EU Referendum Leaflet

Debate between Bernard Jenkin and Baroness Stuart of Edgbaston

Monday 9th May 2016 Westminster Hall

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

Oh, the joys of email inboxes. I received an email about the leaflet; it had an attachment that I printed off. It looked much like the Government’s leaflet, except that it was by “A British citizen”, who had written her own leaflet based on the Government’s, called “Why I believe that voting to leave the European Union is the best decision for the UK”. I thought her leaflet made a darn sight more sense than the Government’s. Given the current debate about national security, I thought I would share what she wrote. The only reason why I do not name her is that I did not check whether it was all right to do so. She was happy for me to use the leaflet. Under “Keeping us safe”, she wrote:

“Our UK police and intelligence agencies do a fantastic job. There is no EU intelligence sharing arrangement, and there is unlikely to be one soon. Security and intelligence services are intrinsically secret organisations which share their information only with those they trust to keep their secrets. There are direct agreements between certain member states. These are not dependent on membership of the EU.”

Based on my impressions from reading the Sunday newspapers, she shows a greater understanding of how our intelligence services work than some of our former heads of MI5 and MI6, who put the facts in a way that suits their case.

[Mr Jenkin]

The Prime Minister discussed in his speech today the importance of sharing our intelligence with our European partners, but I am sure the right hon. Lady knows about the importance of our relationship with the United States, which spends $52 billion a year on signals intelligence and gives us everything it has whenever we ask for it. It would not do that if it thought we would give it to the French and the Germans; it would cut us off instantly. That was its experience in the Kosovo campaign, when there were intelligence leaks to the French. It would simply not countenance supporting that intelligence relationship if we shared all our intelligence with our European allies, as the Prime Minister seemed to suggest we do in his ludicrous speech.

[Ms Stuart]

I could not agree more. The House is currently considering the Investigatory Powers Bill, and our intelligence services operate under strict democratic oversight processes that determine how they use data. Agreeing to European Union-wide intelligence sharing, or handing over data to systems when we are not even certain about the democratic scrutiny of those systems, is just not going to happen.

It is dangerous to distort historic events, given that the referendum has historic significance and that a whole generation of young people who have probably never experienced anything else will be voting. As it happens, tomorrow will be the 75th anniversary of the day when this House was severely damaged during bombing raids. Churchill made it clear that whatever happened, Parliament would have to go on. I see that I am getting a puzzled look; it was the night of 10 to 11 May. It was clear that the most important thing, even at the height of real attacks, was that democratic processes go on, because they were at the heart of this country.

There have been statements such as, “We have secured 70 years of uninterrupted peace in Europe.” Try saying that to the hundreds of thousands of Bosnians and Serbs who had to give their lives before the United Kingdom and the United States took action, without a UN mandate. When the European Union did get involved politically, it made a complete and utter hash of it. We must not lie to the young. I expect the old at least to be able to make up their own minds and have historical perspective.

I object to the final page of the leaflet. The Minister is looking at it; he needs to note this. People came up to me in my advice surgery saying, “Do I have to register to vote for the referendum?” I did not know what they were talking about until I looked at the back page, which says:

“If you’re aged 18 or over by 23 June and are entitled to vote, this is your chance to decide.”

So far, so good.

“Registration ends on 7 June. Find out how to register at aboutmyvote.co.uk and register online at gov.uk/register-to-vote.”

People are reading that to mean that they will have to register specifically for this vote. That is misleading.

It is also highly dubious to align the issuing of postal votes closely with the date on which purdah will kick in. The Electoral Commission is issuing postal votes very early on. In my understanding, the whole purpose of purdah is so that Government machinery will not unduly influence voters’ decisions. Electors are used to political parties taking sides, but they are not used to the Government, in their guise as the Government, taking deeply party political decisions. I want the Minister to show me that he has taken due account of that, so that purdah and the issuing of postal votes will not overlap and there will not be some Treasury report a day before the postal votes land on doormats telling us that we are all going to starve and start sending children up chimneys again. Will he have a word with the electoral registration officers about the misleading statement that has been made?

Similarly, we must put the costs of the leaflet into context. It has cost £9.3 million. The Electoral Commission was set up as an independent body to facilitate fair conduct of such a referendum. As part of that fair conduct, two organisations have been designated to make the case for and against. Those participating have strict financial limits. The Minister will have to explain to me why it is fair and proper to allow the in and out campaigns to raise £7 million each from individual sources, not Government money. There is a real misconception about that. People think that the campaigns have been given that money by the Government. They have not. They have been given permission to raise it. Yet the Government, in one mailshot, have spent more taxpayers’ money than they are spending on the whole process of facilitating the election. That kind of imbalance is simply wrong.