I think that is a very valuable clarification, and members of Unite and elsewhere will take it into account.

The Labour party’s view on these matters is best described as being in a state of flux. It is a caterpillar, which, in a short time, will emerge as a butterfly. I believe that we will change our position in a relatively short time, as events change, because we are clearly heading for a crisis in the European Union. I do not believe that the euro is sustainable in its current form for much longer. As the euro degenerates, and as unemployment rises—it already affects 50% of young people in Spain—we will see more social unrest in Europe and there will be an inexorable drive among the members of the euro to change the relationship within that bloc and, in turn, within the European Union.

The Labour party’s policy will change with that. I am confident that in the years to come I will find myself capable of supporting Labour party policy with a greater degree of enthusiasm than I do at the moment. I remember opposing the euro before it was fashionable to do so. I can also remember when the policy changed and it was impossible to find any Labour Member in favour of the euro—indeed, it was almost impossible to find any Labour Member who had ever been in favour of joining the euro. So things will change, as they should.

[George Eustice (Camborne and Redruth) (Con)]

The hon. Gentleman and several other Labour Members, including the hon. Members for Luton North (Kelvin Hopkins) and for Vauxhall (Kate Hoey), were instrumental 10 years ago in launching Labour Against the Euro. They led a group of about 40 Labour MPs which finally finished off former Prime Minister Blair’s attempts to join the euro. We used to call that group LATE, for short, and some of us used to say, “Better late than never”, because it was an eleventh-hour arrival on the battlefield. I know that the hon. Member for Glasgow South West (Mr Davidson) wants to keep us in suspense, but will he tell us how late he intends to leave it before we get this large group of Labour MPs once again calling for a referendum?

[Mr Davidson]

There is no difficulty in identifying a substantial group of Labour MPs who are in favour of a referendum—the issue is about the timing and the terms of the referendum, and I want to discuss that point now. A strong case has been advanced for a referendum now, before the election, but I wish to make it clear that I am completely opposed to that. An in/out referendum now would give us two choices, neither of which I find acceptable. Staying in on the existing terms would give the green light to those who wish to continue their spendthrift ways and want to continue the process towards ever-closer union. Getting out is simply a retreat and a surrender to separatism. I am opposed to that in Scotland, so I am also opposed to it in the United Kingdom.

There is, however, a case for a referendum now on giving the Government the power to renegotiate the terms of membership. A referendum now on allowing the Government to renegotiate—or on demanding that they start renegotiating—would send a signal to our European colleagues that we are serious about this. They, like us, must be doubting how serious the Government are about driving this forward, given that the Prime Minister has already said that he intends to accept whatever terms are on offer.

[Mike Gapes]

Does my hon. Friend agree that the Government do not need a referendum decision by this House, because they can go ahead and start renegotiating tomorrow if they wished to do so, and come up with proposals? The problem is that the Government do not have a negotiating position and, as the Foreign Secretary made clear to the Foreign Affairs Committee when we asked him about this, they do not intend to do this until after the next general election.

[Mr Davidson]

To be fair, I covered some of those points earlier. I am conscious that others wish to speak, so may I just say that we do need to have an agenda for change, and I think we need to wait for a crisis? I do not understand—this is why I am not supportive of the proposed wording—the point of saying that this has to be done by 31 December 2017. No rationale has been advanced as to why the chosen date should be 2017 rather than 2016 or 2018—or even why it should be 31 December. If we commit ourselves to having a renegotiation, the best way of achieving success is to act when the EU has its next crisis, which cannot be all that far off.

[Mr David Nuttall (Bury North) (Con)]

Next week.

[Mr Davidson]

It may very well be next week. If it is next week, I would hope that the Government would seize on that opportunity—if only they had an agenda of items that they wanted to renegotiate—to seek allies in the European Union in order to renegotiate our terms of entry. I see no reason in those circumstances, if we renegotiate terms before the next election, why we should have to wait until after the election. The issue, for me, is a question of agreeing that we want renegotiation and agreeing that we want a referendum, but not binding ourselves to any particular time. That is why, on the advice of the Whips, I shall not vote for the motion.

11:48

[Mr William Cash (Stone) (Con)]

First, I want to put on record my congratulations to my hon. Friend the Member for Stockton South (James Wharton) on a brilliant, deft and extremely well-conducted speech in which he dealt with complex interventions in a very, very mature fashion. I congratulate him not only on his speech but on its content.

I am extremely glad that my right hon. Friend the Prime Minister, despite the fact that referendums were completely off the agenda for some time before the announcement was made in the Bloomberg speech, or in relation to the Bill, has said in the past, as I said in a short intervention, that he thought there should have been a referendum on the Maastricht treaty. Of course he was right, and I shall explain why in a moment. In 1996 I introduced a Bill, for which I was given what could be considered a bit of a going-over by the then Chief Whip and the Whips, one of whom is now a Minister. It was an entertaining experience, and all I can say is that it made no difference whatsoever to my attitude to the need for a referendum, as I shall explain.

My right hon. Friend was right: the most important principle of the Bloomberg speech is the fourth principle, which overrides all the others, as they all depend on it. He said that the root of our national democracy is our national Parliament, but the essence of that democracy is when it is decided by Parliament that we shall give the people the right to make the decision, which is the ultimate test of trust in the electorate.

[Jim Dowd]

Will the hon. Gentleman give way?

[Mr Cash]

I shall give way to the hon. Gentleman in a moment.

It is estimated that 35 million people—35 million voters—have effectively been disfranchised by the continuous evolution, since 1975, of giving away more and more powers as well as the right to determine the kind of policies and government that they want. That is completely unacceptable. I voted yes in 1975, because I believed then that there was a case for allowing a common market and that we should test whether or not it would work. I also voted for the Single European Act, but I tabled an amendment that nothing in that measure should derogate from the sovereignty of the United Kingdom Parliament. That is why, when it came to Maastricht, I was absolutely determined to fight it at all costs, and I pay tribute to my hon. Friend the Member for Aldridge-Brownhills (Sir Richard Shepherd).

[Andrew Bridgen (North West Leicestershire) (Con)]

My hon. Friend mentioned an important word: sovereignty. Is it not right that sovereignty belongs to the people? Even the greatest and wisest Members in the Chamber are merely here-today-and-gone-tomorrow politicians. Sovereignty belongs to the people and their heirs and successors. It is not ours to take away: we must have a referendum.

[Mr Cash]

I could not agree more. People have fought and died. The only reason we live in the United Kingdom in peace and prosperity is because, in the second and first world wars, we stood up for that freedom and democracy. Churchill galvanised the British people to stand up for the very principles that are now at stake.

[Sir Gerald Howarth]

I know that the whole House is delighted that my hon. Friend saw the light. Some of us not only campaigned in the referendum in 1975 but voted against the Single European Act—only three colleagues who did so remain in the House and, unfortunately, they are all Opposition Members. This is terribly important. My hon. Friend voted for the measure at the time because he thought that he was voting for a common market in goods and services. That is what the British people thought, and we tried to persuade them that it was going to be more than that: it was going to be a united states of Europe. That is the direction of travel, and there is no indication that the direction of travel has changed, which is why we need a referendum.

[Mr Cash]

Indeed; I note what my hon. Friend has said. This issue is about political union. If we strip away all the arguments about repatriation and renegotiation, there is no doubt whatsoever for anyone—I go to COSAC, which is the meeting of the chairmen of national scrutiny committees on European affairs throughout Europe; 27, now 28, chairmen joined together—that this is about political union. We should be under no illusion about that. It is not about anything else now. We had Mr Barroso telling us recently in the blueprint paper that the European Parliament is the only Parliament for the European Union. It is categorical, and I will challenge any Member of Parliament to get up and suggest that this is not embedded in the Maastricht treaty. That is what it was all about—creating a new European Government, and it has grown exponentially ever since.

My right hon. Friend the Foreign Secretary is right. We said that we wanted to have a referendum on several of those treaties. Indeed, the Conservative party was united in voting for a referendum on the Lisbon treaty. However, we have now reached a different situation. That is why it is important for the House to bear in mind that it is not a question of what may happen between now and 2017; it is happening already. There is clear evidence of the development, endorsed by the other member states, of a two-tier Europe between the eurozone and the European Union itself. That is the fundamental change that is already taking place, without a treaty.

We know from the discussions that are going on in Europe that there is much talk of moving forward without another treaty. That is why we need to have a referendum. That is why the Government are right to promote the circumstances in which my hon. Friend the Member for Stockton South, who came first in the ballot, has the opportunity to introduce his Bill. That is why the Prime Minister and the Foreign Secretary have taken part in the debate, and that is why it is so essential that we get it right. This is about political and economic freedom.

[David Rutley]

My hon. Friend is making a powerful case. I think he is coming on to the point that there are not just political reasons, but clear-cut economic reasons why we need to have a referendum, not least of which are the fact that 70% of the regulations that are an unacceptable burden on our businesses and their employees emanate from Europe, and the fact that there is 55% youth unemployment in Spain and in Greece, which is blighting a generation. Does my hon. Friend agree that there are economic reasons for a referendum?

[Mr Cash]

I totally agree. My hon. Friend and I, with other Members, have debated this in complete unity, for the same reason: freedom is about freedom of choice. In parliamentary and constitutional terms, freedom of choice depends upon freedom of choice at the ballot box and in the marketplace. If we get the first, the political choice, wrong, as has been going on with this European Government, we will end up with austerity, small and medium-sized businesses not being able to work properly, and massive unemployment among young people, which I know Opposition Members are worried about, as are we on the Government Benches.

When 65% of the young people in several countries in Europe—Spain, Greece and so on—are unemployed, that is unacceptable and it is a direct result of the way in which the European Union has been centralised. Opposition Members have been saying recently, “We do not like the centralisation”—people who are completely in favour of the European Union, until they suddenly realise that the centralisation is creating austerity, unemployment and misery for those young people. It is unacceptable.

[Mr Binley]

Does my hon. Friend agree that those who perpetuate the myth of the single market, arguing that the UK will lose 3 million jobs if we come out, fail to take account of the fact that there is a £70 billion surplus, and no business in Europe will cease to trade with this country whether we are in the single market or not?

[Mr Cash]

Furthermore, with respect to our trade deficit, as I have said on a number of occasions, in 2012, according to the Office for National Statistics, we had a trade deficit of £70 billion with the other 27 member states. To give the point some substance, Germany, on the other hand—no wonder there are two Europes, which are increasingly becoming German-oriented—had a trade surplus with the other 27 member states in 2011 that has now gone up to £72 billion.

It is not really a European Union any more. It is so heavily dominated, wilfully or otherwise, by the circumstances that have created that imbalance, and that of course has its effect on the qualified majority voting. That is why we have to have a referendum, and we need to have it sooner rather than later, because the fundamental renegotiation itself is dependent on the fact that the circumstances have already arisen, and as I said just now, not necessarily with a new treaty.

[Wayne David]

So that we can be clear about the hon. Gentleman’s position, does he favour the United Kingdom having a relationship with the European Union similar to that of Norway and Switzerland, or does he think we should be entirely separate and have no relationship with the single market?

[Mr Cash]

I have made my position entirely clear on a number of occasions. We need to have something in the nature of a European Free Trade Association arrangement. We need an association of nation states. I am off to Lithuania the day after tomorrow to discuss these matters with the other 27 chairmen. The main topic of conversation now is democratic legitimacy, and it is not just in this country, it is not just in this Chamber, it is not just in the opinion polls, it is not just in the Eurobarometer, which has shown that trust in Europe has completely evaporated all over Europe. Wake up, I say. This is the fact, and it is happening. That is why we need to have a renegotiation. This is about trust. It is about allowing people to have government of a kind that responds to their own wishes, as expressed in general elections. That is why we cannot have two Governments and two Parliaments covering the same subject matter. It is complete, incoherent, absurd nonsense.

[Mrs Main]

My hon. Friend has been tempted on numerous occasions by Opposition Members to debate the merits of in and out, but that is not what today is about. They will not say whether or not they will have a referendum. Today is about whether we will debate that with the public—not in here among ourselves, but take it out to the public. The Opposition want to turn today’s debate into a debate about the merits. I caution my hon. Friend about being seduced by Opposition Members. Make them answer whether they will vote for a referendum.

[Mr Cash]

I think my hon. Friend can be certain that I am not likely to be seduced, either by the Opposition or anybody else, for that matter. I simply say this: this is about the principle of a referendum.

I conclude with a simple statement: this is about trust. It is about trust in people. Because we are doing it through a Bill, as is required, we will give authority through Parliament to have a referendum. That is what this is all about. It is to give the British people their right to have their say. There is no question but that the Bill must pass, but it needs to be secured by a vote on both sides of the House. I am afraid that Opposition Members are neglecting their duty to their constituents if they continue to refuse to support the Bill.

12:02

[Mr Nigel Dodds (Belfast North) (DUP)]

Many hon. Members wish to speak so I will keep my remarks as brief as possible.

I am delighted and honoured to be a supporter of the Bill. I congratulate the hon. Member for Stockton South (James Wharton) on taking this subject for his private Member’s Bill and on bringing it before the House in the way that he did. I well remember that when I had a relatively high place in the ballot a number of years ago, I introduced a private Member’s Bill for a referendum on the Lisbon treaty. I had half an hour to deliver a speech in the House, thanks in no small way to the kind co-operation of the hon. Member for Christchurch (Mr Chope), who often attends on Fridays on private Member’s Bills, but unfortunately there was not as much interest in it as there is on this occasion, and there certainly were not as many Members present to ensure that it got any further. However, I am proud of having introduced that private Member’s Bill, and I congratulate the hon. Member for Stockton South on this measure. I also congratulate the Prime Minister on his support for the initiative.

As has been said, it is 38 years since we have had a referendum on the UK’s relationship with Europe, and it is now time to give people their say. Therefore, representing as I do a party that believes in consulting the people, and has advocated referendums on a number of occasions in Northern Ireland on a range of constitutional issues, and has supported that consistently, particularly on Europe, we will be voting in favour of the Bill enthusiastically and without equivocation. I know that in so doing we will be representing the vast majority of the people of Northern Ireland, even those who support parties that are in favour of being part of the European Union. Whether they are for or against the United Kingdom’s continued membership of the European Union, on whatever terms, they believe that it is high time they had a say in this debate and that it should no longer be confined to this Chamber and the television studies.

If we can have referendums on regional assemblies, devolved government, police commissioners, local mayors and the alternative vote, how on earth can it be logical, sensible or defensible for any Member of this House or any party to take the position that on this issue of such fundamental importance to the United Kingdom’s democracy, as the hon. Member for Aldridge-Brownhills (Sir Richard Shepherd) so eloquently said, and as others have said, the British people will uniquely be denied their say? I think that we have now reached a point in our political debate and in the nation’s history where that position is simply untenable.

I have no doubt that, as the hon. Member for Glasgow South West (Mr Davidson) said, we will soon see a change in the stated positions of the other parties in this House. We now know where the Conservatives stand. The leader of the Liberal Democrats has now conceded that this is inevitable. Having been in favour of an in/out referendum, their current position is simply untenable. The Labour party is already debating how to get itself off the hook it is now on. I believe that it, too, will come to support a referendum, because the vast majority of its supporters want one.

[Andrew Bridgen]

I thank the right hon. Gentleman and his party for their support for this important Bill. We have heard about the rising dissatisfaction with the European Union across Europe, so does he agree that if this House was to vote wholeheartedly for a referendum, we could lead the way in Europe, because many other countries also want to renegotiate their relationship with the European Union?

[Mr Dodds]

It is important to make the point that this is not only a vote on something that is important to the people in all regions and parts of the United Kingdom and will be welcomed by them; it is also something that other countries are looking to us to give a lead on. The Foreign Secretary pointed out that there have been a number of national plebiscites and votes on European issues in many countries, sometimes two or three times on the same issue, but the fact is that people are crying out for a say. As the hon. Member for Stone (Mr Cash) said, this is the big issue of the day in Europe: political legitimacy, democracy and accountability.

[Sammy Wilson (East Antrim) (DUP)]

Before my right hon. Friend moves on from his point about the Labour party’s approach to the issue, will he agree that the defence that we cannot have a referendum until there has been substantial constitutional change is really very thin, given that we have had Maastricht, the Single European Act and the Lisbon treaty? Surely there has been enough substantial change in our relationship with Europe to give people a say now.

[Mr Dodds]

My hon. Friend is absolutely right. I have talked on more than one occasion in this House about the disconnect that now exists between the people and the political class in Parliament. People feel that their concerns are not being given high enough priority and that, with regard to the EU, promises have been broken. On the Lisbon treaty, for example, they believe that the Labour party promised a referendum on the European constitution. I remember before a previous election Tony Blair, with the encouragement of Lord Mandelson, bringing the referendum rabbit out of the hat, but he reneged on that pledge when he got into office, claiming then that there were red lines that they would negotiate and that it was therefore no longer a constitution. The people simply do not believe that.

We have talked about the Lib Dems going back on their promise of an in/out referendum. Reference has been made to the cast-iron guarantee the Prime Minister gave on the Lisbon treaty. I understand the reasons that have been advanced on why that did not happen—for example, the fact that it had already been implemented. Nevertheless, I agree with the hon. Member for Glasgow South West that very many people believe that if we had wanted to have a referendum on Lisbon, even after it had been introduced, we could have done if the political will had existed. However, it did not exist, and that was the problem.

[Mr Cash]

Does the right hon. Gentleman accept that in fact fundamental change is going on already, and that that, even without a treaty, is the real reason for having a referendum?

[Mr Dodds]

Yes, I agree. That is why it is not enough merely to have it enshrined in law that there will be a referendum at some future point if there is some new treaty or whatever. There is a continuing erosion of sovereignty and it is therefore important that the matter is brought to a head sooner rather than later.

[Mrs Main]

Will the right hon. Gentleman give way?

[Mr Dodds]

Yes, and then I will make more progress.

[Mrs Main]

Is it not a fact that any referendum that was held would be on the treaty change, not on in or out? We have never had a promise of an in/out referendum, only a “no more change to a particular treaty” referendum. We need to make that point very clear. This is our one opportunity to do this.

[Mr Dodds]

The hon. Lady makes a very important and fundamental point. That is why this Bill is so significant and deserves the widespread support of Members of this House.

[Jim Shannon (Strangford) (DUP)]

Will my right hon. Friend give way?

[Mr Dodds]

I will not give way any more because I want to make progress. I am conscious that others still wish to speak.

We are here on a Friday having to go through this process for all the reasons that we understand. One of the reasons is that the promises and pledges that have been made in the past by Front Benchers of the main parties have not been followed through on. Therefore, people are looking not just for a promise or a pledge but for some kind of guarantee enshrined in legislation. Of course we know that this Parliament cannot bind a successor Parliament, but that applies to every aspect of legislation—to every Act that is ever passed. However, a guarantee enshrined in legislation will make it a lot harder for any incoming Prime Minister of whatever party to have—I was going to say the courage—the audacity to come before the House and say, “We’re going to repeal the right of the people to have a referendum under the Act that was passed”, as I hope that it will be as a result of this initiative.

In 1975, 67% of voters in this country chose to remain within the Common Market—a union which we were told at that time was more about co-operation between European nations on trade. However, today we view an EU landscape that is vastly changed—so much so that, as a senior Labour peer recently noted, the mandate secured by the Government in 1975

“belongs to another time and another generation.”

Over the past three decades, there has been a steady transfer of powers from our sovereign Parliament here at Westminster to the corridors and back alleys of Brussels—a process that still continues on a weekly and monthly basis, inexorably and inevitably, in the pursuit of the goal of ever-closer political union.

This change has not been abstract. It is not detached from the day-to-day realities of everyday life; it has been hard felt by people living in every region of the United Kingdom. How often do business people come to us complaining about the red tape and regulations that emanate from the EU? How many times do we hear complaints about untrammelled immigration from EU countries as we no longer have the power effectively to control our own borders? I could mention a number of other policy areas.

[Mr Laurence Robertson]

As Chairman of the Northern Ireland Committee, I congratulate the Democratic Unionist party on taking a very clear stance on this issue. The right hon. Gentleman refers to the 1975 referendum. Does he remember that the brochure put out by the then Labour Government, “Britain’s New Deal in Europe”, contained a guarantee that a British Minister could veto anything that came from Europe at that time? What this is really all about is the erosion of that guarantee through qualified majority voting.

[Mr Dodds]

The hon. Gentleman makes a very important point. He reminds the House and the public of the pledges and guarantees that have been given in the past. We need this Bill to enshrine in law a commitment to giving people their say, because they are fed up with broken promises. They have found that they cannot trust the political class generally on pledges on Europe, because whichever party is in power becomes sucked into the ever-increasing desire to have ever-closer union. That is simply unacceptable.

[Mr Binley]

Will the right hon. Gentleman give way?

[Mr Dodds]

No. Having said that I would be brief, I want to conclude my remarks and not get sidetracked any further.

On the issue of austerity, at a time when this country is facing major cuts and when personal and household incomes are affected, it is absolutely scandalous that between 2007 and 2013 the UK will have contributed £29 billion on EU structural funds and received back only £8.7 billion to spend in this country. That is simply unacceptable and it is damaging to communities and households right across this United Kingdom.

There was some hope that the negotiations for the 2014-20 multi-annual framework would lead to a sea change in EU spending, and I congratulate the Prime Minister on what he has managed to do. However, despite a Council agreement to reduce the budget, the trend of waste and inefficiency will continue. Spending on the unaccountable EU civil service will rise by 2%. The organisation already employs 3,000 unelected officials on salaries of more than €150,000 and gold-plated pensions.

The European External Action Service, which a Minister told us a year or two ago would not cost us any more and would be neutral in terms of expenditure, is in line to receive a spending increase of more than 3% for its role in undermining the foreign policy of countries across Europe. The EU’s 56 quangos will receive an increase of 4% under the new budget. That is not to mention specific examples, such as the House of European History, which, for those Members who have not heard about it, will cost—believe it or not—£136 million. British taxpayers are contributing £18 million to that project.

The European Parliament continues to split its activities over three locations—something that my party in the European Parliament is deeply opposed to and fighting to change—and it will cost €1 billion to have two places, Brussels and Strasbourg, as the seat of the European Parliament over the next seven years. That is why it is essential that the people have their say on these issues. They are examples of why the waste and inefficiency need to be exposed.

The fundamental point is that on these issues, whether they be expenditure or setting policy with regard to agriculture or foreign affairs, it should be for the British people, through their elected representatives in this House, to decide the policy of the United Kingdom. It is not for unelected people in Brussels to forge for the people of the United Kingdom an ever-closer political union that they do not want. This House will fail in its duty if we do not respond to supporters of all of our parties who want a say, a voice and a vote. I commend the hon. Member for Stockton South for proposing this Bill and urge all hon. and right hon. Members to support it in the Division later.

[Several hon. Members]

rose—

[Madam Deputy Speaker (Dawn Primarolo)]

Order. May I again say to hon. Members that they just need to look around the Chamber to see how many of their colleagues want to speak in this debate? If we are to accommodate as many speakers as possible, Members must speak for less time than is currently the case. I cannot put a time limit on speeches, but I plead with Members to show each other mutual respect and do their best to leave enough time to get as many speakers in as possible.

12:18

[Mr David Nuttall (Bury North) (Con)]

I hope I will set an appropriate example, Madam Deputy Speaker, in my brief speech.

It is a pleasure to follow the right hon. Member for Belfast North (Mr Dodds). I agree with what he said and it is worth noting that he leads at Westminster a completely united party on matters relating to the European Union. I also commend and congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Stockton South (James Wharton) on coming first in the ballot and proposing this excellent Bill.

It is surprising how quickly things change in politics. Members will recall that less than two years ago, I moved a motion on holding a referendum on our membership of the European Union. On that day, all parties had a three-line Whip against my motion. Today, my party has a three-line Whip to support a referendum on the European Union and the official Opposition are so weak and divided that they cannot even make their minds up what to do.

The Bill will be welcomed warmly by my constituents in Bury, Ramsbottom and Tottington. It is nearly four decades since they have had a say on this country’s relationship with the European Union. That means that many of them have never had a say at all. Since that time, the nature of what was then the European Economic Community, which was widely called the Common Market, has changed out of all recognition. As the stated aim of the treaty of Rome of “ever-closer union” has gradually been achieved, the tentacles of what is now the European Union have been felt in a growing number of areas of life, in a way that was never envisaged by the British people when they voted to stay in the Common Market in 1975.

[Martin Horwood]

On a point of information, the question in 1975 was not about the European Economic Community, but the European Community. The words “Common Market” were inserted by Eurosceptics in Harold Wilson’s Government. A lot of that historical debate, which I have been looking at over the past couple of days, was about the political, social and international aspects of the European Community. Those aspects were in Harold Wilson’s official leaflet that went out.

[Mr Nuttall]

I did say that it was widely referred to as the Common Market. It was called the European Economic Community, then the word “Economic” was dropped and it became the European Community, as the hon. Gentleman rightly says. It then changed from the European Community to the European Union as ever-closer union began to take effect.

[Mr Binley]

I had the good fortune a long time ago of working as a bag carrier for Edward Heath in his private office. At that time, we talked about political union being the very essence of what this adventure was about. Does my hon. Friend agree with that?

[Mr Nuttall]

My hon. Friend makes a very good point.

My point is simply that we have seen a gradual extension of the powers of the European Union. That is just one of the many reasons why an increasing number of people are reaching the conclusion that I have reached: our country would be better off out of the European Union.

I want us to trade with our European neighbours, but I do not see why we should have to pay billions of pounds every year for the privilege of doing so, particularly when we buy more goods from them than they buy from us.

[Mike Gapes]

The hon. Gentleman says that he wants out. Does he accept that Norway, which has not joined the European Union, has to pay billions of pounds to get access to the European Union’s single market?

[Mr Nuttall]

That is an interesting point, but I do not want to get drawn down the road of talking about the merits of our membership of the European Union. The Bill is not about the merits of our membership of the European Union, but about whether our constituents should have a say. It is because the Bill will give the people of Bury, Ramsbottom and Tottington in my constituency the historic opportunity to vote for their freedom from the European Union that it has my wholehearted support. I wish it a speedy passage through this House.

[Madam Deputy Speaker (Dawn Primarolo)]

Thank you for your brevity, Mr Nuttall.

12:24

[Dame Tessa Jowell (Dulwich and West Norwood) (Lab)]

It is a pleasure to speak in this debate, and I congratulate the hon. Member for Stockton South (James Wharton) on procuring his place in the ballot for private Member’s Bills.

To save time and divert interventions, let me say that I am a lifelong European. I campaigned for and voted yes in the referendum 30 years ago, and I will abstain in the vote on this Bill because it is much more about party management than the essential higher purpose of our national interest. Those who claim that people are being denied a choice on Europe should listen to the wisdom on the doorstep. We must, of course, take seriously the rise of UKIP, and understand why millions of people—including former supporters of my party as well as of the Government—are voting against the major parties. This initiative is being driven by UKIP. It is opening up old divisions and fails to recognise that even for UKIP supporters, Europe is not the greatest concern. We should attend to that if we are serious about hearing the voice of the British people.

[Neil Parish (Tiverton and Honiton) (Con)]

rose—

[Dame Tessa Jowell]

I am sure the hon. Gentleman will have a chance to speak; I will not take an intervention because I want to make my speech as quickly as I can. We must understand that the momentum behind this debate comes principally from a sense of suffering felt by families up and down the country—anxiety about whether their children will get jobs; fears about long-term security and the sustainability of their pensions. Under such circumstances, the EU has become a proxy for the public’s wider anger about good services and housing, and in doing so it has provided fertile territory for a lot of myths about the EU. I do not for one moment doubt the anger—indeed, I have confronted it—in some parts of our country about the impact of too much migration too quickly, and the sense of broader insecurity. People feel that their living standards are falling. They are falling, but that is a result of decisions by this UK Government, not decisions by Europe.

The Bill is principally about managing the Conservative party, and evidence suggests that for the majority of right hon. and hon. Members in that party it is about exit, not renegotiation in Europe. The real tragedy is that renegotiation is possible, is needed, and is always to be achieved, but that is not done by saying one thing at home and a different thing in the Council of Ministers. If the Prime Minister is serious about renegotiation, he must spend time going round the capitals of Europe and visiting his counterparts, building trust and securing the support of other European leaders for his case for change. That is what will achieve change in Europe.

There is, of course, an agenda for reform, which Labour would support wholeheartedly and—I hope—on a cross-party basis, if only the Conservative party would demonstrate that it is serious about reform rather than exit. Reform of the EU budget, the appointment of an EU commissioner for growth, reforming transitional arrangements to address issues such as too much migration too quickly, more powers delegated to national Parliaments—those are all parts of an agenda for reform that I am sure we could share.

For those of us among my right hon. and hon. colleagues who represent constituencies in London, there is also particular concern about the impact on London of the growing uncertainty, which risks unseating us as the economy that is top of the league among beneficiaries of foreign direct investment. Underpinning and essential to that continued primacy is stability and certainty. The way in which this debate is being conducted, in the interests of the Conservative party, is putting that at risk.

In conclusion, I think this captures very well the position on the Opposition Benches:

“the problem with an in/out referendum is it actually only gives people those two choices: you can either stay in with all the status quo, or you…get out. Most people in Britain, I think, want a government that stands up and fights for them in Europe, and gets the things we want in Europe, that changes some of the relationship”.

Those, Madam Deputy Speaker, are the words of the Prime Minister, less than a year ago. Look how he has flip-flopped and been bullied by his party, letting down the British people.

12:31

[Fiona Bruce (Congleton) (Con)]

Thank you for calling me, Madam Deputy Speaker; I will be brief.

I thank my hon. Friend the Member for Stockton South (James Wharton) for proposing this Bill and I strongly support him. I was interested when he said that he was barely a twinkle in his mother’s eye when the original votes were cast on our relationship with the EU, because I am probably about his mother’s age. We therefore have two generations of voters represented in this House who have never had a say on our relationship with the EU, and it is about time the British people had one.

[Neil Parish]

Does my hon. Friend agree that when we had the referendum in 1975, it was about a common market? Now we have a European political union. Brussels has seized power. The last Labour Government gave away our rebate and got nothing for it, so the people should have a say.

[Fiona Bruce]

Absolutely right. There is a growing frustration on the part of the people, which is borne out of years of them not being adequately communicated with or informed about the implications of what was happening in the EU institutions. That has resulted in our public wanting this say.

My hon. Friend the Member for Stockton South was quite right that the British people want a say, but I believe that they also want an informed say. Many of them feel they have a gut instinct of how they would vote, but they know that this is such a serious issue and such a major constitutional decision that they must have an opportunity to deliberate, debate and discuss the complex issues around it. Those of us who are today putting forward this proposal for a referendum are saying that we trust the British people to discuss such complex issues and then come to the right decision. Anyone who opposes this referendum is saying, “We don’t trust the British public to discuss issues of this complexity and detail.”

[Jim Dowd]

If letting the people have their say is so important, why is it that of all the Conservative Governments who have ever existed, only one—this one, forced by the Liberals to offer a referendum on the alternative vote—have ever given the people of Britain a referendum on anything? Devolution, regional government, the Mayor of London—all were from a Labour Government. The Tories have never given anybody a referendum on anything; now they are suddenly enthusiasts.

[Fiona Bruce]

The previous Labour Government had plenty of opportunities to grant a referendum on this issue, but they did not do so.

[Dr William McCrea (South Antrim) (DUP)]

Does the hon. Lady not find it strange that the last Labour Government had 13 years to renegotiate, if they believed in that renegotiation, and present it to the British people, yet did not do so? Labour has constantly, and to this day, denied, the British people a say in their future in Europe.

[Fiona Bruce]

The hon. Gentleman is right. If passed, the Bill will trigger a debate throughout the nation and give the British public an opportunity to make that informed decision. The debate has already started in this Chamber today. Millions of people across the country will be watching and listening, and will have heard valuable and critical contributions, such as the speech from the right hon. Member for Belfast North (Mr Dodds).

[Jim Shannon]

On the subject of giving people choice, the fishing industry has felt the brunt of EU legislation and red tape—more so than other sectors. As European bureaucracy continues to strangle and choke the fishing industry, my constituents in Strangford, particularly in the fishing port of Portavogie, will want the chance to say no in a referendum—this is what we want to see.

[Fiona Bruce]

As ever, the hon. Gentleman makes a valuable contribution. It is under this Government that we have seen fish discards eliminated.

[Bill Wiggin (North Herefordshire) (Con)]

Does my hon. Friend agree that the Labour party, which continually complains about uncertainty, should support a referendum, and should be asking for it to be brought even further forward so that that uncertainty can be removed quickly?

[Fiona Bruce]

Another valid point, but I can also see the merit of the British people having the time, up to 2017, to digest and discuss these issues.

Other hon. Members want to speak, so I will close my remarks. I pay tribute to my hon. Friend the Member for Basildon and Billericay (Mr Baron), who is chair of the all-party group for a European referendum. I am a long-standing member, as is my hon. Friend the Member for Stockton South. My hon. Friend the Member for Basildon and Billericay has done tremendous and sterling work in this House and beyond in pressing and making the case for an EU referendum, which the British people deserve.

12:36

[Keith Vaz (Leicester East) (Lab)]

May I begin by joining other right hon. and hon. Members in congratulating the hon. Member for Stockton South (James Wharton) on the terrific achievement of being first in the ballot to propose a private Member’s Bill on the Floor of the House and on filling the Chamber? This has been a remarkable week for him. Not only has he introduced the Bill, but his local restaurant, Raj Bari, came third in the Tiffin cup final. That is a terrific achievement, one that I am sure he will celebrate with them tonight when he gets back to Stockton.

This has been a remarkable debate in which we have heard some interesting facts. The hon. Member for Cheltenham (Martin Horwood) was outed as a member of Unite by my hon. Friend the Member for Glasgow South West (Mr Davidson), and then managed to resign within moments of being outed. The hon. Member for Congleton (Fiona Bruce) told us that she is old enough to be the mother of the hon. Member for Stockton South. I am surprised that she did not offer to be his mother, bearing in mind his current popularity.

I hope to make a short contribution. Many right hon. and hon. Members wish to speak, and some of us would like to get back to our constituencies some time today. Friday mornings will never be the same again for me. I want to say how much I support the idea, and have supported the idea for some time, of the British people being allowed to have their say on membership of the European Union. I agree with the many hon. Members who have said that this is an issue of trust. I do not think that political parties should feel they cannot trust the British people on this important issue, which has been the dominant issue of the past 30 to 40 years. The constant debates in the House and in the country, and the fact that the issue has seized the consciousness of the British people, mean that at some stage we have to put it to the British people. I believe that this should be done sooner rather than later. We should do it now, if we can; if not now, then certainly at the time of the next general election.

[Neil Parish]

Is the right hon. Gentleman convinced that he will be able to persuade his colleagues on the Opposition Front Bench, and the Leader of the Opposition, to support a referendum?

[Keith Vaz]

Absolutely not. I am merely a humble Back Bencher. We need to do our best to persuade those on the Front Bench that this is in the interests not only of the Labour party but, primarily, of the country. The shadow Foreign Secretary, my right hon. Friend the Member for Paisley and Renfrewshire South (Mr Alexander), spoke very well this morning, but we still need to convince him that we need to go one step further. After all, progress has been made. Labour voted for a reduction in the EU budget and against the amendment to the Queen’s Speech, and we are going to abstain today, so we are on the way; we are moving in the direction that the hon. Gentleman wants us to move in, and I hope that we will get there in the end.

[Andrew Bingham (High Peak) (Con)]

Does the right hon. Gentleman not agree that this goes to the heart of democracy, when so many people are crying out for a referendum and there is a great disconnect between politics and the electorate that needs healing? Giving the electorate a referendum, as we want to do, will help that process.

[Keith Vaz]

I agree with the hon. Gentleman. The fact is that we need to reconnect by allowing people to have their say.

I am very surprised that the Liberal Democrats have changed their view—[Hon. Members: “Why?”] Well, I am. I learned most of my community politics from the Liberal Democrats when I stood in Richmond many years ago, and I know that they are committed to allowing people to have their say in places like Richmond and Kingston. I am therefore surprised that they have changed their mind on this matter.

[Zac Goldsmith]

I thank the right hon. Gentleman for giving way. We have a great deal in common, as he has just said. Does he agree that this is not just a matter of this House trusting the people with a decision on this issue, and that it is even more a case of providing the people with a reason to trust the House? It works both ways, and there could not be a more important time to demonstrate both aspects of that than now.

[Keith Vaz]

I absolutely agree with the hon. Gentleman. We must give the whole debate over from this House. We all have an important role to play in discussing and scrutinising the European Union, but at the end of the day, the matter must go to the British people.

My second point is on the need for reform. I hope that the hon. Member for Stockton South will be willing to consider any amendments that I hope Labour will table in Committee, and that he will look at the whole issue of reform. I do not believe that the timetable the Prime Minister has set out is achievable. I agree with what my right hon. Friend the Member for Dulwich and West Norwood (Dame Tessa Jowell) said about this. The reform process will take a long time. Should the Prime Minister get re-elected and become Prime Minister again, his timetable of two years between 2015 and 2017 will, frankly, not be long enough.

The issues in the European Union exist at the moment, and there is a need for reform of a whole range of policies. We could start that process now. There is no reason why British Ministers going to summit meetings and having discussions with their European Union counterparts—the Minister for Europe goes to General Affairs Council meetings every month to discuss these matters with his counterpart Ministers for Europe, for example—should not start the reform agenda immediately, rather than waiting until after the next general election.

[Glyn Davies (Montgomeryshire) (Con)]

The right hon. Gentleman is making an interesting point. I knew that those were his opinions because I have read them on many occasions. Does he agree that, if we have a referendum and if we are going to engage properly with the people, we must know what the position is? There must be a reformed European Union, or we withdraw. If we had the referendum much earlier, people would simply be in the dark.

[Keith Vaz]

I thank the hon. Gentleman for that intervention. Actually, I think the British people know the issues now. They understand the issues that confront Europe, and I am not sure that a public education campaign is what they need, as long as we are committed to reform, and to changing the way in which the European Union operates. There is much that we need to change on the justice and home affairs agenda, for example, including measures on the European arrest warrant and on the way in which countries such as Greece have to deal with illegal migration. There are so many other areas that we need to look at. We can be part of that process as we go along within the European Union; we do not need to have a separate set of negotiations. The only way, in my view, that we can do this is to put the matter to the EU now.

[Tim Loughton (East Worthing and Shoreham) (Con)]

Will the right hon. Gentleman give way?

[Keith Vaz]

Yes, but many Members want to speak, so I give way for the last time.

[Tim Loughton]

I am grateful to the right hon. Gentleman and I praise him for the candour of his approach to this debate. We all agree that reform is needed, but the British public need to be sure that sufficient reform is going to take place if we are to stay within the EU. Does he agree that having a referendum after the renegotiation has happened will absolutely crystallise in the minds of the rest of the EU member states the fact that we are absolutely serious that the current position is just unsustainable?

[Keith Vaz]

I think the member states know that the current situation is unsustainable and that they understand that we want change. The Prime Minister has made that clear every time he goes to a summit meeting of the European Union. I do not know whether the Minister for Europe has a row with his colleagues every time he goes to the General Affairs meetings, but the fact is that the Prime Minister always comes back to this House to make his statement after a European summit and says that he has confronted colleagues so that they know where Britain stands.

I think that the major political parties should be publishing their manifestos for reform. Frankly, we do not know what they are. I think we should be very clear about what we want to change about the European Union—and we can put that into operation now rather than having to wait.

My final point is that I hope nobody votes against this private Member’s Bill. I hope that it will go through unanimously and that nobody will seek to divide the House. That would send a powerful message that all parties believe that there is a case for the British people to make a decision. If we do that, it will mean that people will trust us even more than they do at the moment.

12:46

[Martin Horwood (Cheltenham) (LD)]

This has been a thought-provoking debate—and, in some places, just provoking! I would say to the hon. Member for Glasgow South West (Mr Davidson) that I am afraid my Unite membership card has suffered irreparable damage during the course of this debate, but I thank him for his graphic advice on what I should now do with it. After recent events in Falkirk, I suspect there might be a few other people taking very similar advice.

It is good to see the House so full on a Friday. I gather that it has something to do with the provision of hog roast by the Prime Minister last night. One participant told me that burgers were being served by him, but they were a little bit rare. Perhaps that explains why so many left the Chamber so fast after the Foreign Secretary’s speech!

As a Liberal Democrat, I like referendums—and we have been consistent supporters of them. We supported all the referendums on Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland. We were quite happy with the referendum on the European Community in 1975, and we even went along with the referendum on AV—the alternative vote system—although we obviously cannot win them all. At the time of the Lisbon treaty, we alone supported an in/out referendum for this country—not at four years’ remove, not for some future Parliament, but at that time. We got absolutely no support from the Conservative party at that stage.

I am afraid that that was the completely consistent position through to the general election of 2010, and it is more or less our position now. The Deputy Prime Minister has set out our position, the only difference being that in the meantime we have passed the European Union Act 2011, which rather watered down the Liberal Democrat commitment to an in/out referendum and adopted—[Interruption.] Conservative Members may laugh, but they have obviously not read their own manifesto of 2010. What is in the European Union Act 2011 is precisely the basis on which Conservative Members fought the last general election, which was the idea that there should be a trigger relating to the transfer of power. The Conservative manifesto stated that in the event of a transfer of power from the British level to the European level, a referendum on that transfer would be held. That is exactly what went into the European Union Act in 2011. We will quite happily use that to trigger—that is fine—but we are still committed to an in/out referendum, and I am still going to argue for one.

[Neil Parish]

If the hon. Gentleman is so keen on talking about Liberal Democrat policy on a former referendum, why is he not supporting us today? I also congratulate him on being the only one of an endangered species here in the Chamber today.

[Martin Horwood]

I was not, in fact, the only Liberal Democrat Member here, and my colleagues are probably focused on jobs, A and E departments, the good deal we are delivering for pensioners and promoting employment and economic prosperity in their constituencies, rather than spending an entire day banging on about Europe. I am reassured that so many Conservative Members are so confident that all the jobs are provided and all the A and E departments are safe and no green spaces need protecting that they are willing to spend an entire day here talking about the minutiae of European referendums. I am equally confident that at one stage we had the Prime Minister, the Chancellor, the Foreign Secretary and, I think, the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions all in the Chamber for this debate, so I assume the Deputy Prime Minister must have been busy running the country at that point.

The consistent position the Liberal Democrats have taken is to be in favour of an in/out referendum either at a time of major, fundamental treaty change or at a time of a transfer of power, which also has to happen under treaty provisions. That is the consistent position we have taken, and that is the position we still take today. [Interruption.] Does the hon. Member for South East Cornwall (Sheryll Murray) want to point out when we have said anything different? She does not; I thought as much.

The Conservative party, by contrast, has taken a bewildering variety of positions on referendums. I think it was the hon. Member for Ealing North (Stephen Pound), who is no longer in his place, who pointed out that Margaret Thatcher opposed the original European referendum and she quoted Clement Attlee saying referendums were a device of demagogues and dictators. At that point she was a supporter of European Union membership, which at that stage was already identified as a discussion about social and political union as well as about access to an economic common market. That is clear from the literature produced in that referendum campaign. It talks about the new regional fund, the social fund, bringing the peoples of Europe closer together and promoting peace and freedom—so even the defence and security aspects of the EU’s work were already being debated. Margaret Thatcher said that for the Labour party the proposal of a referendum was

“a tactical device to get over a split in their own party.”—[Official Report, 11 March 1975; Vol. 888, c. 306.]

I think history might be repeating itself now.

[Richard Graham (Gloucester) (Con)]

I am grateful to my hon. Friend, who is my neighbour, for giving way. He talks about history repeating itself. Some of us remember very clearly that when the Prime Minister stood up and announced he was going to renegotiate the EU budget so that it was cut, one of my hon. Friend’s distinguished colleagues described that as being an inconceivable act. Does he believe it would be inconceivable to renegotiate anything with Europe?

[Martin Horwood]

The point is that we can be in favour of reform, but not necessarily make that conditional on referendums. If we read the Prime Minister’s speech carefully, we can see that Liberal Democrats would disagree with very little of what he actually wanted to change in Europe. Indeed, we would enthusiastically support much of the reform agenda. We have gone along with Conservative colleagues in supporting the Government’s review of the balance of competences. I think that is a very important process, and I think it is an absolutely correct one to carry out, but I also think it was ill-judged to attach a time bomb to all this and say that unless we get what we want we will do this or that, and to try to negotiate on a unilateral basis. It is important now to try to achieve these reforms on a multilateral basis by co-operation with other European partners.

I was explaining some of the political background of the Conservative party’s position. In the 1990s John Major was in favour of a referendum, but only on membership of the euro. By 2001, that had changed and then we had an evolution of a policy that was really about—

[Tim Loughton]

rose—

[Martin Horwood]

I had better not give way repeatedly, but I shall give way to the hon. Gentleman for one final time.

[Tim Loughton]

I am sorry that the leader of the hon. Gentleman’s party was not able to flip a few lentil burgers last night to entice more of his colleagues to take part in this important debate. Will he just clarify his position? In the highly unlikely event that we have a Liberal Democrat Government after the next election, and this Bill, as is most likely, has been passed in this Parliament, would they abolish the undertakings that this Bill would give to tie us to a referendum, and thus give the British people a say at last?

[Martin Horwood]

I have already spelled out very clearly our position, which is exactly the same one as we took at the time of the Lisbon treaty and of the last election: at a time of treaty change, fundamental change or a transfer of power from the British to the European level, we would want an in/out referendum, and we would legislate to make that possible in the event of our having a majority in Parliament.

The Conservative position has flip-flopped dramatically. The position in the Conservative manifesto was enacted in the European Union Act 2011, yet within a year and a few months the Prime Minister was expounding a completely different position. Even that has changed between his speech and this Bill, because the question has changed from whether to remain in the European Union to whether to be in the European Union. [Interruption.]

[Mr Deputy Speaker (Mr Lindsay Hoyle)]

Order. Many conversations are going on. I know that not many people may be agreeing with Mr Horwood, but I would certainly like to hear what he has to say.

[Martin Horwood]

I am very grateful, Mr Deputy Speaker. The chances of the Conservative party getting as far as 2017 without changing its policy again are pretty slim. Let me reinforce that point. Only 19 months ago, the Prime Minister said:

“That, for me, in a parliamentary democracy, is the right use of a referendum. However, as we are not signing a treaty, I think that the whole issue of a referendum does not arise.”

He continued by saying that

“there is a role for referendums in a parliamentary democracy, but that comes at the moment when a Government or a Parliament proposes to give up power, rather than at other times.”—[Official Report, 12 December 2011; Vol. 537, c. 535-549.]

That is precisely the Liberal Democrat position and has been for some time.

We are not going to oppose this Bill, but we are not content to support it because there is a long list of problems with it. Legislation already in force—the Political Parties, Elections and Referendums Act 2000—is supposed to lay down the procedure under which we hold referendums and, for example, the role of the Electoral Commission in helping to determine the question. This Bill is pre-empting any decision by the Electoral Commission and it does not even appear to comply or be consistent with the 2000 Act. I do not know whether the draftsmen had forgotten that that Act existed.

Then there is the question of the franchise, which has also been referred to—

[Mr John Redwood (Wokingham) (Con)]

Will the hon. Gentleman give way?

[Martin Horwood]

I do not think I had better. I am really looking forward to seeing the variety of different Conservative positions being expounded in the remainder of the debate, and if I give way to everybody—[Interruption.] Somebody is telling me to keep it short, and I think that the best way to do that is not to give way on every point.

The Bill also needs to deal with a problem relating to the franchise. Some 1.4 million British citizens reside elsewhere than in the UK, but according to the terms of the Bill the referendum will be based on the Westminster franchise. As far as I can tell, that has only about 19,000 registered overseas voters, so more than 1 million Britons, whose lives will be fundamentally affected by this change—they are British passport holders resident in other parts of the EU—will be disfranchised in this referendum. By this formula, the Bill will give votes to Cypriot and Maltese citizens living in this country, because under the Westminster franchise Commonwealth citizens have the vote, but it will not give the vote to French, Italian or German citizens. So there are a lot of inconsistencies, and this issue has not been debated at all so far.

The House of Commons Library briefing also raised the question of whether or not the Bill is even legally binding. Even the hon. Member for Stockton South (James Wharton) has conceded that this parliamentary vote would not bind its successor Parliament and further parliamentary votes, probably on secondary legislation, would be required to give effect to the referendum in any case.

[Mr Baron]

The hon. Gentleman has now made one of the longest speeches. May I ask him, with all due respect: could he please cut it short, if only because a long list of Members also wish to speak?

[Martin Horwood]

I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman for his advice, which should probably have come from the Chair rather than him. There is a slight problem, however, as most of my time has been taken up responding to interventions from his colleagues, so perhaps he should encourage them to be a little quieter.

The problems continue. The uncertainty that the Bill creates for business is clear, even if we make a number of big assumptions about the referendum process: first, that the Conservative Front Bench will not change its position between now and 2017, but having changed it three times in two years, that is a big assumption; secondly, that the timetable for the referendum does not have to be changed in any case, although we may find in 2017 that we are in the middle of a renegotiation or treaty change process resulting from changes in the eurozone, and at such a juncture, it would be nonsense to hold a referendum, as another referendum might be provoked in only a matter of months or years, so we would not really know what we were voting for in those circumstances; and finally, if the political landscape had not completely changed in any case we might have a different Government with different priorities and there might be a recovery in the European economy, and we may find votes for the UK Independence party subsiding and that Europe is not quite such a big priority—it is not a terribly big priority for most voters according to existing polls—so the idea of spending yet more hundreds of hours of parliamentary time banging on about Europe might not seem quite as appealing.

Even if all of that is true, and we move towards a referendum by 2017, that still condemns British business and British jobs to four years of uncertainty—what a message to send to investors. The CBI is quoted in the Independent newspaper, i, this morning, and raises the problem of the uncertainty caused for British business:

“British businesses don’t want to find themselves at the margins of the world’s largest trading bloc operating under market rules over which they have no influence.”

That is the prospect that we are going to live with, unresolved, apparently for up to four years. That is one of the problems with the Bill. This morning, The Daily Telegraph, I think, quoted the leader of the Norwegian Conservative party, who pointed out that the supposed solution of the UK trying to have a status more or less equivalent to Norway’s was worse than being in the EU. Norway pays hundreds of billions of euros to the European Union for access to the single European market, and finds out about the rules through so-called fax democracy.

There are many, many problems with the Bill, which does not really resolve the main question. It is, as we all really know—rather like Harold Wilson’s Bill in the 1970s—about papering over the cracks in the Conservative party itself. It will not really work. The Prime Minister has spelled out a reasonably modest set of ambitions for renegotiation that will never satisfy many of his Back Benchers, who clearly want to use a much more ambitious and unilateral agenda for negotiation as something that will provide them with an excuse to campaign for exit.

UK businesses have access to free trade in the world’s largest single market, worth nearly £11 trillion in gross domestic product, with over 500 million consumers. One in 10 British jobs are linked to the single market. Some £495 billion-worth of British trade is with other EU member states. To put that in jeopardy—

[Mr Baron]

On a point of order, Mr Deputy Speaker. With the greatest respect, would you remind Members that this is a debate about the principle of a referendum, not the relative merits of being in or out of the EU?

[Mr Deputy Speaker (Mr Lindsay Hoyle)]

I can see frustrations building up in the Chamber. I think that Mr Horwood is trying to give us an encompassing view of why the referendum may be good or bad. I am sure that even he recognises that a lot of people wish to speak, and hopefully we can move on. In the meantime, it is Martin Horwood.

[Martin Horwood]

Thank you very much, Mr Deputy Speaker. I shall draw my remarks to a close. Even if hon. Members do not listen to me, and even if they do not listen to the leader of the Norwegian Conservative party, or even the CBI, perhaps they should just listen to what the Prime Minister himself said in that speech. In the end he moved on to the main question, which is whether in an in/out referendum we would be campaigning to stay in or out. The Prime Minister said:

“Of course Britain could make her own way in the world, outside the EU, if we chose to do so. So could any other Member State. But the question we will have to ask ourselves is this: is that the very best future for our country?”

He went on:

“Continued access to the Single Market is vital for British businesses and British jobs...being part of the Single Market has been key to that success...There are some who suggest we could turn ourselves into Norway or Switzerland—with access to the single market but outside the EU. But would that really be in our best interests?

I admire those countries and they are friends of ours—but they are very different from us. Norway sits on the biggest energy reserves in Europe, and has a sovereign wealth fund of over 500 billion euros. And while Norway is part of the single market—and pays for the principle—it has no say at all in setting its rules: it just has to implement its directives.”

The Prime Minister obviously is not really willing to risk millions of British jobs by voting no. This is a delaying tactic to get us past the next election. The Liberal Democrats are not willing to risk millions of British jobs by voting no. Europe means jobs, and we should not put those jobs in jeopardy.

13:05

[Graham Stringer (Blackley and Broughton) (Lab)]

There have been many articulate and clever speeches during this debate. I exclude the last speech from that.

It seems to me a straightforward matter. This House, by signing various treaties, has taken away from the British people the right to throw out the rascals who are making their laws. It is time, after those treaties, that the people were given a chance to have that say in a referendum. My party’s position on a referendum can, I hope, be improved. We can have no principled objections to a referendum: it was the Labour party that first gave the people the chance to vote on the then EEC. We said in our 2005 manifesto that people would have a vote on the European constitution. Unfortunately, when the name of that constitution was changed to the Lisbon treaty, the vote was denied them. That was a huge mistake and is one of the reasons why the people of this country have lost trust.

In the argument against those who say we do not need a referendum, three or four reasons have been given for why we need a referendum. One is uncertainty. That is the most perverse reason. There is uncertainty because 80% of the British people want a referendum and they are surprised that we cannot come to a conclusion about when that referendum should be and what the question should be. The debate would not go away and the uncertainty would not decrease if we opposed the Bill today.

The second reason given, which is related to the uncertainty argument, is that British business is opposed to a referendum and jobs would go. That would be a more compelling case if I had not heard exactly those arguments about joining the euro—that all the car factories would go if we did not join the euro.

[Kelvin Hopkins]

Will my hon. Friend give way?

[Graham Stringer]

I will give way briefly and only this time.

[Kelvin Hopkins]

I thank my hon. Friend. The economic arguments that I have heard today are nonsense. We have a gigantic trade deficit with the rest of the European Union, equivalent to a million jobs. We must do something about it and we will not do that simply by giving in to the European Union.

[Graham Stringer]

I agree. The arguments lack quantification—that would be one way of putting it. On the notion that the European Union is an unalloyed good idea for jobs, have people not been watching what the euro is doing not just to those countries that are in the euro, which are getting into a competitive deflationary situation, but to countries such as ours which trade with Europe? Hundreds of thousands and millions of jobs are being destroyed by the European Union. It is not helpful to our economy. A referendum would be the start of saying to the European Union, “This cannot carry on. You are damaging the whole of the European Union’s economy.”

[Karl Turner (Kingston upon Hull East) (Lab)]

Will my hon. Friend give way?

[Graham Stringer]

No. A lot of people want to speak.

I will vote for the Bill today. It is not a perfect Bill. I hope that it can be amended to bring the date forward, which would help with uncertainty. One reason for that is that whatever good motives people might have to renegotiate our position within the European Union, that is not possible. Most of the problems that we have with the European Union are enshrined in the treaties. Do hon. Members really think that Ireland, Germany, Italy and the newer members of the EU, many of whom have to have referendums before they can take a decision on the constitution, will vote to change the treaty of Rome, or of Lisbon, Nice, Amsterdam, Maastricht, or any of the others? Many of the powers that have gone from this Chamber have gone through those treaties. I do not believe that renegotiation is possible.

Some hon. Members have said that the electorates and leadership of other European countries want changes similar to those that we want. I simply do not believe that. Many European Union countries are happy with ever-closer union, for quite valid reasons. Many of them have been through a period of fascism or communism, or some lack of democracy, and, rightly or wrongly, they see the European Union as protecting them against that. They do not see their future in the way that we do as a trading nation. The trade of 90% of EU countries is within the EU. Only 50% of this country’s trade, a declining amount, is with the European Union.

A great deal more could be said on this issue, but it is fundamental to the relationship between this House and the people of this country that they are given a chance to vote. The Bill can be improved. They will eventually get a vote, one way or the other, during the next four or five years. We might as well do it willingly and thoughtfully.

[Several hon. Members]

rose—

[Mr Deputy Speaker (Mr Lindsay Hoyle)]

Order. If we have very short speeches, most hon. Members will be able to speak.

13:12

[Gordon Henderson (Sittingbourne and Sheppey) (Con)]

There are a number of good reasons why we should remain members of the European Union, and there are more reasons why we should not. But as a number of hon. Members have said, we are not here to discuss those; we are here to discuss the referendum. This debate is about whether we should allow the British public to decide once and for all whether we should remain members.

In many ways it saddens me that the Bill has been introduced. Under normal circumstances, political parties set out their policies at election time, and if elected are expected to deliver those policies. But with Europe it is different, because the British public simply no longer trust politicians to deliver on their promises. The public are cynical, and rightly so. The Bill is designed to show that on this occasion the Conservative party really does mean business and will deliver on its promise to hold an in/out referendum in 2017 if it is elected.

But why are the British public so cynical? It is because they have been denied a say for so long. It is worth remembering that when Britain joined the European Economic Community in 1972, the British people were not consulted. In 1993, the Maastricht treaty changed the name of the EEC to the European Union. As my hon. Friend the Member for Stone (Mr Cash) reminded us earlier, that represented not just a superficial name change, but a fundamental change in the whole entity of the European beast. The British people were not asked their opinion in a referendum. During the Labour party’s 13 years in government, the treaties of Amsterdam, Nice and Lisbon were all ratified. The British people were not asked their opinion in a referendum, despite each of those treaties seeing more powers transferred to the EU.

It is true that in 1975 there was a referendum to determine whether Britain should remain in the EEC. Like many other people I voted yes, believing that Britain had joined an intergovernmental, free-market trading bloc. But then I was young and naive in 1975.

[David Simpson (Upper Bann) (DUP)]

Will the hon. Gentleman give way?

[Gordon Henderson]

I hope that the hon. Gentleman will forgive me, but I do not want to take any interventions.

Since 1975, Britain’s relationship with Europe has changed beyond all recognition, and in a way that no one in this country could have envisaged. Had I known then that Britain was embarking on a 38-year journey of political integration, I would sooner have cut off my right arm than vote yes. I am sure that many other people of my generation feel the same way. It is inconceivable that only 30 years after the end of the second world war, the British people would have willingly embarked on a programme to hand over swathes of their hard-won sovereignty to another state, and let us be clear: that is what the European Union aspires to be.

[Mr Redwood]

Will my hon. Friend give way?

[Gordon Henderson]

I am sorry, but I am not going to give way at all.

We have not had a referendum on our relationship with the EU since 1975, which is why, sadly, many people feel betrayed. In turn, that is why anger at, resentment towards and distrust of politicians is growing. People in my constituency feel ignored by, and disengaged from, those they consider to be the political elite in this country. People in Sittingbourne and Sheppey are frustrated that even though all three major parties have promised referendums at one time or another, they have been denied another referendum for over 30 years. They have heard enough promises; what they want is action. They want an in/out referendum, and they want it as soon as possible. If this House delivers that referendum, we will have gone some way towards winning back the public’s trust and engagement.

I support a referendum not because I believe that it is a hobby-horse of those of us on the centre-right in this House, but because I believe that it is in tune with the views of the majority of the British people. It is certainly the view of the majority in Sittingbourne and Sheppey. Support for a referendum is based not on right-wing ideology, but on common ideology. It is the ideology of the great British public. It is the ideology of the majority of my constituents and those of many other right hon. and hon. Members. Let me be truthful: in an ideal world, I would like a referendum as soon as possible, preferably at the time of the next general election, but I am realistic enough to know that is unlikely to happen, so a guaranteed referendum in 2017 is the next best thing, which is why I will be supporting the Bill.

13:17

[Ms Gisela Stuart (Birmingham, Edgbaston) (Lab)]

Napoleon said, “When you see your enemy tearing himself apart, don’t interrupt him.” Therefore, it is with some reluctance that I am here today, given that one of the most powerful points that has been made is that the whole reason we need this Bill is because the Conservative party does not trust its own Prime Minister to implement legislation after the next general election. Let us be clear about that. Also, if anyone doubts my credentials on demanding a referendum, I should explain that I think I was almost threatened with being thrown out of the Labour party in 2003-04 when I campaigned for one, so I will take no lessons from anyone on that.

I think that a referendum is necessary, and with regard to the timing, we will give people a meaningful choice. That takes me to one subject that has not been mentioned so far: the existence of the euro and the euro crisis. There are developments taking place in the European Union at the moment that to all intents and purposes already leave Britain out, because if we have no intention of joining the single currency, the greater and deeper integration that will be required by those member states that are part of it will marginalise Britain and push us to a level where we will have to renegotiate our relationship with the new European framework.

That takes me to another very important point. I think that this is a wretched little Bill—it is pathetic that the Prime Minister could not introduce his own Bill—notwithstanding the absolutely brilliant speech from the hon. Member for Stockton South (James Wharton). It is a private Member’s Bill that packed the House, and the way he responded was brilliant. It puts me in mind of Graham Greene’s “The Power and the Glory”, with the whisky priest and the question of whether an impure messenger can deliver a pure message.

[Mr Frank Field]

Or the opposite.

[Ms Stuart]

In this case it is the opposite. On this occasion, I think that the pure messenger should be allowed to go in peace on his battle and to take his message forward. I will not vote against the Bill. In a sense, I wish him well. As for the House, I wish to make one observation.

[Mr Redwood]

Will the hon. Lady give way?

[Ms Stuart]

Yes.

[Mr Redwood]

I am grateful to the hon. Lady, who has great credentials. Does she agree that any future Government will have to negotiate a new relationship because of the power of the euro and its impulsion towards federalism?

[Ms Stuart]

Yes, they will.

That takes me on to the one thought that I want people to take away with them, which seems to have been forgotten. We have slipped into basing this on whether we are going to vote for or against, but we will have plenty of time to make our decision on that. In debating the arguments for and against a referendum, what if we were to substitute the words “general election”? Who in this place would stand here and say, “We can’t possibly have a general election—it would be really bad for the economy, it would be really costly, it would affect business.” Every so often in the democratic process we have general elections, and we must apply the same principle to something as significant as this. We have reached the point when people will have to be asked, and we cannot duck it.

13:20

[Mr John Baron (Basildon and Billericay) (Con)]

I add my congratulations to my hon. Friend the Member for Stockton South (James Wharton) on securing this Bill. He has consulted widely on the Bill’s make-up, which has done him and it credit. I am sure that he will prove that we can address the issue of Europe and still do well, even when representing a marginal seat. Many commentators do not realise that although Europe, as a subject on its own, may rank only 10th or 12th in people’s order of preferences, it is very much entwined with our conversations about the economy or immigration. That is a fact, as we know when we knock on the doors in our constituencies.

The Bill is absolutely right and long overdue. As many hon. Members have said, the public have been waiting for too long to express their view on whether the UK should remain a member of the EU, because the EU has fundamentally changed since we first joined it in 1973. We were told then that the emphasis was on free trade, but it has since morphed, bit by bit, into one of ever-closer political union—a process that has resulted, over a period of time, in the salami-slicing of our sovereignty.

[David Simpson]

Will the hon. Gentleman give way?

[Mr Baron]

I am going to crack on and be quick. I want to speak for just a couple of minutes because I am conscious that other Members want to speak as well. I hope the hon. Gentleman will forgive me.

The EU is now seen as too meddlesome in our everyday lives, too burdensome for our businesses, especially small and medium-sized enterprises, and too costly for our taxpayers. Yet the political establishment in this country has, in essence, closed ranks over the past 30 years and denied the people their say. That is fundamentally wrong. They have not had a genuine choice about this at any of the general elections of the past 30 years or so. This arrogant and somewhat condescending approach by the political elite has not gone unnoticed by the electorate. I therefore congratulate the Prime Minister on being the first political leader to offer an in/out referendum; I am convinced that other leaders will follow suit. I also thank him for listening to his Back Benchers, the party faithful, and, most importantly, the country as a whole in embracing the idea of a referendum in the next Parliament and legislation in this one. This party has moved closer to the electorate, and it is now up to the other parties to decide whether they are going to step up to the plate.

Legislation is terribly important because it is more believable than election manifesto promises. There is a deep public scepticism when people hear promises being made by politicians about the EU, because too many have been broken in the past. They remember Blair’s promises on the EU constitution and Lisbon, when a referendum never materialised. They remember—or are constantly reminded, I should say—of Liberal Democrat promises at every general election on the need for a real referendum, which, strangely, never materialise even when they share power.

[Martin Horwood]

rose—

[Mr Baron]

No, I have spoken for too long already.

In conclusion, I take issue with the right hon. Member for Southampton, Itchen (Mr Denham), who is no longer in his place. He claimed that, because I had suggested that this historic pledge by the Prime Minister was unbelievable—I have great respect for the hon. Member for Birmingham, Edgbaston (Ms Stuart), but I am afraid she was absolutely wrong about this—I was somehow criticising the Prime Minister. Let me make it absolutely clear for the record that, having congratulated the Prime Minister on his January speech, I then went on to say:

“However, where the Prime Minister’s pledge falls down is its believability. British voters are deeply sceptical of politicians making promises on Europe: too many have been broken in the past.

People bitterly recall Labour’s broken promise…on the EU Constitution…and they also remember…the Liberal Democrats’ 2010 Election manifesto.

Passing paving legislation in this parliament for a referendum in the next would be a concrete way of demonstrating serious intent.”

That was what I said in the article that the right hon. Gentleman took out of all context.

This is an issue not of trust between the Prime Minister and his Back Benchers—I have no doubt we will get an in/out referendum in 2017—but of trust between politicians in general and the electorate, for understandable reasons given our lamentable record in keeping good our promises.

This brings us to the nub of the issue. What will Labour and the Liberals do? Will they support this Bill? Will they honour past promises to the electorate? Will they allow the electorate their say, or are they still stuck in the mindset of the previous political establishment, which could not trust the electorate with this issue? Time will tell, but I say this to them: ignore the electorate at your peril. I suggest that they do what is best for the country and I predict that the Labour party in particular will change its position on this issue before the next general election.

13:26

[Mr Frank Field (Birkenhead) (Lab)]

I, like my hon. Friend the Member for Birmingham, Edgbaston (Ms Stuart), congratulate the hon. Member for Stockton South (James Wharton) on proposing the Bill. I have been in the House for a number of decades and if I could give a speech as good as he gave today I would be pleased. To do it in almost his maiden speech was simply stunning, and to have had the Prime Minister sitting on the Front Bench listening to his gifts of delivery cannot have done his future career any harm whatsoever.

[Karl Turner]

Three and a half million jobs, Frank.

[Mr Field]

That sort of intervention is pathetic. I think it is quite reasonable to congratulate the hon. Member for Stockton South. If we think that we can win elections by not recognising the truth and paying tribute to people, our time in politics is wasted.

I have one point to make, which is to echo what my right hon. Friend the Member for Leicester East (Keith Vaz) said. We are going to have a referendum and the question for Labour is whether we reach that point gracefully or reluctantly. We now need to move beyond this debate and set out the terms of how sovereignty can be redrawn between us and Europe. That is my single plea. This is the easy part of the debate where we ask whether we should have a referendum or not. We clearly are going to have one, so we now have some very serious work to do.

I end by echoing what the hon. Member for Richmond Park (Zac Goldsmith) said—I hope he has a large majority; otherwise I will be accused of helping him, too—namely that this is a matter not just of us trusting the British voters, but of the possibility of them trusting us a little bit more in return, and my God, we are in need of that.

13:28

[Priti Patel (Witham) (Con)]

It is an honour to follow the distinguished right hon. Member for Birkenhead (Mr Field), with whom I agree. I also add my congratulations to my hon. Friend the Member for Stockton South (James Wharton) on proposing the Bill and on his box-office performance in his opening speech. If anyone in the Chamber has any doubt, he has my full support and I will back the Bill from beginning to end. My constituents have been waiting for a referendum on this issue for far too long.

The Bill gives the British public an important opportunity to have their say on how this country has been treated by Europe and by British Governments over the past 40 years. During that time, it is clear that more powers and far too much public money have been surrendered to Brussels. This Parliament’s sovereignty has been eroded decade after decade just to satisfy the demands of Europe’s political elite, who follow their dogmatic desire for ever-closer union, rather than putting the interests of our country and hard-pressed taxpayers first. Money has been squandered on wasteful and expensive initiatives and billions have been ploughed into the organisation year on year.

Let us be clear that the Bill is about giving a referendum and a say to the British public. For far too long, our taxpayers have been pillaged and hard-pressed families and businesses across the country have been subjected to far too much regulation and red tape by the European Union. It is not just costs, but laws that have been imposed on us. My hon. Friend the Member for Basildon and Billericay (Mr Baron) spoke about the immigration rules that have been imposed on us. We have not had a say. It is about time that we trusted the British public.

As well as enabling us to debate the future of our relationship with the EU, the Bill serves as a test of how the political parties in this country treat the public. On the one hand, the Labour party and the Liberal Democrats have conspired to cheat the British public out of the referendum that was promised on the Lisbon treaty. Those parties would surrender more powers to Brussels and adopt the euro. However, they prefer to abstain on the Bill and call it a stunt than to engage the public in a true democratic process by giving them a say. We live in an era when the public are given referendums on local neighbourhood plans, whether to adopt elected mayors and whether the parliamentary voting system should be changed, so frankly it is a scandal that the Labour party and the Lib Dems are living in the past and showing nothing but contempt for the public. Yet again, they are unable to trust the British public.

By contrast, it is this party—a united Conservative party—that is giving the public the chance to have a referendum. We want to empower the public to decide how they should be governed and who should govern them. In doing so, we are continuing our proud tradition of putting the British interest first in Europe. One lady who did that was, of course, Margaret Thatcher. She won the rebate for this country. Shamefully, it was abandoned by the Labour party. The current Prime Minister has vetoed a treaty and secured a reduction in the EU budget, unlike the Labour party.

On this historic day, Conservative MPs can take Britain one step closer to holding a referendum and trusting the people to decide their destiny when it comes to Britain and the European Union.

13:32

[Wayne David (Caerphilly) (Lab)]

This morning, I was in the Tea Room. It was packed with salivating Tories. The atmosphere was that of a students’ refectory before a students union debate: full of impotent expectation. I say impotent because the Bill is a constitutional nonsense, as we all surely realise.

The Prime Minister has made it clear that if we have a Conservative Government after the next election—God forbid—he will renegotiate Britain’s membership of the EU and then hold a referendum. He is supporting the Bill because it is about a referendum in the next Parliament. However, as we all know, it is constitutionally impossible for this Parliament to make a decision that binds a future Parliament.

What we are engaged in today is a pantomime. The Bill is not about the country’s needs. It is another bone for Eurosceptics to gnaw away at until they eventually go blue in the face. I am sad because this pantomime is also a tragedy. The Bill poses a grave risk to the economic interests of this country. I very much regret that the Prime Minister and Conservative party are more concerned about that party’s internal politics than about the best interests of the people of this country. In seeking to place a question mark over Britain’s membership of the European Union, the Bill creates enormous strategic uncertainty for Britain’s place in the single market. As Sir Martin Sorrell, chief executive of the advertising group WPP, said in response to the Prime Minister’s Bloomberg speech, it is

“another reason why people will postpone investment decisions”.

[Mr Stewart Jackson (Peterborough) (Con)]

Will the hon. Gentleman give way?

[Wayne David]

Time is short so I will not. The Bill seeks to create four long years of damaging uncertainty about Britain’s future relationship with the single market. In so doing, it maximises the possibility of the UK no longer being seen as a sound location for inward investment. Let me be clear: the single market is of central economic importance to this country and 3.5 million jobs depend on that market—150,000 in my country of Wales. Some companies say that leaving the European Union will make no difference, but many others hold a profoundly different view. The Smiths Group of advanced technologies, the Weir Group of leading engineering businesses, easyJet, Ford and Toyota have all expressed concerns at the idea of the United Kingdom not having access to the single European market.

As the Financial Times stated in January, “many” entrepreneurs “strongly support” Britain remaining part of the European Union. We would be profoundly mistaken to put at risk this country’s economic well-being for the interests of the Conservative party.

13:36

[Adam Afriyie (Windsor) (Con)]

It is not surprising that most people want this referendum. Seven out of 10 people have never had a say on our relationship with Europe, and nobody has had a say on our relationship with the European Union—it did not exist in 1975. It is striking that people generally want a referendum sooner rather than later, and the beauty of the Bill is that it sets a longstop date but does not close down the possibility of holding a referendum sooner than 2017. I commend my hon. Friend the Member for Stockton South (James Wharton) for ensuring that that was the case.

Right now our Government should be preparing the ground and putting our best and most urgent efforts into renegotiation. Businesses across the country want us to fight their corner; people want to know that their Government are already fighting to get control of our borders. Business needs certainty, people need certainty—as a minimum, they must be certain of when the uncertainty will end. People also need to know that Britain is ready for the results of a referendum, so let us do the work now. There is nothing to stop the Government and the civil service doing the ground work. Tell us what leaving or staying in the EU might mean. Tell us that leaving is a possibility. Alongside the Bill, why not publish an audit of the costs and benefits of EU membership, sooner rather than later? Those are all activities we can undertake now.

In conclusion, Conservatives led the way forward in the past by securing a rebate from the EU budget, and we led the way in securing a cut in the EU budget. Let us lead the way again today, but this time not only the Conservatives. Let the whole Parliament lead the way in giving the British people a say on a future relationship with the European Union.

13:38

[Kate Hoey (Vauxhall) (Lab)]

May I add my congratulations to the hon. Member for Stockton South (James Wharton) on winning the ballot and promoting this Bill? I know that many of his colleagues would have loved to be No. 1—indeed, a few Labour Members would have liked to come first and promote the very same Bill. We might have elicited more support from the Labour Benches if one of us had done that, but I am not sure.

I have heard a lot today about how one party or another is playing politics, but as far as I am concerned, those who suffer when party politics are played on any side are the public. The only people who will suffer if this Bill is not supported will be the public who have wanted a referendum for many years.

[David Simpson]

On that point, does the hon. Lady agree that the general public want a level playing field in Europe? They have not seen that for many years, and this referendum will give them their say.

[Kate Hoey]

To me, this referendum is not just about politicians trusting the people, but about people beginning to trust us again, as the hon. Member for Richmond Park (Zac Goldsmith) said. Looking at the records of all the political parties on Europe over the last 20 years, the public find there is not much that they can trust in what any of the political parties have said. That is precisely why we need this legislation.

Of course, the Bill will not bind the next Government. If my party is in power after the next election, I will continue to campaign for a referendum. I hope it will be recognised that any party that goes into the next election without offering the people the chance of a referendum will not be looked on very well. I am therefore confident, as some of my colleagues are, that our party will change its mind on this, just as it changed its mind on the euro and a number of other issues relating to legislation that has been introduced.

It is common sense that we need a referendum. Europe has changed so much—I will not go through all the different treaties. No one under the age of 55 has had a say on this. It is just scandalous to think that any party can sit around and abstain on an issue like this. What is the point? I genuinely cannot understand why we want to abstain, other than to say that we are playing into the hands of the Conservatives. I do not think I am playing into the hands of the Conservatives by voting for this Bill today; I am playing into the hands of my constituents and the British public, who want a referendum. I appeal to Members from my party not to abstain. This is not necessarily the Bill that will finally get consent in this House; there will be amendments—I personally would like a referendum sooner rather than later.

I want to read out two simple letters from the many that I have received over the last week or two since the Bill was published:

“As one of your constituents I am asking you to listen to my voice, and the voice of millions of others, who believe it’s time that the British people were given a say on Britain’s membership of the European Union.

This is not about party politics or the next general election.

It’s about democracy, and giving people a chance to decide whether the EU is right or wrong for Britain.”

The next letter says:

“Thanks for your stance on a referendum, we do appreciate being treated like adults, despite what”

some other Members of Parliament are saying.

I feel strongly that this Bill sends a message today, 40 years after we originally joined the Common Market, that we are in a new century and a new era. Europe has changed. Our country now needs to make that final decision about whether our future will be in Europe or whether we can see a better future outside Europe. We will be vilified by the establishment—anyone who has tried to speak out on Europe over the years has been vilified. The mantra of the European Union elite has always been “Ever-closer union”. They will not allow such minor concerns as the opinion of the public to interfere in referendum decisions. Over and over again, decisions are quietly pushed through in Europe. We have to speak out. Now is the time for this Parliament to say, “We want to govern our own country; we want to have a referendum,” and let the public decide.

13:43

[Sir Edward Leigh (Gainsborough) (Con)]

This is an historic day. For the first time in nearly 40 years, a major political party of Government is united in its commitment to give the British people a choice as to whether they stay in the EU. That is the important part of this debate.

The Prime Minister and the Government have been criticised for not introducing a Government Bill. Let us be absolutely clear: there is only one party that is stopping this Bill being a Government Bill or having time, and that is the Liberal party. Let us be clear also that the Liberals gave a solemn promise at the last election to have an in/out referendum. They gave that promise only because they thought then that they would win it. They are now reneging on that promise, so this is down to them.

This is only a private Member’s Bill. Despite the fact that we all salute our hon. Friend the Member for Stockton South (James Wharton) for the way he has introduced it, its likely progress reminds me of the games of Cluedo I used to play as a boy. In about nine or 10 months’ time, the body of my hon. Friend with his Bill will be found dead in the morning room with daggers in his back, but nobody will claim responsibility for killing his Bill. It will not be the Rev. Yellow Cleggo or Comrade Scarlet, but my hon. Friend’s Bill will be dead. The responsibility for the British people being denied a referendum will not lie with us.

Sooner or later, the Liberal party and the Labour party will have to come clean with the British people and offer a referendum, as we are offering a referendum. When the Bill is finally talked out on some dark rainy night or morning, probably in the other place, and when we have ensured that all the other private Members’ Bills are slaughtered to make way for it, we will have to go back to the Government and say to our partners in coalition, “Give us a Government Bill.” If our partners refuse to give us that Bill, that will be an excellent platform on which to fight the next general election. We will remind the people again and again who killed the Bill by talking it out.

We must start negotiating now. There are so many fundamental issues—on our fisheries, on our farming and on our trade—that need to be worked out. I am confident that there will be a referendum. I fear that our partners in Europe will make very few concessions. I fear that the French will not be prepared to give us more freedom on agriculture, and I fear that the Spanish will not be prepared to give us more freedom on fishing. I fear that we will make very little progress, but we will try our best and the decision will then go to the British people.

[Geoffrey Clifton-Brown]

Will my hon. Friend give way?

[Sir Edward Leigh]

No, I am going to finish now.

When we get to that point, unless major concessions are made I, like many other Conservatives, will campaign for this country once more to be free. Why should this country not once again be in charge of its own destiny? Why should we not be part of a genuine free trade area? That is our vision of a free and prosperous nation, and that is what we will put to the British people.

[Mr Deputy Speaker (Mr Lindsay Hoyle)]

As much brevity as possible, Andrew Miller.

13:46

[Andrew Miller (Ellesmere Port and Neston) (Lab)]

The national interest is now measured by the interests of the Conservative party. I find that extraordinary, but not surprising.

I intervened on my right hon. Friend the Member for Southampton, Itchen (Mr Denham) pointing out that there was no reference to UKIP in the speeches of either the hon. Member for Stockton South (James Wharton) or the Foreign Secretary. I was surprised earlier when I had a conversation in the Tea Room with the Minister for Europe. I asked him whether he was leading on the Bill. He said, “No, William is,” and I made the wrong assumption that he meant the hon. Member for Stone (Mr Cash). He corrected me.

I want to make one serious point. I am not opposed to a referendum. I have sat through the debate and listened carefully to all the contributions. At the beginning, my hon. Friend the Member for Bolsover (Mr Skinner) asked what about next year? My hon. Friend the Member for Blackpool South (Mr Marsden) pointed out that the Bill will mean four years of uncertainty, and it is that uncertainty that causes me serious concern.

[Andrew Bridgen]

Will the hon. Gentleman give way?

[Andrew Miller]

No, I am not going to give way.

My constituency is dominated by manufacturing companies that have a strong presence in Europe: 88% of vehicles produced in the Vauxhall factory end up in mainland Europe. We are trying to incentivise the supply chain in the automotive sector, and in a range of other industries, to come to the UK. During the four-year period, there will be key investment decisions. My worry, when we talk to people in China and the far east about bringing supply chains back to Europe, is that if there is uncertainty about Britain’s place in Europe, they will be more likely to place their investments in mainland Europe. That needs to be considered during the passage of the Bill. If we are to have a referendum, I plead with the House to do it quickly and get it over with, so that the manufacturing sector does not face uncertainty. If we go on in the way we are, with this vague date in the future—at least four years—I worry intensely about the impact on manufacturing.

I started my political life way back in the ’60s, and in the ’70s I found myself on the opposite side to the hon. Member for Stone. I campaigned vigorously about not joining the EU. I realised by the 1980s that our economy had become inextricably linked with the EU. That remains my view. We should be working out a way that carries on building our relationships with Europe, but, yes, there have to be some strong negotiations about the issues that hon. Members have legitimately raised today. I urge the House to think about these points as the Bill goes through.

13:50

[Jackie Doyle-Price (Thurrock) (Con)]

I will endeavour to be brief. I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Stockton South (James Wharton) on his articulate, professional introduction of this excellent Bill. I hope that I am able to support him all the way to Royal Assent.

I want to remark on the timetable for this referendum. We have heard a lot of talk about those who want a vote now. That is fine, for those who are of the view that our current relationship with Europe is satisfactory or for those just want to leave the EU, but the reality is that most of the British people, and most of the Conservative party, are in the same space as me, thinking that there can be a role and a constructive relationship with Europe, but that at the moment it is not right. Europe simply has too much power. We need the opportunity to seek a renegotiation and put that to the British people.

It is important that we give the British people their say. As has been said, there has been one referendum, seeking consent for membership of a common market. That was all the British people signed up to, but we now find that we are part of a political union that interferes in all aspects of our lives. The British people do not like it. It will be bad for the body politic if we do not get behind my hon. Friend’s Bill and endorse the concept of a referendum, but that referendum must follow a debate about what we think our relationship with Europe should look like. It is time that this country took charge of its relationship with Europe and made it work in our best interests.

This Bill, if it receives a Second Reading today, will strengthen the Prime Minister’s hand in any negotiations. It will tell Europe that we mean business and that we are determined to get our powers back. The Prime Minister can then say, quite categorically, “We don’t want any more interference in our employment laws. We don’t want any more benefit tourists. We don’t want any more messing around in our criminal justice system. We want our sovereignty back.” The British people simply will not support a relationship with Europe until it gets back to what it was set up for: trade and trade only.

This relationship is far too important to be decided purely by Members of this House. This is about Britain and its place in the world and we must let the people of Britain decide.

13:52

[Kelvin Hopkins (Luton North) (Lab)]

I have not got much time. First, I congratulate the hon. Member for Stockton South (James Wharton) on his Bill and his excellent speech promoting it. I will certainly be voting for it later. However, I want the Bill to propose a referendum in this Parliament, and as soon as possible, because that is what my voters want and what the country wants. Four years is too long. I also want to ensure that the wording of the question is carefully phrased, so that it is not a leading question. It should give a genuine choice to voters, so that they will not be misled by the wording.

Millions of Labour voters want a referendum as well. Thousands of my constituents want a vote, too. I have evidence of that. We are speaking for millions of Labour voters—perhaps not every Labour voter, but certainly millions of them—who equally, like many Government Members, want a referendum.

I have some backing, in a sense, because four years ago I had a mini-pilot referendum in my constituency of Luton North. I publicly supported that and supported a yes vote. We got a 2:1 majority in favour of a referendum. Subsequent to that, I won my seat in 2010—interestingly, with a swing to Labour. I am not suggesting that my support of the referendum was the cause of that, but it certainly did not do me any harm. I feel that I have personal backing from my constituency for a referendum.

I have a long track record. In 1975, I not only voted against the Common Market as it was then, but I was the agent for the no vote in Bedfordshire and campaigned hard in that referendum. At the special Labour party conference that took place before the referendum, there was a massive Labour majority in favour of getting out of the European Union. The greatest speech I have ever heard, before or since, was delivered by Michael Foot, urging us to remove ourselves from the Common Market. At that time, there was massive support among Tory MPs for staying in. If Labour has switched sides, so too have the Tories.

After the 1975 referendum we had the Single European Act, which I thought was a mistake. We had the ERM—exchange rate mechanism—disaster, which certainly was a mistake, and I predicted it beforehand. Maastricht was another mistake, as was the strangely named growth and stability pact—what growth and what stability? Then we had the euro disaster, followed by Lisbon. We have thus seen a massive shift of power from national Parliaments to Brussels, which has obviously been the design from the beginning. It is something that we have to stop and reverse.

Unemployment stands at over 12% in the eurozone—and in the European Union, I believe—and is rising. Whatever our problems, they are a lot worse for those inside the eurozone, which is proving to be a disaster. If we stay in the EU, I want to see a renegotiation that would cover getting us out of the common fisheries policy, removing ourselves from the common agricultural policy and getting rid of free movement provisions—all the things that have been mentioned today. If we do not succeed on those issues, I can tell hon. Members that I shall vote no in the referendum and vote for our exiting from the EU. I could say much more, but I have probably said enough.

13:56

[Mark Pritchard (The Wrekin) (Con)]

I rise to support the Bill and I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Stockton South (James Wharton) on his excellent speech. The Bill is very much in the national interest, and I regret that party political interests are being put first by the Labour party. I could raise many issues, but they have already been raised, so I shall raise something completely different—about our best ally, the United States of America.

Recent comments have come out of the White House and the State Department that express concerns about this country’s debate about Europe. I am pro-America; I love America; and America is our closest ally—but it is for the British people to decide our destiny, not for the United States, this current President or any future President. It is very much as a pro-American that I have risen to say that it is in the American national security interests to have a strong Britain, a sovereign Britain, an independent Britain and a Britain that is self-governed.

13:57

[Jim Dowd (Lewisham West and Penge) (Lab)]

I shall try to be as brief as possible. It is traditional to congratulate the winner of the private Members’ ballot, and I am happy to do that, although speaking as a Member who has been here for 21 years, I have never even come in the top 20. I say that with no rancour and no bitterness. I am certain that the Bill will obtain its Second Reading today, and will sail through Committee—although after that, who knows? The Bill will do so without my support, so let me briefly say why.

The fact that the hon. Member for Stockton South (James Wharton) has chosen a controversial subject should not be made into an issue for consideration. Sometimes MPs bring in private Members’ Bills and try to build a good deal of consensus behind them, so that their proposers can get them through. There are plenty of other issues, however. Provisions on capital punishment and abortion, for example, started off as private Members’ Bills, and the Hunting Act 2004 started off as a private Member’s Bill. Whether the hon. Member for Stockton South will have such a smooth ride with his Bill, I do not know.

I will not support the Bill, although together with my hon. Friend the Member for Glasgow South West (Mr Davidson) and my right hon. Friend the Member for Leicester East (Keith Vaz) I do support a referendum. I hope to persuade our Front-Bench team—I am perhaps a bit more optimistic on this than my right hon. Friend the Member for Leicester East—to adopt a rational position on the reform of the EU, eventually resulting in a referendum for the British people to decide. After all, we have only ever had one referendum on this subject, and it was provided by a Labour Government.

I will not support the Bill, first, because it is defective and incompatible with the Political Parties, Elections and Referendums Act 2000. I do not support it, secondly, because it will never be implemented. If, after 2015, there is a majority Tory Government, they are certain to change course and bring forward a different proposal—as would any other majority Government. If there is a coalition Government, we will be back exactly where we are today. Another reason is that the heart of this Bill is fruit-cake therapy for Tories, in an attempt to provide a talisman against UKIP. That is what drives this issue. A more rational, reasonable and durable approach is required.

This is an attempt to replicate Harold Wilson’s ultimately successful strategy of the early ’70s, but Harold Wilson was a far wilier operator than this Prime Minister. He devised the dissenting Ministers campaign and the referendum campaign principally to reconcile the deep divisions within the Labour party at the time and to avert a destructive split, and that was successful for nearly 10 years, but it did not prevent it. As much as anything, it was the split on the left in British politics that resulted in the hegemony of the Conservative party throughout the ’80s. The split did take place, and it took another 15 years to recover from it.

We are dealing here with fundamental political forces. The difference now is that the split is on the right of British politics. I fully expect this Bill to come back on Report in November, and I will be fascinated to see how it plays out after that.

14:00

[Mr John Whittingdale (Maldon) (Con)]

May I first join Members on both sides in congratulating my hon. Friend the Member for Stockton South (James Wharton) on a magnificent speech introducing his Bill?

My first act of political campaigning was to take part in the 1979 referendum campaign. I was not old enough to vote, I hasten to add. However, I did go around putting leaflets through doors. I did so, first, because as a Conservative I strongly believed in the free trade opportunities that the European Economic Community represented. I thought it would be good for our economy and for business. I was also in favour because of the statements in the leaflets I was putting through the doors, such as “The case for staying in the EEC”, which said that we would gain, not lose, effective sovereignty over our destiny, and that in the last resort we would be able to veto any proposal put forward in Brussels if we considered it to be against our vital national interests.

There was also the leaflet paid for by the taxpayer that went through every single door in the country which stated:

“No important new policy can be decided in Brussels or anywhere else without the consent of a British Minister answerable to a British government and British Parliament.”

Since that time, we have seen those assurances undermined time and again.

I supported the single European Act because I thought, again, that it would represent an extension of the opportunities available for British business, and I remember that from the time when I worked with Margaret Thatcher, who has been quoted several times. She was the person who signed the single European Act, and she told us she did so because of the advice given to her by the lawyers, that it was designed to achieve the single market, and once that was done it was no longer necessary and it would, essentially, come off the statute book. Unfortunately the legal advice was wrong. It was not just confined to single market measures. That phrase was interpreted to push through measures that had nothing to do with the single market. It was for that reason that she started to become opposed to the direction of the European Union, and I did, too.

Since joining this House I have voted against the Maastricht treaty, the Nice treaty, the Amsterdam treaty and the Lisbon treaty, and I have seen successive Prime Ministers from both sides come back to this House and claim triumph either because they made what was on the table slightly less damaging than it would have been or because they had managed to negotiate an opt-out for this country. It is clear that the people in the other countries of the EU have a different vision—or at least their Governments do—as to the direction we should be moving in. It is time the British people are able to express a view on the truth, not as set out in 1975, and about the direction we know the EU wants to go in.

I hope the Prime Minister is successful in negotiating a new relationship. If he succeeds in doing so, I will be cheering him and I will campaign for a yes vote, but unless we have a different type of relationship, my next campaign in a referendum will be for a no vote.

[The Parliamentary Secretary to the Treasury (Sir George Young)]

claimed to move the closure (Standing Order No. 36).

Question put forthwith, That the Question be now put.

14:04

Division 44

Ayes: 305

---

Conservative: 292
Labour: 7
Democratic Unionist Party: 5

Noes: 30

---

Labour: 30

Question put, That the Bill be now read a Second time.

14:15

Division 45

Ayes: 304

---

Conservative: 292
Labour: 6
Democratic Unionist Party: 5

Noes: 0

---

Bill read a Second time; to stand committed to a Public Bill Committee (Standing Order No. 63).

[Thomas Docherty (Dunfermline and West Fife) (Lab)]

On a point of order, Mr Deputy Speaker. As you know, a large number of colleagues on both sides of the House were unable to make a speech on Second Reading. I understand that the Bill is going to be considered in a Public Bill Committee, where it will have full scrutiny. Can you advise me on how we can draw attention to the fact that many Members were unable to contribute to today’s debate?

[Mr Deputy Speaker (Mr Lindsay Hoyle)]

First, I congratulate all right hon. and hon. Members who did speak, because 29 managed to get in, but unfortunately 18 did not, and I feel disappointed for them. In fairness, that is pretty unique for a Friday. Perhaps that has set the tone for future Fridays.

Margaret Thatcher Day Bill

Friday 5th July 2013 Commons Chamber

Second Reading

14:28

[Mr Peter Bone (Wellingborough) (Con)]

Now.

[Mr Robert Syms (Poole) (Con)]

Object.

[Mr Bone]

You cannot object; I am within the time. Mr Deputy Speaker, I appreciate the support of my Whips in this—

[Thomas Docherty (Dunfermline and West Fife) (Lab)]

On a point of order, Mr Deputy Speaker. Perhaps it would be helpful to the Government Whips if they were to read “Erskine May” to see how the process works.

[Mr Deputy Speaker (Mr Lindsay Hoyle)]

That is not a point of order, but it might have been helpful if they had struggled a little longer to get through the Lobby.

[Mr Bone]

I beg to move, That the Bill be now read a Second time.

The Bill would amend the Banking and Financial Dealings Act 1971 so that the last Monday in August is known as Margaret Thatcher day. Baroness Thatcher was without doubt one of the greatest Prime Ministers in living memory—[Interruption.]

[Mr Deputy Speaker]

Would Members please be quiet, because I am trying to hear Mr Bone. It would be helpful if those leaving the Chamber would do so quietly.

[Mr Bone]

Mrs Thatcher was a great stateswoman, a true patriot, and an inspiration to the masses. She not only did our country a great service but gave Britain back its pride and returned it to prosperity after some of the darkest economic days in recent decades. She gave us a legacy to be proud of. It is rare to find—

[Huw Irranca-Davies (Ogmore) (Lab)]

On a point of order, Mr Deputy Speaker.

[Thomas Docherty]

On a point of order, Mr Deputy Speaker.

[Mr Deputy Speaker]

This had better be a serious point of order, Mr Docherty, because we are interrupting the hon. Gentleman’s speech for the third time. Are you serious or are you not?

[Thomas Docherty]

My hon. Friend can go first.

[Mr Bone]

This was a politician with such courage and conviction—

[Huw Irranca-Davies]

On a point of order, Mr Deputy Speaker. I am seeking clarification. Having been—

14:30

The Deputy Speaker interrupted the business (Standing Order No. 11(2)).

Bill to be read a Second time on Friday 8 November.

Business without Debate

Friday 5th July 2013 Commons Chamber

EU Membership (Audit of Costs and Benefits) Bill

Motion made, That the Bill be now read a Second time.

[Hon. Members]

Object.

Bill to be read a Second time on Friday 12 July.

Specialist Printing Equipment and Materials (Offences) Bill

Motion made, That the Bill be now read a Second time.

[Hon. Members]

Object.

Bill to be read a Second time on Friday 6 September.

Committees

[Mr Deputy Speaker (Mr Lindsay Hoyle)]

With the leave of the House, we will take motions 5 and 6 together.

European Scrutiny

Ordered,

That Mr Joe Benton be discharged from the European Scrutiny Committee and Geraint Davies be added.

Transport

Ordered,

That Kwasi Kwarteng be discharged from the Transport Committee and Martin Vickers be added.—(Geoffrey Clifton-Brown, on behalf of the Committee of Selection.)

Young Fathers

Friday 5th July 2013 Commons Chamber

Motion made, and Question proposed, That this House do now adjourn.—(Mr Syms.)

14:31

[Mr David Lammy (Tottenham) (Lab)]

I am very grateful for the opportunity to speak in this Adjournment debate. I want to talk about a particularly important subject—young fathers, a group that is often overlooked, frequently marginalised, and rarely supported in our society.

Over the past few years, there has rightly been a lot of concentration on young mothers, with particular public policy concentration on teenage pregnancy. However, there is so little provision for young fathers that we do not even know how many there are in Britain, because there are no accurate figures. However, those of us representing constituencies like Tottenham know that they exist and that they are frequently crying out for help and support.

Modern society is changing more quickly than ever before. The traditional society of the 1950s was opened up with the social liberal revolution of the 1960s and the economic liberal revolution of the 1980s. Both have brought more women into the workplace, raising their skill levels and aspirations, with society increasingly seeing them not just as mothers but as workers in the workplace. That is incontestably a good thing. At the same time, the British family has changed. Between 1975 and 1997, the time British fathers spent with their children on an average working day increased from just 15 minutes to two hours. Again, that is incontestably a good thing.

However, policy has often not caught up with the way that families want to live their lives. Too often, it rests on outdated assumptions of one carer, usually the mum, and one breadwinner, usually the dad. That does not reflect the reality of very many families out there in our country. Therefore, in 2010, I set up the all-party group on fatherhood to place the importance of fathers on to policy makers’ desks and into their in-boxes, and to bring our 19th-century social policy up to date with our 21st-century economy and family life.

Many others have been instrumental in raising these issues over many years, often against a backdrop of official indifference or, sometimes, hostility. Adrienne Burgess and her colleagues at the Fatherhood Institute have shifted the terms of the debate, as has Professor Tina Miller at Oxford Brookes university, both of whom well understand that active, engaged fathers are good for families, good for children, and, importantly in these straitened times, good for the economy. I salute their work.

I also salute the work of many organisations—too numerous to mention—that work with not only fathers, but young fathers in places such as my constituency. They often do so out of the limelight and often try to convince local public services of the value that dads can offer families. I am thinking in particular of Shane Ryan and his group Working with Men, which works extensively in south London. Such vital work is too often under-appreciated.

Encouraging active fatherhood has been a subject close to my heart since my own father left my mother and our family when I was 12 and I grew up without a father in my life. I have in the past discussed general policies in relation to fathers, such as paternity leave, but today I want to address issues specific to young fathers.

Although teenage pregnancy remains an issue in our society, at least it is accepted that young mums have problems that are specific to them and that they need help and support. That rarely happens with the young dads who have fathered those children. Too often we treat young fathers as problems to be solved and not people to be supported or helped.

[Jonathan Lord (Woking) (Con)]

I congratulate the right hon. Gentleman on securing this debate. Is not the problem he is outlining exacerbated by the benefit system? Sometimes young fathers are discouraged by the woman and her family themselves, because she might be less well-off with a man. Would it not be better—emotionally and for our society and the future of the children—for those fathers to be given a chance?

[Mr Lammy]

The hon. Gentleman raises an important point to which I will return. We as policy makers need to think about and understand families. There may not be a relationship between mum and dad, but more often than not the father needs to remain engaged. In the case of young fathers, they need a lot of support to remain engaged, or they might walk away and never return.

Our media talk so often about “feckless fathers” and “deadbeat dads” and assume that all young fathers fit the same, sometimes inaccurate stereotype. That has to stop. It is time for young dads not just to be listened to, but to be heard, because they are all too often unwilling to disappear from their children’s lives. They are often disfranchised by neglect and by lack of support from the system, not by design. Mums, dads, children—the whole family—lose out if young fathers find themselves in that position.

Let us be clear: as President Obama has said, what makes a man is not conceiving a child, but having the courage to raise one. Fathers of whatever age have to live up to their responsibilities and to the high expectations that we should all as a society have of them. That does not mean that society should not help them live up to those expectations, particularly when they are young people.

Young fathers present specific issues. It is often the case that they were looked-after children, excluded from schools or raised in poverty. Teenage fathers are three times more likely to have failed to have completed secondary education and much more likely than their peers to not be in education, employment or training. Unfortunately, many are young offenders: 12 % of 15 to 17-year-old offenders have children of their own, and nearly half of those aged 22 and under are or are about to become fathers. Many of them have never seen what good parenting looks like so, without support, how do we expect them to raise their own children properly?

Too often, we condemn young fathers for their background. They are failed in their schools and failed in their families, and we fail them again when they become fathers. That feeds feelings of deep inadequacy and shame. They know that they are unprepared for fatherhood, but do not know where to turn to for support. They have much higher rates of anxiety and depression than their peers without children. Most of all, they are often very angry, and often with good reason.

However much teenage dads want to play a role in their child’s upbringing, life seems to conspire against them. A job will be hard to come by for this cohort of fathers, given the state of our economy. Their partners may get a home, as has been indicated by the hon. Member for Woking (Jonathan Lord), but if they are not together, it is highly unlikely that the father will get one. The public services to help them with their role as a dad will be patchy or non-existent. Jobcentre Plus will be more interested in processing their benefits than in working with them to obtain the skills for work while bringing up their children.

[Kerry McCarthy (Bristol East) (Lab)]

This is a brilliant speech. A debate on this matter in Parliament is long overdue. On housing, the single room rate for people up to the age of 35 means that increasingly, young men live in bedsits in houses with lots of other young men. That is not a suitable place to take a child if the father has occasional custody.

[Mr Lammy]

My hon. Friend raises an important issue. If we believe, as I suspect Members across the House do, that we must keep fathers engaged with their children, assuming that there is no issue such as violence, the contact that they have with their children is fundamental. Policies such as the room rate cut across that. The costs that society has to pick up when a father becomes disengaged from his son, and the costs of the repetition when that son becomes a young man, are considerable. I am pleased that she has raised that issue.

The Work programme is limping along and the Youth Contract is not doing its job for this cohort of young men. We need tailored programmes for young men, and for young dads in particular, because we understand the cost to society if they do not get it right at this stage. Things do not look good, which can make these young men very angry. When I hosted a recent meeting of the all-party parliamentary group on fatherhood in which we spoke to young fathers, I saw just how angry these young men can be because of their frustration at wanting to be good fathers, but not being supported by the system.

Not only are young fathers not supported or helped; they are demonised by journalists and politicians. Myths solidify into facts. The isolated but deeply regrettable incidents of men who father children with different mothers become the rule, not the exception. Figures from the Child Maintenance and Enforcement Commission show that fewer than 5,000 men are paying maintenance for children they have had with three partners and that fewer than 500 men are paying maintenance for children they have had with four partners. Although those men may not have lived up to the high expectations that we should have of them, they do not represent the vast majority of young fathers.

We must bust some other myths too. The majority of young fathers are in relationships with the mothers of their children. The millennium cohort study found that half the partners of teenage mothers were living with them during the pregnancy. The vast majority of young fathers intend to play a full role in their children’s lives, and that intention does not disappear with the first sleepless night or the first nappy—in fact, it often grows. The same study found that one in five non-resident fathers who had low contact with their 10-month-old infants were in more frequent and often daily contact when the child was three. Young dads want to be there for their children just as much as all dads; they just need support to do it, as one would expect of young people.

Many young dads live chaotic lives. Many hon. Members will be familiar with young people who live chaotic lives, perhaps even in their own homes. For many young men, becoming a dad is the wake-up call that pushes them to take control of their lives and to take better care of themselves, as well as their families. That is exactly what I saw when I visited St Michael’s Fellowship in Brixton—a wonderful organisation that works with young dads in some of the most testing circumstances in Britain. I wish to place on record my thanks to Seany O’Kane, who runs the scheme, and to Kim Normanton, a BBC producer who allowed me to spend time at St Michael’s recording “Dads Who Do”, a documentary for Radio 4.

Even among fathers facing multiple pressures, the vast majority try to stay involved in their children’s lives and to be good role models. They each told me that they feel they are on their own and expected to get by without help, support or even recognition of their needs. Too often, they come up against maternity services at children’s centres or schools that place no expectation on them as young fathers, and all the expectation on the young mother.

I have said that young dads often have greater needs than other fathers, and in other parts of our public services that would mean more provision for them, not less. In too many parts of our public services, however, young fathers are practically invisible—at best ignored, and seen by some workers as a risk or a danger to be avoided. Too many are denied access to their children and have to fight their way through the courts. Without legal aid many men are now presenting to MPs in a breakdown situation with their partners, and they have to supervise themselves through the court system. Expecting an 18, 19 or 20-year-old to supervise themselves through a legal process is expecting too much and nothing short of a national disgrace. The Government should think carefully about their provisions for legal aid in such family cases.

There is no statutory requirement to provide services to young fathers. Support is piecemeal, patchy and at heart a postcode lottery. Too often, young fathers say they are ignored by public service professionals, who assume that the father is not really interested in their child. Where support is provided to fathers, it is often generic and tailored to older fathers who may need less help. A recent survey found that in half of cases involving a young family, the health visitor did not even know the father’s name. Young fathers often have little contact with midwives, health visitors and social workers. Children’s centres often have targets for engaging with dads, but there are no data on how many children actually come into contact with their dad. Good children’s centres, like Earlsmead and Noel Park in my constituency in Haringey, do encourage such contact, but many will not.

This is a problem, and not just for the dads themselves. Research suggests that the mother’s perspective on her care will be determined to a large extent by her partner’s views. A young father who is engaged with public services is more likely to remain supportive of their children’s care as they grow up. That is good for children and the partner. Young mothers who believe that their partner is supportive have higher self-esteem, lower depression, and are more likely to be positively attached to their child.

However, what should be a win-win situation is too often a lose-lose one—public services push away a young dad, which leads to a young mum bringing up her child on her own. Such reluctance to engage with young fathers might also spring from a reluctance to engage young people at all when it comes to sex education. Young dads know less about sex and relationships than young mums, although most are happy to learn.

A reluctance to engage young dads before the birth feeds into a lack of provision for couples to raise their child together after the birth. Most residential homes are for mothers and babies only—again, treating fathers as though they are a danger, irrelevant, or both. Too many young couples are forced apart because of local authority housing decisions that do not take a whole-family approach that would enable young parents to establish their own households. Pressure on young fathers and families builds up, making it even more difficult for them to look after their children.

We need an entire shift in attitude on behalf of public services from focusing exclusively on the mother and child to thinking about the family, including the father, however young he might be. That must begin from the high expectations that we should have of all fathers. Significant numbers of the birth certificates of children born to teenage mothers do not identify the father at all. How can we show fathers our expectations of them if we do not even require their names to be on their children’s birth certificates? Will the Minister explain—I have raised this issue in many forums—why his Government have not enacted the provisions in the Welfare Reform Act 2009 that would provide for joint birth registration?

Young dads often experience significant financial hardship. We know that the best way for them to provide for themselves and their families is through skilled, decent, well-paid work. The problems that young fathers face because of the Work Programme’s one-size-fits-all approach are too numerous to mention. Will the Minister raise that issue with his colleagues in the Department for Work and Pensions? It is not acceptable that public services should fail to engage with young fathers at all. Young dads should be engaged from antenatal services onwards, improving outcomes for their children and breaking down poverty and social exclusion. To achieve that, maternity services, health visitors, social workers and children’s centres should, at the very least, always record the father’s details, regardless of his age, and work with the voluntary sector and children’s centres to provide the best possible targeted support for the family as a whole, including young dads.

Will the Minister work with his colleagues to ensure that public services support young fathers to live up to the high expectations we should have of them? Will he think again with the Secretary of State for Education about what more the Government can do to raise the profile of the expectations that we should have of young fathers and the services that local authorities and local institutions need to deliver if we are to see fewer break-ups and less poverty as a result? Will the Minister also work to introduce parenting education for all secondary school pupils? Most of all, if we are to support young dads properly, we need the data to understand how many are out there. How many are being helped by our public services, as well as by local authorities and the voluntary sector? Will the Minister ensure that those data are collected in a standardised form, where safe to do so, and made open to public services and other organisations that want to do more for fathers?

Finally, will the Minister and his colleagues commit to improving the services offered by young offender institutions for young fathers? Given that so many young fathers come through young offender institutions, we need a better focus from the Department on young fathers while they are in them and can be supported—when they come out—to be better fathers than they might otherwise have been. Will the Minister commit to reinstating the teenage pregnancy strategy, which provided so much support for young parents? There has been a substantial cut. Local authorities are moving away from their budgets. In 2009, teenage pregnancy figures were going in the right direction—we saw a 6% drop—but sadly they are now going back up.

[Craig Whittaker (Calder Valley) (Con)]

Will the right hon. Gentleman give way?

[Mr Lammy]

The hon. Gentleman has a long track record of taking up these issues in children’s services, and I am grateful to him for that, but I probably ought not to give way, so that the Minister has time to respond to the questions I have asked.

14:53

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Education (Mr Edward Timpson)]

In the time I have left, I will do my utmost to address the issues that the right hon. Member for Tottenham (Mr Lammy) has raised, but if I am unable to do so, I will endeavour in the usual way to write to him and explain in as much detail as I can what the Government are doing to address the important issues he has raised.

I congratulate the right hon. Gentleman on securing this important debate. The House knows well the great importance that he places on supporting fathers, which is built not just on his huge insight, but on his personal experiences, which he has eloquently communicated in books, articles and papers that he has written on the subject. Only a few weeks ago, as I was driving to a primary school in Staffordshire Moorlands, I was listening to him on the radio giving a powerful demonstration of why it is important to keep our eye on the ball, not just for fathers generally but for young fathers specifically.

Like the right hon. Gentleman, the Government recognise that a father’s role in his child’s life is important. Children benefit greatly from a continuing relationship with both fathers and mothers. The evidence is clear that the positive involvement of fathers can lead to enhanced educational attainment, improved behaviour, better well-being and better relationships with their children. As he said, the foundations of so many social problems—and success stories—are laid in the early years. The evidence shows that what parents do in their child’s early years is a critical factor in that child’s future attainment and behaviour.

Children’s centres have the capacity to be life changing, ensuring that the families who need the services the most get the support they need. By identifying, reaching and helping the families in greatest need, they help to improve parenting capacity and health and well-being, and support the development of children so that they are well prepared to start school. Children’s centres offer different approaches to provide an environment in which fathers feel comfortable. For example, many offer stay and play sessions for fathers and children or networks to enable fathers to meet up and feel confident to use their local centres. I remember a few years ago, as part of an inquiry by the Children, Schools and Families Committee, visiting a children’s centre in Westminster North where it was doing exactly that: trying to work out how better to engage with young dads.

Some centres work closely with teenage fathers, supporting them in their parenting role and encouraging them to develop their skills for work. The right hon. Gentleman mentioned Earlsmead children’s centre in his constituency, which supported a young father who was the main carer for a child under the age of two. Through the stay and play sessions, and through interacting with the staff to enable him to be better around his child and to access other services, he went from being unemployed to being referred to the centre through a back-to-work programme, resulting in him successfully getting a job. That is a fantastic example of how children’s centres can make a huge difference.

The right hon. Gentleman highlighted his concern that the needs of young fathers were not being addressed through the Work programme. I can assure him that one-size-fits-all employment programmes no longer exist. The current programmes recognise that young people need more tailored support to find work. Children’s centres such as Earlsmead play their part by working closely with local employment services to help ensure that that is delivered. I will, however, speak to my colleagues in the Department for Work and Pensions to see if there is anything more we can do to learn from recent experiences since the changes were brought in.

Some local authorities make children’s centres one of the places where parents can register births; for example, in Manchester, Bury and York. They have found that the opportunity to register births in children’s centres is potentially a very effective means of exposing parents to the support available through centres. They have reported improved engagement with hard-to-reach families. For example, the Benchill children’s centre in Manchester reported that 100% of young parents who registered their baby at Benchill have re-engaged with the services offered by the centre.

I share the right hon. Gentleman’s preference for joint birth registration, because it promotes the involvement of both parents in the upbringing of their children. He will know that the Government’s position, rather than having catch-all legislation, is to pursue ways to strengthen the existing guidance to registrars to make clearer to mothers the expectation that the father’s name should always be recorded on the register unless there are very good reasons why that should not happen. I am happy to take up his case with other Departments to see if that approach has the effect we all want to see.

The voluntary sector has a strong track record of supporting families. Charities such as 4Children, Barnardo’s and Action for Children, as well as the many mentioned by the right hon. Gentleman, run many children’s centres on behalf of local authorities. In my constituency and elsewhere, many parents who have children under the age of five benefit from the valued support of Home-Start UK. We are also funding the Fatherhood Institute to work in four local authorities to improve educational outcomes for children from deprived communities. The focus is on helping early years services to engage fathers, including non-resident fathers, in their children’s learning.

It is vital that very young people who are about to become parents get the support they need too. Pregnancy and birth present the first opportunity to engage fathers in the care and upbringing of their children. It is important that both the mother and father feel involved in the pregnancy from an early stage. In 2011, the Royal College of Midwives published “Top Tips for Involving Fathers in Maternity Care”. It cites the teenage pregnancy support unit in Hull, which assesses the needs of young fathers as well as young mothers, and provides support to develop parenting skills. On a recent visit to Eagle Bridge health centre in Crewe, I met a teenage couple who were first-time parents. They spoke about how they were benefiting from the personalised support they were receiving from the family nurse partnership programme. The right hon. Gentleman spoke about a wake-up call, and that was very much that couple’s experience of the programme, which supports children in some of the most disadvantaged circumstances. By 2015, some 16,000 families in need will be benefiting from the service.

I have only a short time left but I echo the right hon. Gentleman’s comments about young offenders who are also fathers. He also mentioned that many of them have spent time in the care system. Some 50% of those in young offender institutions have spent some time in care. There was a strong correlation between the two. Having accepted that those who have done wrong need to be punished, I want to do more, through my Department and working with the Ministry of Justice, to understand how to use that time to give them the resilience, support and education they need to better their lives when they are, we hope, rehabilitated back into the community.

The Government are undertaking a number of other initiatives, including relationship support, the CANparent trials and the online and telephone helpline services for families, to name but a few, as well as the proposed changes to paternity leave and the measures in the Children and Families Bill.

I am grateful to the right hon. Gentleman for securing this debate. Like him, I firmly believe that children need their fathers as much as they need their mothers, and we must do all we can to ensure, wherever possible, that both parents are fully involved in their child’s upbringing.

The measures that the Government are taking will help to ensure that we support parents, and parents-to-be, who need it most. Be that as it may, I am always more than happy to discuss with the right hon. Gentleman what more we can do to ensure that young fathers play as full and active a role as possible in their children’s lives and, in doing that, we have the opportunity—

15:01

House adjourned without Question put (Standing Order No. 9(7)).