European Union Referendum Bill

Lord Bowness Excerpts

Wednesday 18th November 2015 Lords Chamber

[Lord Bowness (Con)]

My Lords, I had my name to a similar amendment that was tabled in Committee. I have to say to my noble friend Lord Hamilton of Epsom that for me it is an issue of fairness. With great respect to him, we will not get very far if we throw words such as “gerrymandering” at each other. I suppose that those of us who want to see a positive vote in favour of remaining in the European Union could say that to exclude tax-paying British citizens—a group who have committed their lives and made decisions about their lives and who live in Europe—is also gerrymandering in trying to skew it in another direction. I do not think that that gets us very far.

I believe that the amendment is one of fairness. As I said in Committee, these are people, many of whom if not all, will not be outside the reach of Her Majesty’s Revenue & Customs. The fact that you are non-resident does not mean that you are non-resident for tax purposes. HMRC will keep its fingers on you if you have property, family or a whole lot of various matters where you are judged not to have broken your connection totally with the United Kingdom.

The advice from the Electoral Commission in respect of this amendment—which, indeed, I support—says:

“It is not clear how such proof could be provided and verified by EROs”.

I am rather surprised at that advice from the Electoral Commission, because I should have thought that the vast majority of people about whom we are talking are people who will be resident in one particular place. They will have evidence of employment and evidence of that residency, and they will have the same papers that the rest of us have in connection with bills, credit cards and bank accounts, which will be the kind of evidence that they would be able to present to an electoral registration officer. While I have great respect for the Electoral Commission and its advice, although it says that it is not clear how such proof could be provided, I am not clear in my mind why it is so difficult to find suitable items to prove that you are entitled to a vote in the circumstances that this amendment envisages. I support the amendment.