European Union Referendum Bill

Debate between Lord Mackinlay of Richborough and Tasmina Ahmed-Sheikh

Monday 7th September 2015 Commons Chamber

[Ms Tasmina Ahmed-Sheikh (Ochil and South Perthshire) (SNP)]

The rules relating to purdah in elections ensure a fair and proper process during elections and referendums. In fact, the Cabinet Office’s general election guidance, issued just before this year’s general election, states that elections

“have a number of implications for the work of Departments and civil servants. These arise from the special character of Government business during an Election campaign, and from the need to maintain, and be seen to maintain, the impartiality of the Civil Service, and to avoid any criticism of an inappropriate use of official resources.”

The Scottish National party believes that the referendum on the UK’s membership of the European Union—arguably our most vital and strategic international relationship—should set the gold standard for fairness and impartiality. The Government’s original proposals fall far short of that standard—indeed, they will undermine public and parliamentary confidence in the process. That is why they are now—eventually—being opposed by Members on both sides of the House.

The Government’s latest back-pedalling exercise, otherwise known as new clause 10, still fails to live up to the highest standard of impartial conduct, and specifically fails to introduce any mechanism properly to enforce the purdah regulations it proposes. Amendment 11, standing in my name and those of my colleagues, fills that gap. The Minister’s own former Government colleague, the right hon. Member for North Shropshire (Mr Paterson), from whom we have just heard, is quoted in The Times today as saying:

“All we’re asking is that this debate is open and fair, and we adhere to the current rules on purdah”.

He continues:

“You cannot have sneaky little tricks to try and rattle the thing through… It is just going to dirty the whole process and the losers may well consider it to be illegitimate if it has not been done fairly.”

Many voters in Scotland remember the sophistry deployed by the previous Government during the referendum campaign on Scottish independence. Despite the Conservatives and Liberal Democrats signing up to the Edinburgh agreement, the agreement was blatantly ignored following the no campaign’s last-gasp panic in the face of judgment by voters in Scotland. My right hon. Friend the Member for Gordon (Alex Salmond) mentioned the vow, and we will continue to mention the vow until it is implemented in full, but eleventh-hour initiatives such as the vow, and using the referendum unit in the Treasury to orchestrate a scaremongering campaign by pressurising banks and other companies, were clear breaches of the agreement on the part of the UK Government. Understandably, MPs on both sides of the argument do not want to see a repeat in the Euro-poll. If only they had spoken up last year. That is why I call on the House to support the SNP amendment, which will introduce an enforcement mechanism against breaches of purdah covering both Ministers and civil servants.

As on so many issues, rather than provide strong leadership, the Prime Minister has botched this business at every possible step. That may lead some of us to believe that his heart is not in it and he was somehow bounced into making the commitment against his own free will. First, he backed down on asserting collective Cabinet responsibility on a vital national issue. Then, he caved in on the timing of the poll, after his attempt to hold it on the same day as the Scottish elections faced parliamentary defeat before the summer recess. Last week, he was overturned by the Electoral Commission on the referendum question itself. And in the past few days, we have seen the Government retreat on their original attempt to influence the campaign by using Ministers and civil servants during what should be a strict purdah period. Our amendment will keep the campaign fair and honest and provide the means to enforce good intentions, and I recommend it to the House.

[Craig Mackinlay (South Thanet) (Con)]

I congratulate the Minister on using the summer recess very well in bringing back this Bill in a different form. The fact that legislation was put together in haste before the recess can only be put down to the manifesto commitment to the referendum. We now have back, at least so far, section 125 of PPERA in some form.

This afternoon, I am not going to speak about the good or ills of the European Union; that is for a future debate. I can appreciate the concerns that led the Minister to try to alter the usual section 125 terms, given the nature of the tentacles of the EU’s involvement in vast tracts of just about every aspect of UK Government, although he is probably over-concerned about this.

My right hon. Friend the Member for North Shropshire (Mr Paterson) put it very well when he said that legitimacy is the most important thing, in that whatever the outcome of the referendum, the losers, no matter which side they are on, must be able to say to themselves and to the world at large, “We did our best; we lost—but it was fair.” That is the position we need to be in with this European referendum, because it may not happen again for the next 40 years. I was interested to hear my hon. Friend the Member for Harwich and North Essex (Mr Jenkin) talk about the problems of the 1975 referendum. I was obviously too young to take part in that, but it was, by all accounts, something of a shambles. For the Welsh referendum in 1997, the Neill Committee came up with the precursor ideas to what became the PPERA that we know today.

In all legislation, simplicity is best. While PPERA is far from simple, the purdah rules in section 125 are rules that we know. They are tried and tested, and they have served us in quite a number of referendums. We do not live just by legislation in this country, but by convention, a degree of case law, decent behaviour and knowing what is right. We have an enlarged Electoral Commission. Some might say that it is a somewhat bloated bureaucracy, but it has earned a high degree of respect. We have the ministerial and civil service codes. Also, the media have changed. It was said earlier that “The Andrew Marr Show” breaks various stories. We now accept that all these are just the new ways of doing things. Purdah has not been broken; we know how things are and know that normal business continues throughout elections and referendums. We know fairness when we see it, hear it and feel it.

As was described earlier, the PPERA legislation was put together in anticipation of a euro referendum, when the same concerns that have been aired by the Minister would have been known by the then Labour Government. Legislation does not always do all that it should, but PPERA served us well through the alternative vote referendum. Had there not been local elections in 2011, many people would not even have known that that referendum was on. No aspect of that was important to the day-to-day basis of normal government, unlike the Scotland referendum. PPERA has served for new forms of election as well, including the police and crime commissioner elections. We have all appreciated that government continues. The EU will continue to go through its machinations whether there is a UK referendum or not.

Conservative Members may not always be in government; I doubt it, much as I hope that we will. Changing now legislation—PPERA—that has served us well for some 15 years would be a dangerous step for the future. I urge the Government to accept that amendment 53 merely muddies the waters of that legislation. I would prefer amendment 4 or, even better, amendment 78 as a far more elegant means of having a free and fair referendum that has legitimacy, and after which the losers will be able to say, “We lost, but it was free and it was fair.”