European Union (Referendum) Bill

Debate between Lord Davies of Stamford and Lord Lea of Crondall

Friday 24th January 2014 Lords Chamber

[Lord Lea of Crondall (Lab)]

My Lords—

[Lord Davies of Stamford]

I have given way already on two or three occasions. I think that I have shown considerable courtesy in giving way several times before speaking. I say with the greatest sincerity that I have nothing but the greatest admiration for the noble and learned Lord, Lord Mackay. Anybody who knows him knows that he is a man of the greatest integrity, and he was undoubtedly an extremely distinguished Lord Chancellor. But I was really quite shocked by something that he said this morning and I feel that, for once, he has allowed party loyalty to override his general judgment.

He seemed to suggest—I wish I could believe that I had misheard him—that we should allow in this place any kind of rubbish to become the law of the land simply on grounds of political expediency, as a substitute for party manifestos as a declaration of future intent or something of that sort. That seemed to me an extraordinary thing for any Member of this House to say, particularly a former Lord Chancellor.

We have a duty, which it is perhaps not an exaggeration to call a sacred duty, to make sure that anything that goes forward from this place on to the statute book has been thoroughly examined. If we see something coming from the House of Commons which we believe to be anomalous or improper, or not up to the highest standards of a democratic legislature or false in any way, we must do everything possible to modify and improve the text before it leaves this House.

Equally, there is really no doubt that there is something very false about the text of this Bill. There is something very artificial about the language of the question. We all in this House think that we understand the English language. We think that we understand the difference between the verb “to be” and the verb “to remain”. We know perfectly well in any context, be it a newspaper or a novel, that if we changed every use of the verb “to remain” to “to be”, we would fundamentally change the meaning and produce complete chaos and nonsense in many cases.

If I were to say to a friend of mine, “Do you think that I should be a member of a trade union?” or “Do you think that I should be a member of my local rotary?” or “Do you think that I should be a member of the Mormon church?”, and if, subsequent to the conversation he discovered that I was already a member of a trade union or a member of the local rotary or a member of the Mormon church, I think that he could come to only two conclusions. One would be that I was going slightly mad, perhaps showing the advanced symptoms of Alzheimer’s; I can see some noble Lords who have felt for years that I have had that. Alternatively, he would feel, with reason, that I was being very disingenuous and slippery and that he needed in future to be very cautious in his understanding of everything that I had said. That, I am afraid, is the position of the Government, or the position of the Tory party, or the position of the proposers of this Bill. They have subscribed to a use of language which is clearly very slippery and disingenuous, and we have to ask why they have done it.

I have no doubt that they have done it because the spin doctors have said that people confronted with a question will be inclined to vote for the status quo, particularly if it is a matter not of immediate concern to themselves or their families—we know that Europe is not a matter of immediate concern to most people and their families—and particularly if it is a slightly complicated matter. That is the easy option—some people would say the lazy option—so that, if you want to get an answer against membership of the European Union, you imply, although it would be quite false to do it, that our membership of the European Union is something new and is not the status quo. We all know that that is the game that they are playing. The question is whether the Government, or the Tory party more precisely, should be allowed to get away with that or whether the House of Lords should feel it wants the Government of the day to get away with that. That is the question that we have to weigh very carefully, because on that depends the integrity to a very large extent of our processes here.

If it becomes known in the country that the Government of the day can get away in a referendum with posing an obviously slightly bogus and biased question, what does that say for the integrity of our democracy? What does that say for people’s confidence in our political processes? There is already enough cynicism in this country about politics without adding to it in this fashion.

Even if there was no such thing as an Electoral Commission in this country, quite openly and straightforwardly on the basis of the two texts we are comparing this morning, the one put forward by the noble Lord, Lord Armstrong, is undoubtedly the one we should go for. However, there is an Electoral Commission. We have established it as an umpire to deal with precisely these matters, to give better confidence to the British people that politicians cannot get away with dirty tricks. Here, the sponsors and supporters of the Bill propose that we should simply override the views of the Electoral Commission—the umpire. Two things follow from that. First, it would be quite clear that there is no point at all in having an Electoral Commission. Why are we spending public money on an Electoral Commission if the Government of the day—or anybody who can get a majority in the two Houses—can always override its views? There would be complete cynicism about the Electoral Commission. Secondly, there would be even greater cynicism about all our political processes. I have my name to several amendments in this group but I am delighted to support the amendment put forward by the noble Lord, Lord Armstrong.

European Union Bill

Debate between Lord Davies of Stamford and Lord Lea of Crondall

Monday 13th June 2011 Lords Chamber

[Lord Flight]

I thank the noble Lord for giving way. It may be that he was more involved at the time than I was, although we are roughly the same age. However, I remember being organised by the Conservative Party at the time to go out and preach on voting in the referendum for the Common Market—indeed, I voted for it—specifically on the grounds that it would be a good economic prospect for this country. We had lost an empire and we needed to belong to something where we could trade. I was not even aware of the idea that I was trying to market something about political unification—fool though I may have been at the time.

[Lord Lea of Crondall]

I am sorry—I do not know who is speaking and who is intervening here.

[Lord Davies of Stamford]

Perhaps I may resume my remarks and then of course I will give way to my noble friend Lord Lea. Given that the noble Lord, Lord Flight, brings up his personal reminiscences of the 1975 campaign, I can respond only by saying that I did indeed take part in it. I actually became chairman of the City in Europe committee—I had been working in the City only for a year or two at that time—that organised the campaign in the City, and I chaired a meeting attended by 600 or 700 people at which Edward Heath spoke effectively. I remember that very well. I say with great sincerity that then, as now, I was committed to the long-term agenda explicitly set out in the treaty of Rome, which I had taken the trouble to read—even in those days. I believe that I knew what I was doing and that those who campaigned with me knew what we were doing. We made it absolutely clear to the British public what was intended and what we had in mind. I am very proud of that campaign.

Those are my personal reminiscences, and I am delighted that at the time the noble Lord had the right views on the subject. Perhaps he will come around to the right views again one day. Both of us took part in an interesting campaign. I give way to my noble friend Lord Lea.

[Lord Lea of Crondall]

I am most grateful to my noble friend. Perhaps I may give an even more telling example that gives the lie to the other contention. I recommend to the noble Lord, Lord Flight, that he looks at the 1971 White Paper. Mr Heath was Prime Minister, although he was not necessarily the favourite Conservative Prime Minister of the noble Lord. The first page refers to going towards ever-closer union. That is not a phrase that I particularly like, but I invite the noble Lord, Lord Flight, to read that White Paper, which is in the Library, and see whether he wants to keep reiterating this falsehood—I am sorry, I withdraw that—or, rather, this error.

[Lord Davies of Stamford]

My Lords, the second point to which I wanted to draw attention is a theme that has come through in all these debates. All I shall say in a few sentences is to try to make explicit in Hansard what should be implicit for anyone who reads our proceedings with any degree of attention. A clear difference is emerging between those of us who are in favour of the Bill and those of us who are against it as regards the role of Parliament and our view of Parliament’s constitutional importance, functioning, efficacy and efficiency. It is clear that the coalition Government and those who support them in this Bill do not really believe in Parliament in the same way that those of us on the other side of the argument do. That is a sobering thought, because until now, for hundreds of years, there has been no distinction between the parties about Parliament and the fact that it is the best way of taking complex decisions on behalf of the country. That is why most of us came into politics and public life in the first place. It was because we wanted to be part of that process and to influence it in one way or another. All parties in this country and all of us who have stood for public elected office have always believed that Parliament was the best possible mechanism for achieving good governance and for making sure that complex arguments had been viewed from their different perspectives and debated, and that we came to a mature and considered conclusion on difficult issues. I am very proud of being here in the mother of Parliaments.

Now half our Members in this House this afternoon—perhaps more than half; I do not know, but we will see what happens in the vote—are sceptical about Parliament. They pay lip service to it and, no doubt, see some role for it, but they are clearly very sceptical indeed about Parliament. They do not think that Parliament is mature enough or sufficient for the purpose of deciding complex questions in the future. They want to go back to this Napoleonic concept of the plebiscite or referendum as a mechanism that is superior to that of parliamentary government. That is a sobering thought. I will not go further into the constitutional implications or the historical significance of that because it would take me well outside the amendment we are debating. However, it has been a theme which, unambiguously, has emerged from the debates we have been having on this Bill. It is something that we should all reflect on carefully because the long-term consequences of such a split in what has always been a constitutional consensus in this country are to my mind very sobering indeed.

Monetary Policy Committee

Debate between Lord Davies of Stamford and Lord Lea of Crondall

Wednesday 16th February 2011 Lords Chamber

[Lord Lea of Crondall]

My Lords—

[Lord Davies of Stamford]

Does the Minister agree that, although the Monetary Policy Committee has a single target imposed on it—the 2 per cent inflation target—in practice it has been behaving as though, like the Federal Reserve, it has a multiple target, with responsibility not merely for price stability but for stabilisation or employment? It may be a very good thing that the Bank of England has not been increasing interest rates, as it might have done if it had been following a single price stability target over the past couple of years, but are the Government not concerned at the discrepancy between the formal position and the actual practice on which our monetary policy is currently based?