European Union (Referendum) Bill

Baroness Quin Excerpts

Friday 10th January 2014 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Quin (Lab)]

My Lords, my noble friend Lord Liddle, in his excellent speech on behalf of the Labour Party, reminded us that our party is not against referendums, and that is certainly the case, as the record shows. My personal position is a little different in that I have always been rather concerned about the way that ad hoc and ill thought out referendums have seemed to become part of our constitution. Therefore, I was glad that the noble Lord, Lord Roper, reminded me that my political hero Clement Attlee greatly distrusted referendums.

However, I accept that at this stage the genie is probably largely out of the bottle and, certainly, if we are to have referendums, the major constitutional issues of the day are, presumably, suitable subjects for them. Therefore, my objections to the Bill do not relate to the fact that it calls for a referendum but are much more concerned with other aspects of it, including the substance of the clauses and, indeed, some of the political circumstances surrounding the process and passage of the Bill, which were very effectively described by my noble friend Lord Kinnock a few minutes ago.

The timing issue is a very serious one. To call for a referendum by a specific date, regardless of the circumstances of the time and whether we might be in negotiations with other EU countries, is simply crazy. I am also concerned at the suggestion that we should deal with this Bill in this House in a completely different way from the way we would normally deal with legislation, including Private Members’ Bills. I certainly cannot see the justification for that. That point was made very effectively by my noble friend Lord Radice.

Another possible rule seemed to emerge during the debate that we should give easy passage to items which have been heavily voted in favour of in another place. This would be a rather dangerous route for us to go down if it were applied to all future legislation. I am not sure what the proponents of such an approach mean in terms of how many votes would need to be cast in favour of a measure in the other place for us not to treat it seriously in this House. However, as I say, I think that it would be a very dangerous route to go down.

I join other noble Lords in saying that I do not like the fact that the Bill attempts to bind a successor Parliament. That is quite wrong. Although it is true, as I think the noble Lords, Lord Howell and Lord King, said, that Parliaments pass many bits of legislation which may have effect in the future, this Bill is unusual in singling out a specific date in a future Parliament. I do not recall that having been done before in quite this way. If we give the Bill easy passage, we will follow a constitutionally alarming procedure.

The point has been made many times that the general public are very much in favour of a referendum. I accept that opinion polls show that to be the case. However, we should also remember that in recent general elections Europe has been a much lower priority than many other issues, certainly compared with such issues as the cost of living, health, education and housing. This was confirmed to me in the most recent spate of door knocking that I took part in, which was during the South Shields by-election. While canvassing in different areas over two days, Europe was not raised with me once although many other issues were, despite the fact that there was a great deal of media frenzy about it and that UKIP’s best efforts were deployed to try to raise the issue and profit from the unpopularity of the coalition parties.

Much has been made of how much certainty the Bill introduces into the debate, but I do not think that it introduces any certainty at all. As I said, Parliament cannot bind its successor. Therefore, there are many reasons why a referendum held at the particular time envisaged in the Bill will not go ahead. For that reason, it is very understandable that businesses in particular are very worried about the uncertainty that the Bill would create. I agree very much with the comments of the noble Lord, Lord Shipley. Certainly, in the north-east of England, which has the Nissan car plant, which is one of the most productive on the planet, and which is an exporting region—I think that we are the only part of the country to have a positive trade balance—there is great fear and uncertainty as a result of this measure. Given the number of firms involved and the number of people they employ up and down the country, it would be wrong for us to disregard this in our approach to the Bill.

For all those reasons, I hope that the Bill, which has attracted so many excellent speakers today, will be given the closest and most careful scrutiny in your Lordships’ House, and that we will deal with it seriously in the way that we deal with other legislation.