European Union Referendum Bill
Debate between Bernard Jenkin and Anne Main(9 years ago)
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Mr Jenkin
Indeed, but it is unavoidable that the Government are going to produce information of this kind.
The second duty, in Lords amendment 6, is not something that I expected to see. The Lords amendment asks the Government to produce judgments and opinions on a vast topic, using examples that, by their very nature, will be subjective. I am not at all surprised that the Electoral Commission has decided that it would be far beyond its competence to make a judgment about what such a document might be. The Government have accepted this amendment, but if they are to justify retaining it—as I expect them to do—they will have to answer some questions about it.
What do the Government mean by the word “publish” in the amendment? It would be one thing to place a learned, detailed and technical paper in the Library of the House of Commons in order to present the depth of analysis that the hon. Member for Glenrothes believes would be justified, but would the Government produce such a subjective document in a form that could be circulated to every household? How would we feel about that, 10 weeks before a referendum? It is reasonable for the Government to explain the outcome of their negotiations, but it would not be reasonable for them to use public money to present their entire world view on European Union membership as part of a campaign to remain in the EU.
Mr Jenkin
That is a good question. We all expect that, before long, there will be agreement among Ministers that some will not be toeing the Government line on this question. It is too big a question for it to be otherwise. The reason that we have referendums is that the questions split parties. We could not have a general election on a question that split the parties on both sides of the House. It would be impossible to decide on the issue in that way.
It would be absurd to have a referendum and then try to corral all the Ministers into one point of view. The precedent in 1975 was that collective responsibility was abandoned, although that does not mean there is not still a Government view—there is a Government view and a dissenting view. That is how it will work in this case, assuming that a vast number of Ministers do not leave the Government’s view too isolated to be any longer credible as being that of a Government.
Finance Bill
Debate between Bernard Jenkin and Anne Main(9 years, 1 month ago)
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Mr Jenkin
That is absolutely correct. Having observed the history of 40 years of membership of the European Union, as it is now called, we know that it is not going to stay like this. The European Union will continue to develop. The trend of taking more taxation powers away from the member states, in the name of the single market, is enshrined in article 113, so it will continue to do so. Yes, we have a veto, but the European Court of Justice tends to accelerate the pace of tax harmonisation just when we do not expect it to do so. It is the ECJ that extended VAT to certain items and categories of goods when we did not expect it to do so.
The group of amendments also addresses the renewables obligation incentives and seeks to adjust the feed-in tariff regime. Why are we able to reduce taxation on renewable energy products to only 5%? It is because of the European Union. Why could the previous Labour Government not abolish VAT on fuel, which they said they wanted to do after it had been applied by the Major Administration? It is because of the European Union.