European Union Referendum Bill

Lord Austin of Dudley Excerpts

Tuesday 9th June 2015 Commons Chamber

[Mr Hammond]

My hon. Friend is right, of course. I have already mentioned an area in which we need fundamental change in the way in which the European Union operates. It is now a Union with a eurozone of 19 member states at its core, and those states will integrate more closely together. There needs to be an explicit recognition that those who are not part of that core do not need to pursue ever-closer union. There needs to be an explicit protection of the interests of those non-eurozone members as the EU goes forward. That is an example of an area in which we need specific structural change to the way in which the European Union operates.

[Ian Austin (Dudley North) (Lab)]

rose—

[Bill Esterson (Sefton Central) (Lab)]

rose—

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[Mr Hammond]

I am grateful to my hon. Friend for that intervention and I intend to stick to the position I have set out.

[Ian Austin]

Speaking as somebody who worked in the Treasury between 1999 and 2005, may I remind the Foreign Secretary that it was a Labour Government that designed the five tests, a Labour Government that carried out the assessment and a Labour Government that kept us out of the single currency? It is thanks to a Labour Government that we are not in the single currency today.

[Mr Hammond]

The hon. Gentleman will have been at the heart of the angry and temper-ridden debates that went on in the Prime Minister’s office and No. 11 at the time. Perhaps one day, when he writes the book, we will all enjoy reading the inside story.

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[Hilary Benn]

Everybody in the country and in the House will have to wait and see what deal the Prime Minister brings back, then people will have to make their own judgment.

[Ian Austin]

In order for the result to be accepted and for it to be long lasting and settle the question for a generation, it is very important that the process is seen to be fair on all sides. Ministers are perfectly at liberty to say what they like in interviews and as they go round the country making speeches, but there is a big difference between that and public money being used to send out leaflets and promote one side of the debate. It is very important that the spending limits are designed to ensure that spending is equal on both sides and both sides have a fair say.

[Hilary Benn]

Everybody in the House would agree that the referendum must be fair and must be seen to be fair, but at the same time the Government—any Government—are entitled to argue their case.

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[Alex Salmond]

One wonders how long it took the hon. Gentleman, when he was lying in bed this morning, like the Prime Minister, working out how he would deploy that bon mot in the debate, to come up with that.

The hon. Gentleman mistakes me, incidentally. He should reflect on the speech that I made in this Chamber only last week. I am not one of those people who argues that the UK could not possibly be out of the European Union. In my speech last week, I warned against a parade of establishment figures talking down to people and saying, “You can’t do this. You can’t do that.” I am not one of the people who argues that case. The essence of my case for being in the European Union is a positive case about what Europe should be doing, not about what it should not be doing. I hope that at some point in this debate, we will get to the stage where what is said to be wrong with the European Union is not things like hard-working Polish people being able to repatriate their child benefit to Poland. There must be more to this country’s relationship with the rest of Europe than matters of such smallness.

I will move on to the essential nonsense of this referendum and why my party will oppose it in the Lobbies this evening. When someone proposes a referendum, it should be because they are proposing a significant constitutional change, whether it be the alternative vote, Scottish independence, Scottish devolution or Welsh devolution, and they are looking for democratic sanction—the sovereignty of the people—to back that change. That is not the position of the Prime Minister. Nobody seriously believes that he wants to take this country out of the European Union. The referendum is a tactic that is being deployed as a means of deflecting support from UKIP and as a sop to Back Benchers. Nobody believes that the Prime Minister wants to take the country out of the European Union.

The suspicion, which is already developing in this debate, is a result of that essential contradiction in the Government’s proposition. The suspicion is coming, incidentally, not just from the hardened Eurosceptics—or Europhobes, perhaps—from whom we have heard on the Government Benches, but even from the hon. Member for Reigate (Crispin Blunt) and the right hon. and learned Member for Beaconsfield (Mr Grieve), who questioned why it looks as though the Government are trying to stack the deck in the referendum before the campaign has even begun. The questions about the campaign limits and the purdah period are coming not just from people who are opposed to the European Union, but from Members of great experience who are concerned that the Government are already moving to imbalance the referendum campaign.

Let me tell right hon. and hon. Members who do not share my view on Europe what exactly will happen if we go into the campaign and the polls start to close or perhaps the no side even moves ahead. We will find Sir Nicholas Macpherson parading things in front of Select Committees of this House; we will find civil servants compromising their impartiality; and we will find the Prime Minister suddenly making a promise, a commitment, a pledge or a vow, and saying that he has found some new policy initiative to turn the argument, in total defiance of any idea of a purdah period.

My advice—and it is free advice, honestly given—is that Members should lock things down in the Bill, otherwise all their worst fears will come into being. With great respect to the Foreign Secretary, they should not trust his bona fides in saying that he just wants a fair game and fair play. If we want to secure a proper and decent referendum and avoid the deck being stacked, we should lock it into the Bill through amendments.

We have detailed reasons for opposing the referendum in its current form. I say to the Labour party that I am surprised by its argument, “We lost an election, and we therefore have to change our policy”, as the acting Leader of the Opposition said just the other day. Does that apply to all the policies that Labour fought the election on, or just to the policy on the referendum?

[Ian Austin]

I have to say, the right hon. Gentleman is doing absolutely nothing to reduce the reputation for self-satisfied smugness that preceded him before he was re-elected.

I speak as someone who has believed for well over a decade that we should have a referendum on our membership of the EU. If it was right for the Scottish people to have the referendums they wanted on establishing the Scottish Parliament and on Scottish independence, why is it not right for the vast majority of people elsewhere in the UK to have the referendum that they definitely want on Britain’s membership of the EU? Why should the right hon. Gentleman’s party troop through the Lobby to try to prevent that? Why should he deny people in Dudley their say on this issue?

[Alex Salmond]

If it was two or three weeks ago that the hon. Gentleman was campaigning against the referendum, why is he suddenly in favour?

[Ian Austin]

I wasn’t.

[Alex Salmond]

On a manifesto of—

[Ian Austin]

On a point of order, Mr Speaker.

[Mr Speaker]

Order. We cannot have two people on their feet at the same time. I hope that it is a point of order rather than of frustration.

[Ian Austin]

Is it in order for the right hon. Member for Gordon (Alex Salmond) to say that that I was campaigning against a referendum just a few weeks ago, given that one of my local pledges was to support a referendum and I have been in favour of a referendum for well over a decade? If he knew anything about what I have ever said on the issue, he would know that.

[Mr Speaker]

I do not think the right hon. Member for Gordon (Alex Salmond) said anything disorderly. I think the safest thing that I can conclude is that he was not attending closely to election literature in Dudley, his mind being focused, perhaps, elsewhere.

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[Ian Austin (Dudley North) (Lab)]

Thank you, Madam Deputy Speaker. It is fantastic to see you in the Chair. This has been a brilliant debate with some absolutely superb maiden speeches, so I am delighted to be able to take part in it.

The EU has changed radically since Britain joined, when it amounted to a relationship between a small number of developed countries to promote trade through the creation of a common market. Today’s EU is very different from that: 28 member states with vastly different economies, Governments and social structures; ever-closer political and economic union, with the free movement of labour and a European currency; and other European countries wanting much closer relationships on foreign policy and defence. It has been a controversial question in British politics for decades, and Westminster has not been able to settle it to the public’s satisfaction. That is why I am delighted we are having this debate and very pleased that my party is backing this opportunity to let the British people have their say.

I have been saying for years that a referendum would be the best way to have a proper debate about the decisions that are taken in Brussels or in Britain, and about the jobs that depend on our membership of the EU, so that we can sort out those issues once and for all. But we can only settle the argument if it is carried out in a free, fair and balanced way, and if the public have complete confidence in the process. It is such a significant debate that everyone involved should have a chance to agree on the rules. There should not be any room for either side to say the contest was fixed or fiddled.

First, public funds should not be used to promote one side or the other and the spending rules should be designed to ensure that neither side has an unfair advantage. Secondly, this is such a significant decision that it should take place as soon as possible and be separate from any other election. It is a huge issue of great national importance and the issues need to be considered on their own merits, outside whatever other political issues are being debated in election campaigns at the time. Thirdly, the Prime Minister should have the confidence to give his Ministers the freedom to campaign as they see fit, as Harold Wilson did in 1975.

[Mr Bone]

I congratulate the hon. Gentleman on taking a positive view of the referendum and on having done so in a party that has not always agreed with him. Does he agree, however, that his Front-Bench team should also have the right to debate on both sides of the argument?

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[Ian Austin]

Absolutely; without question.

I can see the benefits of our being part of the world’s biggest single market and free trade area—it has made a big difference to our economy, particularly in the west midlands, where the car industry is of huge importance—but I am worried about the impact of freedom of movement on low-paid jobs and the effect of high levels of immigration on public services.

[Robert Flello]

I am enjoying my hon. Friend’s good contribution. During the election campaign and over the past 10 years, my constituents have time and again raised with me their concerns about the levelling down of wages when somebody comes along from another European country and about employers, rather than embracing the opportunity to widen skills, using it as an opportunity to drive down wages.

[Ian Austin]

That has been one of the impacts of our membership, and I know that my hon. Friend’s constituents, like mine, will be very concerned about it.

I can see the benefits of membership, and I can see the costs. I think that Britain could survive outside—of course we could—but there would be massive risks, not least, as I said earlier, for the car industry. I think that that is where the majority of the British people are on this issue. Outside here, most people are not ideological or dogmatic; they are reasonable and pragmatic and hold mainstream views. They have a balanced view and can see the benefits and the cost on both sides of the argument.

The no campaign has to think carefully about how it presents a positive view. I do not think that the apocalyptic, doom-laden vision of Britain as a member of the EU that I have heard in speeches this afternoon will strike a chord with anybody out there. I suspect that if the yes campaign could pick a leader for the no campaign, they would choose Nigel Farage. He is clearly a good communicator and a charismatic leader—winning 4 million votes and coming third in the election was a huge achievement—but he is not regarded by most people as pragmatic or someone who holds balanced, mainstream views on Britain’s membership of the EU.

In 1975, the campaign to stay in was led by leading mainstream figures from both the major parties and the business community, and that had a huge impact. The campaign to come out was led by people on the extreme left of the Labour party and the extreme right of the Conservative party, and it was unable to show that it could speak for the reasonable, mainstream majority. I think that the British people want a clear analysis of all the issues so that they can make their decision once and for all, and that needs two mainstream, reasonable campaigns putting the respective arguments.

The debate about our relationship with the EU should start right now, not after the Prime Minister has completed his negotiations. We should be involving the British people in that debate directly and listening to their views. We live in an age when people want to be engaged and to know that politicians will listen and take their views into account. I would like Ministers to involve people in the debate by commissioning a body such as the National Centre for Social Research to construct a detailed survey to find out exactly what the British people think about the benefits and costs of our membership of Europe, looking in detail at the jobs that depend on it, the impact and benefits of immigration and the emerging questions of defence and foreign policy. Knowing what people think would strengthen the Prime Minister’s hand in his negotiations. I am doing that over the summer in Dudley. I will be sending out a detailed but balanced survey to 30,000 households and inviting them to a dozen or so public meetings to discuss the issue, as we did last year on immigration.

I welcome this debate on our membership of the EU, but it has to be carried out properly. It has to be a fair debate that starts right now and involves all the British people. The truth is that people in places such as Dudley feel they have not had their say on the EU, and we should start this debate by listening to them. Let us use it to show there is a new way of doing politics, through a proper, serious debate and a real conversation. Let us use this debate to rebuild public trust in politics. I say to both sides: listen to and trust the people, and they will respond.