European Union (Referendum) Bill

Baroness Butler-Sloss Excerpts

Friday 24th January 2014 Lords Chamber

[Lord Forsyth of Drumlean]

I am not going to give way again—I intended to interrupt only briefly. The noble Lord was long enough in the other place to understand what is happening here. Liberal and Labour Party supporters do not have the guts to face up to the British people and say, “We want to stop you having a referendum,” and therefore they have dumped this here. Members opposite who vote for amendments—

[Baroness Butler-Sloss (CB)]

My Lords, we have had 40 minutes on this. It is an important amendment. I respectfully say to the House that it would be helpful to hear speeches on the amendment and then have a vote.

[Lord Forsyth of Drumlean]

My Lords, I entirely acknowledge what the noble and learned Baroness says but, of course, if noble Lords vote to amend the Bill they should recognise that they are denying the British people their say in a referendum.

--- Later in debate ---

[Lord Elystan-Morgan (CB)]

My Lords, the issue immediately before the House is very direct and very simple. It is a choice between the version of wording for the referendum preferred by the Electoral Commission or the one that is contained in the draft. Even if the Electoral Commission had in no way opined on this matter, I would urge the House to accept the version that is in the amendment, for two reasons.

First, it is founded on a factual matrix; in other words, the fact of our current membership of the European Union. Secondly, it shows clearly and concisely what the effect of a negative vote would be. Nothing could be fairer and I suspect that almost any intelligent schoolboy or schoolgirl in this land would say, “Yes, that version is preferable in so far as it is more likely to lead to a clear, understandable and final result in this matter”.

In addition, of course, there is the question of parentage. It comes from the Electoral Commission. It therefore has a quasi-judicial status—I appreciate that one is extending that somewhat but it is a neutral status of high standing. That, I think, makes it all the more obvious that not only would justice be done but would be manifestly seen to be done.

Turning for a moment to the noble Lord, Lord Forsyth, and the noble and learned Lord, Lord Mackay, there is no such animal in the constitutional field as an unamendable Bill so far as this House is concerned. There can be no question at all about that. The argument that is put forward is this: were the House of Lords to intervene, it would do so at its peril. Some persons use that in a blackmailing way—I absolve completely the noble Lord, Lord Forsyth, and the noble and learned Lord, Lord Mackay, from such an argument, but certain persons put it forward in terrorem. Whether it be in terrorem or as a completely neutral commentary on the situation, of the two circumstances, I would rather belong to a House that risks its own end by doing that which is right and proper than to run away from what is a clear responsibility and right in this matter.

[Baroness Butler-Sloss]

My Lords, there is a very short and simple answer: because almost everybody in this House so far has supported the amendment of the noble Lord, Lord Armstrong, why on earth does not the mover of the Bill accept this amendment? There is no problem in the Commons.

[Lord Richard (Lab)]

My Lords, I will deal first with the so-called constitutional argument that seems to have emerged in the past three-quarters of an hour or so, which is that somehow or other this House should not seek to scrutinise this Bill too closely, it should not seek to amend it and it should certainly not seek to do anything that sent it back to the House of Commons in a different form from that in which it arrived here.

Over the past two years I have listened ad nauseam to Members of this House, particularly some of those who have spoken today. I am thinking notably of the noble Lord, Lord Cormack, who lectured me continually on the virtues of the nominated House as we have it and the iniquities of possibly having an elected House and told me—as I say, very frequently and very loudly—that the function of this House was that we should scrutinise a Bill, we should revise a Bill, we should examine it in detail, we should send it back to the House of Commons if we thought it was right, and we should amend it. The phrase that I heard so often was that the main function of this House was to ask the House of Commons to think again.

I do not detect any dissent from the other side so I was rather disappointed when the noble Lord, Lord Cormack, at Second Reading and indeed today, repeated the argument that somehow or other this Bill is so special and so unique that we should not consider it, we should not try to amend it, we should certainly not succeed in amending it and we should certainly not ask the House of Commons to think again about what it has sent here. That is a nonsense: it is a constitutional nonsense; it is a political nonsense; and it makes absolute nonsense of the functions of this House.

We do have those duties. They are not just rights but duties. If proposed legislation comes before the House of Lords, the House of Lords has a duty to scrutinise it, particularly if it has not been done properly in the other place. The short answer to this issue and this amendment is very simple: it is that the Electoral Commission, an independent body, has looked at this issue and had some research done. It may be imperfect, as the noble Lord, Lord Lipsey, told us, but the general effect of all that work by the Electoral Commission is that it has come up with a proposal for a question that should be put in the referendum. It is a question which on the Electoral Commission’s analysis is clear, unambiguous, neutral and fair, and it should therefore be one which this House should be prepared to include in the Bill.

For the life of me, I do not understand the attitude on the other side. The noble and learned Lord, Lord Mackay, said that, somehow or other, we would be strengthening the UKIP argument that the United Kingdom should withdraw from the European Union. If the noble and learned Lord had looked in the rows behind him at the moment that he said that he was against that, he would have seen the faces of those whose predominant passion as far as Europe is concerned seems to be that we should withdraw. It is quite extraordinary that the people who are most vociferous in support of this legislation are not the democrats in the Conservative Party but are, as somebody has christened them, the Tea Party.

So be it. That is what we are faced with. For the House of Lords not to accept that that is what we are faced with and for the House of Lords not to do its duty in relation to this Bill would be a derogation of its duties. I hope therefore that the House will vote strongly in favour of the amendment.