European Union Referendum Bill

Debate between Baroness Smith of Newnham and Lord Tebbit

Wednesday 4th November 2015 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Smith of Newnham (LD)]

My Lords, we have heard a lot of history this afternoon. Although the lessons of 1975 might be of interest, they are, in fact, history, and we are debating a Bill for a future referendum, rather than the past. I am speaking on behalf of the Liberal Democrats to support the amendment in the name of the noble Lord, Lord Hannay, as this amendment fits with the views of the Constitution Committee and appears to be very sensible. As to the role of political parties and how much they are funded, although it is very easy to look back and say, “Well, in 1975 this happened, that happened and the other happened”, since that time we have passed the Political Parties, Elections and Referendums Act. The Bill relates to and amends that legislation. My party has no objection to the Government’s position on that.

The final amendment that I want to speak to in this group is Amendment 58, tabled by the noble Lords, Lord Liddle and Lord Davies. Although I can see an intuitive allure in the amendment, there is another issue here which goes back to the PPERA question and pre-empts Amendment 55, in the name of the noble Lord, Lord Kerr, on purdah. It is clearly in the interest of everyone to understand the Government’s position. At Second Reading in the other place, the right honourable Philip Hammond, the Foreign Secretary, talked about wanting to suspend Section 125 of the Act because the Government would want to come back and sell the deal that they had renegotiated. In practice, if purdah is in place the assumption will be that circulating three documents—remain, leave and the Government putting forward their own case—is in danger of breaching purdah rules. Although Amendment 58 sounds intuitively interesting, it is quite difficult to support it as currently drafted.

[Lord Tebbit]

My Lords, what the noble Baroness says is right. This would offend against the purdah rules. Even more, how will the Government produce a leaflet to set out their position? Would they set out the position of the majority in the Cabinet, or the position of two groups in the Cabinet? It would be a jolly task, would it not, to set out the views of the Eurosceptics in the Cabinet, as well as the—

European Union Referendum Bill

Debate between Baroness Smith of Newnham and Lord Tebbit

Wednesday 4th November 2015 Lords Chamber

[Lord Tebbit (Con)]

My Lords, it seems to me that this is a piece of nonsense. Wales is not a member of the European Union, nor is England, Scotland or Northern Ireland. The United Kingdom is the member of the European Union. Therefore, it does not matter a damn whether some region or another—whether it is Wales, London, Ponders End or wherever—votes one way or another. The only thing that matters is which way the United Kingdom votes.

I do not intend to be provocative at this time of night—good lord, I never intend to be provocative—but it is worth remembering that there is considerable doubt over whether, if Scotland had voted to leave the United Kingdom, either it or the remainder of the United Kingdom would have continued to be a member of the European Union. The state which entered the European Union was the United Kingdom; if the United Kingdom had ceased to exist, then probably neither Scotland nor the remainder of the United Kingdom would have been a member of the European Union. It would have been up to the Scottish— and possibly the Welsh at some time or another—to negotiate entry into the European Union. We could all have a bit of a chuckle about how that would have gone, but essentially this is just a piece of nonsense which is not even worth discussing at this time of the evening.

[Baroness Smith of Newnham (LD)]

My Lords, I do not want to detain the Committee for long. I am aware that the last two evenings I have said I would be brief but then was not; this evening, I really do want to be brief. As for Amendment 61, as the noble Lord, Lord Kerr, has said, the assumption is that we will hear the results by region and possibly by constituency. Therefore, including in the Bill the idea of counting by nation, rather than state or region, is unnecessary—although we will all be delighted to know what the result is in Gibraltar, given that we have spent so much time talking about it. So many of the amendments and briefings seem to talk about Gibraltar.

Amendment 61C is the more substantive. Although it is clearly important that we listen to the views of all four nations—I suspect the Cornish, if they were standing here, would be saying that they wanted to be heard too—and that all parts of the United Kingdom are heard, in practice, as we have heard from most parts of the Chamber, if not from the noble Lord, Lord Wigley, this is a vote by the United Kingdom. Amendment 61C seems, in that sense, inappropriate.