European Union Referendum Bill

Debate between Lord Davies of Stamford and Lord Greaves

Wednesday 4th November 2015 Lords Chamber

[Lord Davies of Stamford]

It is very unusual that I am able to answer a quite lengthy intervention from the noble Lord, Lord Forsyth, more than satisfactorily with a single word—yes. That is exactly what happened in 1975, exactly what my amendment calls for and exactly what I think is required on this occasion. I will give way to the noble Lord.

[Lord Greaves (LD)]

I merely intervene to say that I must be older than the noble Lord, Lord Forsyth, because I played an active part in the 1975 referendum. It was not a leaflet that was put out from each side and from the Government: there were three little booklets. Does the noble Lord, Lord Davies, agree with that?

[Lord Davies of Stamford]

I am most grateful for that intervention. I know that the noble Lord has a very long history of public life in local government before he came here and takes a great interest in these matters. He is absolutely right. Exactly what I have in mind is something that is an intelligent summary of the case which sets out the essential facts. There is far too much spin in the political world in which we live. We know that there is far too much dishonesty, suppression of material fact for the convenience of Governments and far too many back-stairs, deniable, non-attributable briefings and so on.

We want a situation in which any household in this country can have access if they wish to intelligent arguments both ways and can make up their own minds on that basis. Not only do I think that this would be an important element in the campaign and a great contribution to democratic transparency and democratic involvement, it would be a very good thing to go back to some of those first principles which we had in 1975 and make sure that this campaign involves serious consideration by as many people as possible of the real issues—albeit that we know that some people will be influenced by prejudices and emotive language, and some by the tabloids. But we hope that the number of those people is small in relation to our total democracy and that we have intelligent discussion, debate and consideration before we take a dramatic decision about our nation’s future.