Palace of Westminster: Restoration and Renewal

Lord Dobbs Excerpts

Tuesday 6th February 2018 Lords Chamber

[Lord Dobbs (Con)]

My Lords, what a pleasure it is to follow the noble Lord, Lord Addington. As he said, everything has been said and I occasionally feel that, as I am almost tail-end Charlie on this, once everything sensible has been said and there is nothing more sensible to say, call on Dobbs. I will do my best.

I love this place. The honour and privilege of being asked to come here is something that I could never have imagined. Frequently, in the late evening, when the place is empty, I go and sit in the corner of the Royal Gallery, or even on the steps of Westminster Hall, and try to recreate the history and images of this place and listen to the echoes of former times. One of the most striking images that I always love is that of 11 May 1941, of Winston Churchill walking through the ruins of the House of Commons, symbolising defiance, determination and his love of parliamentary democracy.

There have been other disasters of course, 16 October 1834 being the most classic. Others have mentioned it but I must say that our former archivist, Caroline Shenton, did so much to reinvigorate and bring home the realities of that extraordinary day. Why do we need novelists when we have beautiful, colourful and brilliantly written history such as that? That time was of course an age of conspiracy. York Minster had been fired just a few years before and everyone assumed that it was a Catholic conspiracy, although it turned out to be the work of just one demented Methodist. It was said that the fire of 1834 was God’s revenge for the 1832 Electoral Reform Act. Let us hope that He does not take against Brexit or we are all in trouble. It was not conspiracy—it was simply cock-up.

There had been so many warnings, but they were ignored. It came, as is well known, through the burning of the tally sticks. The flues in the House of Lords were lined with copper and copper melts at 1,000 degrees centigrade. The furnace was coal-fired and coal generally burns at between 600 and 800 degrees centigrade, so there was plenty of spare capacity. But those tally sticks were made of old, dry wood. They were raked so that the workmen could get off to the Star and Garter pub over the road in a hurry, and old, dry wood burns very differently. The copper in the flues melted and we know the consequences: almost the whole of the Palace of Westminster burned.

The editor of the Standard—I am not sure if it was the Evening Standard then, but it might well have been—said that the only regret was that the Lords and Commons were not sitting at the time. In other words, it probably was the editor of the Evening Standard. It was an accident waiting to happen. The warnings were ignored. The Prime Minister of the time, Lord Melbourne, said that it was,

“one of the greatest instances of stupidity upon record. We lost almost the entire Palace of Westminster”.

There were other lessons to be drawn from the record of the loss of this place and its reconstruction. The first is the political hash we managed to make of that reconstruction. There were huge delays and enormous cost overruns. Every man an expert, every man an architect, every man a plumber and an electrician—nothing much changes.

Are we to turn this exercise of reconstruction, renovation and renewal into another third runway for London’s airport or another bypass for Stonehenge—those sagas that go on and on and turn out to be disasters and disappointments? Too often, when we approach activities such as this, we turn out to look like the Wizard of Oz. When the curtain is drawn back, we hear all the noise but there is almost nothing to deliver. We refurbish Big Ben, and no sooner have the bongs been stopped than the cost doubles overnight. We do not have a very happy record of these assignments, so I have some sympathy with my noble friend Lord Naseby and his reservations. He, like me, is a romantic sceptic—or are we sceptical romantics? I am not sure.

I am not a plumber or an electrician but I do know that the building is dangerous. We have heard time and again that we are on the brink of potential disaster. For many, Big Ben is a clock tower but an engineer will tell you that it is also a chimney waiting to do its work. To delay is not an option. The dangers are real. In the great fire of 1834, no one died. That was a bit of a miracle. We dare not rely on being so lucky this time. There will be huge cost overruns. My noble friend the Leader of the House said that there was no blank cheque, but of course nobody can tell us how much it will cost. We have to do our best, but delay is not an option. I hope, as my noble friend Lord Cormack said, that we can be more imaginative about where we should decant to, because in 1834 all sorts of options were considered, not just the QEII conference centre.

Before we start on that work, we must make sure that there is not another single Grenfell Tower left in the country because that, too, would be a dereliction of duty. We owe it to the thousands of staff and millions of visitors—almost 1 million visitors came here last year —to make sure that this place is safe for their use. The answer lies not just in the basement but also at the top of the Victoria Tower. Go up there on a clear day and you will see the magnificence of this Palace and the view from the top, which makes you think that you can see to the ends of the earth. It is a hugely powerful force.

I support the Leader’s Motion. I support and wish my noble friend Lord Deighton luck. He has done so much to show us that we can take on a public project such as this and make a success of it. That red-eyed clock is telling me to finish, so I conclude by saying that 413 years ago Guy Fawkes tried to destroy the House of Lords. It was said that Guy Fawkes was the only man ever to enter the House of Lords with an honest intent. That of course is not true: I have the privilege of being surrounded by many honest colleagues, men and women. But let us make sure that we do not, by accident, end up doing Guy Fawkes’s work for him.

European Union (Withdrawal) Bill

Lord Dobbs Excerpts

Tuesday 30th January 2018 Lords Chamber

[Lord Dobbs (Con)]

My Lords, I am not quite sure what I have done to deserve the honour of being squeezed between the noble Lords, Lord Pearson and Lord Mandelson. I will separate them temporally; I do not suppose that I will need to separate them ideologically. They will leave a vast ideological lowland across which I can wander with great freedom—oh happy days.

In 2015, this House approved the European Union Referendum Bill. In 2016, that referendum was held and its result was decisive. The people spoke. They spoke again in the 2017 election, when the vast majority of votes were given to parties that supported the outcome. Then, in 2018, bringing us bang up to date, the elected House of Commons—the people’s House—supported this withdrawal Bill. We cannot say that we have not been warned.

Yet now, from some quarters, we hear all sorts of reasons why we must duck and dive and dilly-dally, all dressed up in the language of constitutional propriety. There are some who let their honest ambitions slip and openly talk, outside the House, of sabotaging Brexit. That is sad and unwise. They will not sabotage Brexit, but they might well sabotage the credibility of this House, which is not well loved. Our support among MPs is falling and there are many in the press who are waiting with sharpened knives, particularly after the Data Protection Bill, to slit our veins. We ourselves agonise over reform, about reducing our numbers and increasing our effectiveness, which is, I suppose, tacit acceptance that the House of Lords is not entirely fit for purpose. If we were to make a constitutional Horlicks of this Bill, we will have made that point inescapable. We are unfit for purpose and the tumbrils will not be far behind.

I know that I tend to dramatise everything—it is what cheap novelists do—but since the noble Lord, Lord Adonis, began with a little bit of history, let me indulge in a bit, too. Some 100 years ago, this House came to the brink of disaster through naked self-indulgence. We turned our backs on Lloyd George’s “people’s Budget”. We cut ourselves off from the people. The House of Lords was accused then of being,

“one-sided … unpurged, unrepresentative, irresponsible”—

the words, incidentally, of that notorious troublemaker Winston Churchill. The Liberal Government of the time were left with no choice but to threaten to create hundreds of new Peers to get their legitimate business through, even to plan for the complete abolition of this place. Does any of that sound familiar? “So what?” one might say. The rights of this unelected House are clear, but so are its responsibilities. We have a duty to advise, enhance and improve where we can, but not to obstruct or overturn, least of all to sabotage.

Yet I am an optimist. Cool heads and sweet reason will, I am sure, see us through. The Government have made it clear that they will listen—they have already moved on several fronts—and the Labour Front Bench has offered wise and sensible words as to the limits of its ambitions. Undoubtedly the Bill needs scrutiny and improvement. The noble and learned Lord, Lord Hope of Craighead, gave a fascinating insight into some of those expectations. I hope that this will be our finest hour, or our finest week, or our finest months, as it will probably turn out to be. Am I being naive in thinking that there are those who talk of their parliamentary duty and the need for delay when in fact they intend to destroy? “It is too soon, too quick, too complicated”, they cry, “let us talk some more”. Like Penelope at her loom, they protest their innocence, while in the dark hours they do their best to unstitch it all and hope that Jean-Claude Juncker, or maybe even Tony Blair, will suddenly appear on the horizon and turn back the clock. Never let failure piled upon failure stand in the way of personal ambition.

The ambition of this Bill is modest—simply to ensure continuity from day one. Very little will change. Yet, I grant, in these modest changes, everything will change. We will bring government back closer to the people. We will once again make our own laws and be subject to our own courts. That is what the people have given their voice to, time and again, and that is what we must enable, through this Bill, and in a timely manner. This is one of those special parliamentary moments; it might even be called historic. A hundred years ago it was the people’s Budget. Today it is the people’s Brexit and I profoundly welcome it.

European Union (Notification of Withdrawal) Bill

Lord Dobbs Excerpts

Monday 20th February 2017 Lords Chamber

[Lord Newby (LD)]

Well, my Lords, finally we have the Article 50 Bill. If the Government had brought it forward last July, six months of delay could have been avoided. Since then, three things in particular have happened that require us to take stock and to fashion a response.

First, there was the deliberate decision of the Prime Minister to prioritise control of EU migration and the severing of links with the European Court of Justice over membership of the single market and the customs union. As George Osborne put it, they have,

“chosen … not to make the economy the priority in this negotiation”.—[Official Report, Commons, 1/2/17; col. 1034.]

Although some seek to portray that as an inevitable consequence of the 23 June vote, it was not. Many prominent Brexit supporters, including Nigel Farage, Dan Hannan and the Brexit Secretary himself suggested that we might remain in the single market—for example, by adopting the Norwegian precedent. So the decision to rip us out of the single market was a deliberate choice by the Prime Minister, and one that deserves to be challenged.

Secondly, as a consequence of the form of hard Brexit chosen by the Government, they have been forced to pivot our trade and indeed our political priorities towards the USA, and they have done so with unalloyed enthusiasm. In any era this would be a risky strategy, but the election of Donald Trump makes an America-first policy by this country not only risky but demeaning. The bold assertion by the Foreign Secretary that the US “shares our values” is unsustainable under a Trump presidency. On a wide variety of fronts—not just his ban on asylum seekers but on free trade, climate change and relations with Russia and Iran—Trump’s policies are opposed to British values and interests. I am sure the Prime Minister is acutely aware of this, yet her headlong rush to the US, offering them the trinket of a state visit, only serves to underline her weakness and the weakening position of the UK.

[Lord Dobbs (Con)]

My Lords, will the noble Lord give way?

[Lord Newby]

No, my Lords. There are 190 other speakers; the noble Lord will have his chance.

Thirdly, we have now had the White Paper setting out the Government’s negotiating stance. With the stark exception of its rejection of the single market and the European Court, the White Paper is a rather horrifying mixture of pious aspiration and complacent illusion. The Prime Minister’s preface sets the tone. British exceptionalism abounds. We have,

“the finest intelligence services, the bravest armed forces, the most effective hard and soft power”.

What is more, according to the White Paper,

“the country is coming together”,

with,

“65 million people willing us to make it happen”.

The whole tone portrays the UK as a sort of a fettered giant, a national equivalent of Clark Kent which, having entered the Brexit telephone booth, can emerge as a Superman ready to take on the world and win. Either the Prime Minister believes this, which is deeply worrying; or she hopes that by whistling a happy tune, all will work out well, which is scarcely more reassuring.

In view of these developments, how should this House approach the Bill before us? Can we and should we seek simply to send it on its way, or can we and should we seek to amend it? On the first question, the answer is crystal clear. We have the power to ask the Commons to think again on any piece of legislation, large or small. I hope the Government will accept that. When we had the Statement in response to the Supreme Court ruling on 24 January, the Minister, the noble Lord, Lord Bridges, said that,

“we in this House, as an unelected Chamber, need to tread with considerable care on this issue as we proceed”.

The clear implication was that we should not be pressing amendments. In response, however, the noble Lord, Lord Rooker, replied:

“It would be very useful if, when we debate this Bill and there are opposing views and we ask the other place to think again, we do not have Ministers, or anybody else, talking about constitutional crises. This place cannot have the last word. A Government defeat in your Lordships’ House is simply a request to the Commons to look at the issue again—that is all it is”.—[Official Report, 12/1/17; cols. 561 and 567.]


That sums up the position perfectly.

I therefore hope that Ministers in this House will not mimic the attitude of some of their colleagues in another place by dismissing concerns or queries raised by Members of your Lordships’ House as merely opposing the will of the people or by saying that we are trying to obstruct the process. No significant body of opinion in this House is seeking to prevent the passage of the Bill, but there is a world of difference between blocking the Bill and seeking to amend it.

So, if we clearly have the power to amend the Bill, should we positively seek to do so? I believe that we should. Brexit is the most important single issue which has faced the country for decades. For many of us, the approach being adopted by the Government is little short of disastrous. For those of us—and there are many in your Lordships’ House—for whom Europe has been a central theme of our entire political lives, to sit on our hands in the circumstances is both unthinkable and unconscionable.

Many of us throughout the House have always been proud internationalists. We have a profound and deep-rooted commitment to partnership with our European neighbours, a partnership which has resulted in a peaceful Europe where we work in co-operation with one another to overcome common adversaries—climate change, disease, organised crime, terrorism—and to share in the benefits of close relations with our neighbours. How could we possibly justify supine acceptance of what the Government are proposing to ourselves, let alone to others who are watching?

How then should be seek to amend the Bill? There are several sorts of amendments that were debated in the Commons. These amendments related to parliamentary scrutiny, to the role of the devolved Administrations, to impact assessments and to negotiating priorities, from the relationship to the single market to the rights of EU citizens in the UK. All of these are extremely important areas. We on these Benches will want to work across the House with others who seek to pursue them, but for us the key question as we begin the negotiations is: what happens at the end of the process? The Government were not given a blank cheque by the electorate. Voting for departure is not the same as voting for a destination.

If and when the Prime Minister reaches a Brexit deal, who will ratify it on behalf of the nation? Only three bodies could do so: the Government, Parliament, or the people as a whole. The Government have already said that they will give Parliament a vote on the deal, although at present they seem to be willing to offer a vote on only one option—to accept the deal or crash out of the EU. We will of course seek in your Lordships’ House to give Parliament a more meaningful role at the end of the process, but even if we succeed, Parliament, having decided to ask the people to express a view on whether they wished to leave the EU, should not have the final say. If only parliamentarians had had a vote in the referendum, our future EU membership would be secure. Both MPs and Peers overwhelmingly thought that our better interests were served by staying in the EU, including, of course, many members of the current Administration—not least those in your Lordships’ House.

At the end of the process initiated by the people, only the people should have the final say. I realise that many in your Lordships’ House are strongly opposed to referenda and shrink from the prospect of having any more, but we now have a country more deeply divided on Brexit than ever. The anger of those who wanted to leave is now matched by the growing anger of those who wish to remain—particularly our young people. If at the end of this process we are to come together as a country, we need to dissipate this anger, and we believe that giving the people the final say will help to do so.

I must also challenge those many Members of your Lordships’ House who have approached me and my colleagues in recent weeks to say that they believe Brexit is a catastrophe for the country and fervently wish to avert it. How, other than a referendum, do noble Lords think this could be seen to be done legitimately? Having remitted power over our membership of the EU to the people, who but the people could ultimately exercise the power to think again? Of course, the idea of such a referendum should not be alien to the Government. David Davis has argued over a number of years for what he calls a “decision” referendum at the end of the negotiating process. He has not said much about that in recent months but he did let his guard slip in concluding his Second Reading speech on the Article 50 Bill in the Commons when he quoted Gladstone, who said: “Trust the people”. Trust the people. My Lords, we agree.

Outcome of the European Union Referendum

Lord Dobbs Excerpts

Tuesday 5th July 2016 Lords Chamber

[Lord Dobbs (Con)]

My Lords, the referendum campaign on both sides was appalling. It verged on abuse. The people of this country deserve better and as a political class, we owe them a profound apology. Divisions inevitably linger and perhaps some are in danger of growing, particularly on immigration. I spoke a few words yesterday and, with your leave, will speak a few more today.

We condemn the outbursts of intolerance—of course we do. However, much of the blame rests squarely on the shoulders of a political establishment that, for 20 years, has chosen largely to ignore the problem. The left shouted down anyone who wanted to discuss the issue, accusing them of being racist while we on the right offered up glib, implausible promises. How did we, as Conservatives, expect ordinary people to react when at one moment we promised to reduce immigration to tens, not hundreds of thousands—no ifs or buts—and only a year later delivered a net total in a single year of 330,000? We share the blame.

I wept when I saw that dreadful referendum poster of refugees. Is it their fault? No, it is not theirs. The fault lies with us. We have been sleeping comfortably with our consciences and have slept too long. As a result, today millions of people who are legally and properly settled in Britain are afraid, uncertain of what we might do with them and to them. They do not deserve such uncertainty. At times politics requires us to climb into bed with some pretty uncomfortable bedfellows. In the case of vote leave, dare I suggest that some of my fellow campaigners forgot to take off their boots?

This referendum was about freedoms and tolerance, not just for a few but for us all. It was about the British sense of fair play and flexibility—nothing to do with racist bullying and kicking out minorities. It was about moving forward, not about retreating to dark old days of an island surrounded by stormy seas. Above all, it was about respect—respect for the wishes of the people, which requires respect for others, no matter what their origins, their colour or their accents. Yesterday the Government said that it would be unwise to offer assurances to immigrants already here without parallel assurances from other European Governments. What are they saying? Is offering assurances unwise? No, it is far from it. It would be an act of humanity, of friendship and of leadership. After all, what was Brexit about if not establishing a sovereign independent Government capable of making up their own mind? We do not need anybody else’s permission. Those days are gone. It is our choice, so I want to press the Government and all those who have ambition to lead the Government for clear assurances that EU immigrants already living lawfully in this country need have no fears. They are welcome and will continue to be.

What are we to have, for pity’s sake? Are we to have mass transportations like we have seen in the Balkans, with vast lines of mothers, bewildered babes in arms, crossing the Channel in different directions? That is the way of madness. It is worth repeating that these people are not bargaining chips, least of all hostages. They are our neighbours and our friends. We Conservatives are not, dare I say it, the nasty party and we must not become one. Any future Government who tried to introduce legislation to send back legally settled immigrants would be out of their mind and soon be out of office—otherwise we would lose our sense of decency. We would lose the superb support that we enjoy in our health service, in our care services, in the contributions we get in every street of every town in every corner of the country—and not least, the superb service we get in our own dining room. Ministers please take note: it is not going to happen; get on with it.

What will happen? It is no one’s interest that we should be cut off from the EU. We are, and still will be, all of us, Europeans. There is no reason why that relationship should not be warm and productive, but I urge the EU in its own interests to find a better means of dealing with this crisis than through its unelected president. I do not wish to personalise this, but if it had not been for President Juncker’s conduct and exquisitely clumsy commentaries—he has been at it again today—I think that remain would have won.

This will and must be a political process, balancing the rights of the UK and the rights of the EU—a process that requires vision and is run not by bureaucracy but by elected politicians, those who can feel the hot breath of the people on their necks. That means above all Frau Merkel, who, more than any other person, holds the future of Europe in her hands. I would say this to her if I could. If not union, then alliance. If not as one, then at least together. If we are no longer bound by law, then let us be bound by bonds of overwhelming friendship. We have a mountain to climb, but the view from the summit might yet prove awesome.

Syria: UK Military Action

Lord Dobbs Excerpts

Wednesday 2nd December 2015 Lords Chamber

[Lord Dobbs (Con)]

My Lords, we are, I suspect, about to embark once again on the business of war. At this moment, above all else, we must remember that the objective of war is not to secure victory but to secure the peace.

It is understandable that so many are cautious. The failures of Iraq, Afghanistan and Libya cast a long shadow. I have considerable reservations. We are told that IS represents “a fundamental threat” to our national security, yet we will not commit troops to the ground under any circumstances. That is militarily bizarre. What are troops for if not to deal with a fundamental threat to our national security?

Am I alone in having no clear understanding of what the specific political objectives of the Free Syrian Army are? Perhaps my noble friend Lord Howe will be able to tell us when he winds up. Yet alongside those reservations, and many others, I ask myself this: what would we be saying if the attack had been on London rather than on Paris and the French refused to help us? The headlines and the outpourings of insults and accusations would be appalling. Enduring friendships sometimes require us to swallow our doubts.

This will not be a war against Islam but against evil, butchers, beheaders and crucifiers. I have no doubt that we will win the military conflict, but what I fear most is that, in the aftermath of victory, we will throw away the peace, as we have done too many times before. If winning a war is a messy business, securing the peace can be far more difficult.

Peace in the land called Syria will not be the peace we hope for. We are going to get our hands dirty. It will involve deals with Russia and Iran. It will involve us finding a way of dealing with Assad, too, despite our reservations. Some will undoubtedly describe such deals as grubby. The end result will have little to do with democracy, human rights and fair play and everything to do with stability and practical things—grubby compromises. It might even involve an effective division of Syria or widespread and forced relocation of populations. Nothing can be ruled out. Sunni, Shi’ite and Kurd will demand autonomy and their own security, and how will we square our new friends the Kurds with our old allies the Turks?

In the end, we will do things that we would rather not do, and we will fail to do some of those things that we very much want to see done. If, and only if, we are ready to meet the challenges of that peace should we embark on this challenge of war. Let us not dare set out on a journey that we fail to finish.

Syria: Foreign Affairs Committee Report

Lord Dobbs Excerpts

Thursday 26th November 2015 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Stowell of Beeston]

I am very grateful to my noble friend for his comments, particularly because of the remarks he prefaced them with about his views on the war in Iraq.

[Lord Dobbs (Con)]

My Lords, may I nudge my noble friend very gently on this issue of the position of Assad, which has come up in many comments this morning? Up to this point, the British Government have been absolutely clear that this is black and white and that they will not under any circumstances talk to Assad. Yet in this search for peace and stability in Syria, diplomatic solutions occasionally require us to get our hands dirty. I listened very carefully to the Statement this morning, which said that we are,

“working towards the transition to a new government in Syria”,

and,

“ultimately Assad must go”.

That sounded to me as if we were being rather more flexible on the matter of talking with Assad. If that is the case, I suggest to my noble friend that many of us would welcome that flexibility.

House of Lords Reform

Lord Dobbs Excerpts

Tuesday 15th September 2015 Lords Chamber

[Lord Dobbs (Con)]

My Lords, I have listened to every speech and after such a fascinating debate I am not sure that I have much new to offer, but I will try.

These last few months have been cruel for the reputation of our House. Much of the criticism is unfair, yet we live in a world that takes great delight in toppling gilded towers. Our gilded tower is one of the most spectacular. It is also the easiest of targets. A lot of repair work can be done, and surprisingly quickly, if we are able to engage in information and rebuttal, to explain the work we do and to correct some of the more grotesque distortions that have taken hold. An information and rebuttal post could be set up now, within weeks. We could move very quickly.

The public deserve to know the facts, not just the fiction. Take our dining habits. It is widely believed that we dine on lobster and caviar; I am not sure what I will dine on this evening but it certainly will not be that. Most of us, I suspect, have not even eaten lobster here. Being a good working-class lad, the closest I got to caviar is a taramosalata salad in the River canteen. I must confess to buying a little champagne, but like so many noble Lords, almost every drop of it has been to raise money for charity. The delusions and distortions that we suffer are appalling. They may pass, but I rather doubt it. Some of us, a few, have played into their hands.

So how can we fix the damage? First, by re-emphasising that we are a House of duties, not privileges. We Peers are here to serve this House and the country beyond; we must never make it seem as though this House is here to serve us. Secondly, none of us deserves a job for life by right; there comes a point where enough is enough—move on.

In the mean time, we must focus remorselessly on the quality of the work that we do. That work is vital. I like to think of this House as a great parliamentary composting machine, improving and making more fragrant whatever—I was about to say “rubbish”—is thrown at us from the other place. My Lords, we should take pride in being parliamentary worms or rather glow-worms.

How do we translate all this into specific proposals? With fixed terms, age limits, enforced retirements? They have the merit of simplicity, but suffer the tragic weakness of not finding the pleasure of my noble friend Lord Strathclyde. Perhaps we should go back to finding the more traditional methods of finding constitutional compromise: Strathclyde and Steel in a locked room—winner takes all. It is a thought.

[Lord Strathclyde]

I would win.

[Lord Dobbs]

What is fundamental is that the size of this House should be restrained. It may not be a silver bullet, to use the phrase of my noble friend the Leader, but through restraint so much more would follow. We cannot carry on growing like a pig’s bladder. A House without limits is a House of confused qualities, with too many dusty corners for those who should not be here at all. So, numbers reduced by internal selection following the precedent set by hereditaries and others—as set out so ably by my noble friend Lord Cormack—a House no larger than the Commons would have the huge benefit of focusing public attention both on the job we do and who is best to do it.

None of this is easy. Sometimes in politics you have to do rather a lot to achieve just a little, and that is where we find ourselves today. Perhaps I am wrong about all this—I am often accused of turning everything into a drama—but this House is a House of service or it is nothing. If we cannot move forward with some urgency, we may find ourselves being dragged behind a crowd of flat-earthers, who do not understand public duty and who want to sweep this House away lock, stock and biscuit barrel. In that we will have lost a thing not only of great—

[Lord Lea of Crondall]

I am grateful to the noble Lord for giving way, but he seems to be implying that turning off the tap is down to us. Is it not down to the Prime Minister?

[Lord Dobbs]

My Lords, perhaps given the lateness of the night and the fact that I am a breath away from finishing, we can conduct the rest of this conversation outside. The noble Lord has already had a long list of minutes today, so if he does not mind I will treat this later.

I conclude by saying that, if we allow the flat-earthers to win, if this place is swept away, as it could be, we will have lost not only a thing of great beauty but a thing of unique value.

BBC Royal Charter

Lord Dobbs Excerpts

Thursday 4th June 2015 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Neville-Rolfe]

My Lords, the Government are committed to strong Welsh language broadcasting, although the funding arrangements for the future are clearly for the charter review. I am sure they will be looked at in that context. It is really important to safeguard Welsh language broadcasting. When I was on maternity leave, I was a big fan of “Pobol y Cwm”, which you can get in the south-west, where I was spending some time.

[Lord Dobbs (Con)]

My Lords, if the noble Baroness were to go round any of the market squares of eastern Europe and talk to anybody over the age of 45, she would discover how vital the BBC has been in emphasising British and western cultural values. The same could now be said of all the villages and madrassahs in places such as Afghanistan, where they gather round a television still in their coffee shops. For those of us who believe that the BBC, in some of its areas, needs a good and perhaps vigorous nudging, will she ensure that that crucial element of soft power which the BBC represents is not undermined but indeed enhanced?

[Baroness Neville-Rolfe]

My Lords, I agree with my noble friend. I have spent a lot of time in the towns of central Europe and I know just how important the BBC is to them. Indeed, I was very pleased to hear that while there were a lot of concerns about the World Service, the funding has actually gone up since the new arrangements were brought in.

G20 Summit

Lord Dobbs Excerpts

Monday 17th November 2014 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Stowell of Beeston]

I absolutely agree with my noble friend. She is right to outline a whole range of measures through which this Government have ensured that the success of this country is felt by everyone. That is what we are trying to do. By putting the economy at the top of our agenda, we are ensuring that there is security and stability for everybody, and if we have a sound economy we can ensure that the reforms we have introduced, whether in education or welfare or the way that we are ensuring the future of the NHS, mean that everyone in this country benefits from the future success of this country.

[Lord Dobbs (Con)]

My Lords, I want to return to one of the more compelling points made by the noble Lord, Lord Hunt—I thought some of his remarks later on were getting a little desperate; one might almost think we had an election in the offing—when he mentioned Ukraine. There can be no doubt that the Kremlin has acted irresponsibly, impetuously and almost certainly illegally, but much the same would have been said about the Kremlin during the whole of the Cold War and yet during that time we always kept the channels of negotiation open. There are reports in America that the Russians may wish to withdraw from nuclear safety discussions, which would be entirely short-sighted. Will she take that message back and ensure that the channels of communication are always kept open, no matter how desperate the situation gets? After all, that helped bring the world back from the precipice in the Cold War. We should regard what is going on now not as a fight to the end but, I hope, a battle for what might be a new beginning.

[Baroness Stowell of Beeston]

My noble friend is right to emphasise the importance of retaining communication at all times. Indeed, that is certainly what we in the UK are doing. My right honourable friend the Prime Minister had a bilateral with President Putin at the G20. Others did as well. There is certainly no question of us seeking to close down those channels of communication and we would urge all other nations to keep those channels open.

European Union (Referendum) Bill

Lord Dobbs Excerpts

Friday 31st January 2014 Lords Chamber

[Lord Giddens (Lab)]

My Lords, I am one of those who believe that it is sensible to discuss the content of the Bill, if only because it is a marker, so I should like to return to its substance and talk briefly to the amendments.

If the UK were to leave the EU, it would be the biggest decision that the country had taken for at least 60 years. The idea that its consequence would be a simple retrieval of lost sovereignty is surely ridiculous. The country would have to redefine its place in the world: 60 million people confronting a world of 7 billion. Leaving the EU would not magically open up new markets. The UK would have to go cap in hand to an organisation that it had just spurned to get some kind of trading deal. Its situation would not be at all like that of Norway or Switzerland, which did not join the EU in the first place and were able to tailor deals at an early stage.

That is the backdrop to my support for many of the amendments tabled to the Bill, including Amendment 50. A referendum result that is, in the terms of the amendment, “definitive and beyond challenge”, is absolutely necessary, and all means must be pursued to ensure that it is achieved. There could easily be protracted legal challenges if the Bill is not thought through in all its ramifications—for example, challenges to the extent of the franchise. Many further amendments are relevant to that point.

I have studied referendums all around the world in the course of my academic work and I feel that Amendment 56 is also essential. I lived for quite a few years in California, where the problematic aspects of referendums were very visible. It is vital to insist on a baseline turnout for a referendum of any importance, otherwise decisions, even highly consequential ones, can be taken that do not reflect the will of the people. A minimum of 40% turnout is therefore to me an absolute exigency.

[Lord Dobbs (Con)]

My Lords—

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[Baroness Falkner of Margravine]

My Lords, I rise briefly to point out to the House that the House of Lords Constitution Committee published a comprehensive report on referendums in its session of 2009-10. Its conclusion on thresholds—the noble Lord, Lord Hannay, has commented on 40%—was that:

“We recommend that there should be a general presumption against the use of voter turnout thresholds and supermajorities. We recognise however that there may be exceptional circumstances in which they may be deemed appropriate”.

One of those exceptional circumstances that the committee, of which I was not a member at the time although I am now, had in mind was major constitutional change. I think that there is a general view around the House that the issue we are debating today is one of major constitutional change, and the House may therefore wish to reflect on the advice given by the Constitution Committee at that time.

[Lord Dobbs]

My Lords, another hour, another group of amendments. We have 15 groups of amendments to get through today if we are to reach the end of Committee stage. That is my ambition, so noble Lords will understand if I attempt to be reasonably brief in responding to them.

These amendments go to the very heart of the differences between us. I believe in the Bill because I believe that we politicians have failed the people—it is as simple as that. We have flipped and flopped like a hooked fish dragged out on to the riverbank. I am also in favour of the Bill because I believe that ultimately it is the right of the people to decide their own future. Noble Lords pressing this amendment have an opposite view from me: they believe that Parliament should decide, not the people. In a representative democracy that is an entirely reasonable point of view, except—

[Lord Lipsey (Lab)]

My Lords—

[Lord Dobbs]

I am only a minute into my speech, but of course I will make way for the noble Lord.

[Lord Lipsey]

Last week, when we were proceeding at precisely this pace, the noble Lord said that we were making very good progress, so I think that he might allow a fuller debate today. He has just made a completely unsubstantiated accusation against the opponents of the Bill. Many of us are not against a referendum; I myself am strongly in favour of one. We are against this dog’s dinner of a Bill, which requires improvement by every side of this House.

[Lord Dobbs]

The noble Lord has made his point, again. I think that it is a point that he made last week in Committee and I suspect that we may hear more of it again today. Of course Parliament decides, and we discussed that in Committee last week, but there comes a point when all these nostrums about parliamentary sovereignty require a dose of carbolic and common sense, when we need to find a democratic balance. That balance is not achieved by this unelected House obstructing the clearly expressed view of the other place. Parliament is sovereign, of course it is, but even above a sovereign Parliament there are the people. When the people have expressed their will, it is a terrible thing for any House of Parliament to defy. What British Parliament, as sovereign as it may be, would be unwise enough to turn around to the people and say, “We hear you but we choose to ignore you”?

Noble Lords opposite have taken us around the planet. They have taken advice from Brussels to Washington and have sought advice from Strasbourg and in Japan, yet they are completely failing to convince anyone that they are keen to take the advice of the people. If we pursue these amendments, we are doing only one thing—turning around to the people and saying that their voice, will and instruction are not enough, and that we unelected politicians know better. That is why they are so disillusioned and why we need a referendum to cleanse these stables. If that is the side of the barricade where the noble Lord wishes to take a stand, that is his choice. Otherwise, though, I beg him to withdraw his amendment.

[Lord Foulkes of Cumnock]

My Lords, with respect, the noble Lord, Lord Dobbs, has not addressed any of the amendments or replied to any of the points made in the debate. All that he has done is repeat what he said last week about the right of the people to decide. It is totally inadequate for him to go on repeating that again and again in reply to every amendment. Surely the promoter of the Bill should deal with the points raised in some of the brilliant speeches that have been made.

The defects of the Bill have been coming out thick and fast in this debate. My noble friend Lady Andrews has said that there is no Explanatory Memorandum— why not? The noble Lord did not reply to that. I asked last week why there were no schedules to the Bill. A Bill of this kind, as my noble friend Lord Hennessy will know as an expert in these matters, should have schedules setting out the conduct of the referendum so that we know exactly how it is going to be carried out.

My noble friend Lord Anderson raised a very important constitutional point about what the officials in the Box are here for. Are they officials of the Conservative Party advising the noble Lord, Lord Dobbs, or are they from the Foreign Office? We have not had a reply to that. The noble Baroness, Lady Warsi, has not spoken. Last week we got her into some difficulty, but on this occasion either she or the noble Lord the Leader of the House would be welcome to intervene and explain why, if they are Foreign Office officials, they are there.

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[Lord Tugendhat (Con)]

My Lords, I support the amendment put forward by the noble Lord, Lord Turnbull, for the reasons which he so eloquently set out. However, I will address a few remarks to my noble friend Lord Dobbs. My noble friend seeks to paint those who propose or support amendments as being opponents of the Bill who are seeking to deny the people of this country a referendum. However, that is not true. As I made clear in my speech at Second Reading, and again last week—

[Lord Dobbs]

I have never made that allegation. I have always accepted that there are men and women of great principle who are fighting the Bill from responsible positions. However, I have taken the advantage of pointing out—and others may conclude this—that some noble Lords may well oppose the Bill not for responsible, sensible and principled reasons but because they are simply determined to kill it. I have never whitewashed the entire opposition in the way my noble friend suggests.

[Lord Tugendhat]

My noble friend used the word “oppose”, but I do not oppose the Bill, and neither do I oppose a referendum. I have made it quite clear, as have other noble Lords, that I support a referendum on the basis put forward by the Prime Minister in his Bloomberg speech. It is precisely because I support a referendum that I believe that the terms of that referendum need to be as good as we can possibly make them. This will be a very important referendum—all noble Lords agree on that point. Therefore, if it is to be a very important referendum, the terms on which it is held have to be drawn up as carefully and objectively as possible. Because of that, it is very important that the people of this country should be able to make an objective choice based on as much information as possible. That must mean that they should be able, as far as possible, to balance the advantages and disadvantages of membership of the European Union against the advantages and disadvantages of the proposed new relationship.

I do not often invoke the noble Lord, Lord Pearson of Rannoch, but on this occasion I will do so. He points out, very frequently, that if we leave the European Union, there will still be trade between us and the European Union, and we will still deal very closely with it in economic matters. Of course he is right; one must not overstate the consequences of staying or leaving. However, it is undoubtedly the case that if we leave, the terms of the relationship will be different. Some people may think that they will be better, while others may think that they will be worse, but the British people need to be able to form a view based on as much information as possible. That is the purpose of this amendment, and I support it because I wish the Bill to be a better one.

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[Lord Giddens]

I have not heard a single noble Lord object to the content of this amendment. The only one seems to be the “ram it through at all costs” objection. Could not the noble Lord, Lord Dobbs, simply accept the amendment at this point?

[Lord Dobbs]

Of course I could but quite clearly I am not going to. It would deprive us of hearing the noble Lord, Lord Kinnock.

[Lord Kinnock (Lab)]

I am grateful to the noble Lord. Although I endorse entirely the appeal made by my noble friend Lord Giddens and indeed others, I suggest to the noble Lord, Lord Dobbs, that he could accept this amendment, and he could do it with the approval of the Prime Minister. My authority for claiming that comes from no less a source than the Bloomberg speech, which I am now quoting so frequently that I am beginning to think of it as the Bloomberg bible.

In that speech, the Prime Minister was very clear—indeed, commendably clear—that:

“If we left the European Union, it would be a one-way ticket, not a return”.

That is a very sobering thought and a very grave proposition. To his further credit, the Prime Minister was balanced in his treatment of the issues in much of that speech. He said, quite correctly, that:

“Britain could make her own way in the world, outside the EU”.

He then, in a very balanced way, went on to say:

“But the question we will have to ask ourselves is this: is that the very best future for our country?”.

He said that of course we,

“would be free to take our own decisions … But we don’t leave NATO because it is in our national interest to stay and benefit from its collective defence guarantee”.

The only question that I would pose to the Prime Minister and to the noble Lord, Lord Dobbs, on this aspect is: how free would we be to take our own decisions?

In a further balancing item, the Prime Minister responded to such a rhetorical question by saying:

“If we leave the EU, we cannot of course leave Europe. It will remain for many years our biggest market, and forever our geographical neighbourhood. We are tied by a complex web of legal commitments”.

He continued:

“Even if we pulled out completely”—

and I do not see that there is any other option other than a complete pull-out, given what the Prime Minister said about it being a one-way ticket—

“decisions made in the EU would continue to have a profound effect on our country. But we would have lost all our remaining vetoes and our voice in those decisions”.

If the Prime Minister was willing to say that a year ago in the Bloomberg speech and to spell out the implications of our departure, what conceivable resistance could there be to accepting an amendment that would make it mandatory to provide an assessment of the United Kingdom’s intended relationship with the European Union in the event of withdrawal? In fact, on this occasion I am being as uncharacteristically helpful as I possibly can be to Mr Cameron. Maybe one day he will reciprocate that.

Of course, the question remains: how free would we be to make our own decisions? This House will know that if the search is for sovereignty, then the definition of sovereignty as the power to make effective decisions must be predominant in our minds. Outside the European Union in the world of the 21st century and beyond, we have to wonder how a medium-sized economy with a population of around 60 million, abutting the world’s biggest single market, would fare if we had to conduct our own relationships individually—dare I say unilaterally?—with emerging and emerged global powers. How would we fare in terms of resolving the crisis of the environment or in terms of combating international crime, were it not for the fact that inside the European Union we can exert substantial influence on the direction of affairs and on the nature of international relationships in an increasingly complex and interdependent world?

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[Baroness Warsi]

My Lords, there is a government view on membership of the European Union, which is that the UK’s interest is to be a member of a reformed European Union. There are also agreed government views on how to run a referendum, following the alternative vote and Scottish independence polls. However, there is no collective position on holding a membership referendum and hence no government view on its implications. Noble Lords can be assured that, by the time of the referendum, the official yes and no campaigns will have made their cases in some detail. Therefore, the British people will be in no doubt about the choice that they are making.

[Lord Dobbs]

My Lords, this has been another lengthy debate and I do not wish to prolong it. First, I will just respond to a point that the noble Lord, Lord Foulkes, made earlier. I assure him that I have never sought and never been given, so far as I am aware, any advice from a government official for this debate other than factual advice or advice about the Government’s agreed position. I believe that all the proprieties have been maintained, as they ought to be.

It is unthinkable that people would not be fully supplied with responsible information before any referendum campaign. There may of course be plenty of irresponsible information too, but that is the stuff of politics. It is nobody’s intention to ask people to vote on such a fundamental issue when they are not fully briefed and fully aware of what the issues are. No one can expect people to come to a rational and reasoned decision—as we would want them to—without the appropriate information.

However, it is very difficult to see what this amendment would add that is so very different from the amendment that the House carried last week in the name of the noble Lord, Lord Roper, which called for,

“an evidence based assessment of the impact of the United Kingdom ceasing to be a member of the European Union”.

I argued against that amendment, simply on the grounds that people would get all that information anyway and that it was not necessary to include those provisions in the Bill. The House decided otherwise and passed that amendment calling for an evidence-based assessment of the impact of the United Kingdom ceasing to be a member of the European Union. I am genuinely puzzled therefore as to the need for this amendment.

Again, the wording is important here. It asks about our “intended” future relationship with the EU. As it seems likely that, under most circumstances, all the major parties will be campaigning for us to stay in the EU, the question is: the outlines of this future relationship as intended by whom? How can this task be completed? By consulting UKIP? The only sensible way to seek a response to the question of how one intends to get divorced—which I think was the phraseology of the noble Lord, Lord Turnbull—is to ask those who actually want to get divorced in the first place. Any plan B drawn up by those who do not believe in it, will not be arguing for it and have no intention of pursuing it would not be worth the paper that it was printed on.

The noble Lord, Lord Liddle, suggested, in defence of this amendment, that we should do what the Labour Government did for the euro by making their intended position clear. If that is the example he expects us to follow, I am not in favour of it. It was the most bizarre approach that any Government have taken to such an important issue and points to the difficulty of an intended position on something of this sort. The suggestion that underpins this amendment is really rather woolly. It is ambiguous and therefore I think that it is flawed. That is why I oppose it, which is perhaps why a very similar amendment was defeated on Report in the other place by a majority of 265 to eight. The noble Lord, Lord Turnbull, has come up with an interesting constitutional principle that a clear vote in the other House does not reflect the view of that House, but we will pass on from that.

This is not a Bill for those with closed minds, and there are closed minds on both sides of this issue. This is a Bill designed to give those with common sense an opportunity to come to an informed position as to what they intend for their futures. If the noble Lord, Lord Shipley, will forgive me, I do not intend to follow him up the Swiss mountains or sail along the Norwegian fjords. The Prime Minister does not want that; I do not want that; this is another argument that seems to be constructed in order to knock it down that I can see very few people putting. I shall certainly not be following the noble Lord, Lord Anderson, in the magnificent tour that he gave us around every part of the world. The argument that we need to specify even more than we have done under the previous amendment and that we need to load the people with more information, not as a result of democracy or of our campaigning skills and our passionate beliefs in where we stand but on the face of a Bill because the Government require it, implies a huge lack of faith in the ability of the different sides in a referendum campaign to put their case. I do not share that lack of faith. I cannot see what this amendment would do that the amendment that we passed last week—

[Lord Hannay of Chiswick]

I am most grateful to the noble Lord for giving way, but I am afraid that he is yet again caricaturing the supporters of this amendment. On the day after a referendum, whatever the result has been, it will not be for the protagonists of staying in or for the protagonists of leaving the European Union to define Britain’s future relationship if the vote has gone for a no; it will be for the Government to do so. The amendment would require the Government to set out what the relationship might be if there was a no vote. That cannot be left either to the yes campaign or to the no campaign.

[Lord Dobbs]

If the noble Lord will forgive me, that is not what the amendment seeks. It is not about what the relationship might be; it is about what that relationship is intended to be, which is a very different point. That is the point on which I suggest that this amendment is flawed.

It will come as no surprise to the House to know that I do not share the enthusiasm of those who do not believe that all this information will come out in an adequate referendum campaign. I regard this amendment as being entirely unnecessary. I believe that it is ambiguous and flawed, and that no one can come up with a suitable intended relationship in those circumstances. I therefore request the noble Lord to withdraw his amendment.

[Lord Turnbull]

My Lords, this has been another hour and a half—but I do not begrudge that—of very interesting discussion. I am grateful to noble Lords who have spoken, overwhelmingly in support of the amendment. There are certain common themes. First, we are faced with a momentous decision. That was made very clear by the noble Lord, Lord Triesman, in his intervention during discussion on the previous amendment. Secondly, the matter is immensely complex. I am particularly grateful to the noble Lord, Lord Shipley, for giving us a sight of the trade implications and for making the link with the Electoral Commission in that one has to understand not only the question but the implications of the question. It was also agreed that we as a Parliament and supporters of democracy owe it to the electorate to give the best possible information on which to make such an informed decision. Of the arguments against, one was that such an assessment was unnecessary because it was going to happen anyway. I think that our debate yesterday showed a Government campaigning for a change and not making preparation for plan B. The noble Lord, Lord Dobbs, argued that it was inconceivable that such an assessment would not be supplied. If it is inconceivable, what is the harm of putting it in the Bill? More importantly, however, the noble Lord said that we should rely on the arguments coming forward from the yes campaign and the no campaign. Each of those documents will be partisan, because they will try to make a particular case, whereas the assessment required by the amendment would establish some factual ground.

What is the difference between this amendment and the amendment passed last week? The noble Lord, Lord Hannay, made this clear. It falls exclusively to the government of the day to make the assessment. They will have to cope with the consequences of a no vote and they should set out what they think those consequences should be.

It was asked why we should not have a similar document on the consequences of a yes vote. There are two reasons why I have not included that in the amendment. The first is that the Prime Minister has promised us his view of what the consequences of a yes vote would be after a renegotiation. The second is, as was perceptively pointed out by the noble Lord, Lord Davies of Stamford, that there is an asymmetry of information. A lot more will be known about being in and staying in than about moving out and something is needed to rectify that imbalance.

I lived in hope that the noble Lord, Lord Dobbs, would accept the proposal from the noble Lord, Lord Wigley, and others. I hoped that he would accept the principle of it and come back with something better. He complained that this is not a perfect amendment. He has had the opportunity to take it away and improve it but he has decided to spurn that. On that basis, I do not think we can take this argument further.

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[Lord Dobbs]

My Lords, first, I take the point about Gibraltar. The drafters of the Bill had not chosen to distinguish between Gibraltar and the Channel Islands. The drafters of the Bill did not include Gibraltar; that was included at the express request and instruction of the other place. The situation of the Channel Islands was of course discussed in the other place. There are of course constitutional differences between the two but I will, of course, take that away and we will be in touch.

I apologise to the noble Lord, Lord Kerr, if he thinks that I have been in any way deficient or impolite in dealing with the points that he made in the previous Committee sitting. He raised the point then that he would be bringing the issue of timing, for instance, up on Report, and I was hoping to get a sensible time between Committee and Report to discuss exactly those matters with him. That was my intention; if I have not been prompt enough in dealing with that, then I apologise. It is certainly not my intention to turn my back on sensible points so responsibly made.

I hope that those noble Lords with their names to the amendments in this group will forgive me if, once again, I say that they are unnecessary. The rules of conduct for most polls, including general elections, are set out in secondary legislation rather than in an Act; that is the custom. The appropriate, nuanced arrangements—I hope that they will be nuanced, the term that the noble Lord, Lord Triesman, so sensibly used, because one has to be sensitive to the differing circumstances of the time—are taken care of in Clause 3. Clause 3 stipulates that the arrangements will be based in due course on the published recommendations of the Electoral Commission, which will come back to the House at an appropriate time.

[Lord Roper (LD)]

My Lords, in many cases, they have been in schedules to proposals for referendums. This time, they will merely come back as a statutory instrument, which this House will have no chance of amending unless a subsequent amendment to the Bill is accepted.

[Lord Dobbs]

The noble Lord is entirely right—they will come back to this House, which is the point I was making, although they may not come back in the form that he would like. However, nobody is trying to avoid ensuring that the arrangements for counting these votes are satisfactory. This should not be a divisive matter. Why do we need to specify at this stage how the votes should be counted? The point I make time and again—perhaps in response to the position of the noble Lord, Lord Kerr—is on the cost of accepting these amendments. If this debate were entirely among rational, reasonable men and women who simply wanted to come to an agreed conclusion, then of course there would be very little cost. However, let us be real. We know what is going on in this House, in the corners and dusty corridors of this place. Some noble Lords will not accept the Bill under any circumstances. We read about that in the press all the time, particularly in the Guardian, which appears to be particularly well informed of what goes on in those corners. Therefore, I cannot simply say that of course I can accept any reasonable amendment if the consequence of adding those amendments to the Bill—which has to go back to another place, which has already spoken so clearly about the Bill—will be not a new way of counting the votes but no votes being counted at all. That would be a tragedy, and I am trying to avoid it.

The noble Lord, Lord Foulkes, has always been a great tribune of the people, if I can put it that way—of the Scottish people. Most recent opinion polls in Scotland show very strong support for a referendum: 3:1. Those same people had the common sense, time after time, to send him back to Westminster as the representative of his constituency of Carrick, Cumnock and Doon Valley. They were persuaded by him then, and I see no reason why they should not continue to listen to his entreaties and be persuaded by them in a referendum. All I am trying to do, above all, is to make sure that the Bill does not founder because so many baubles are added to the Christmas tree that the entire tree collapses. The noble Lord, Lord Foulkes, is no timorous wee beastie who runs from the sound of gunfire. He is a man who has always shown confidence in his cause, and I want him to be able to put his cause out there in public on the matter of the EU. It is in that spirit that I say that this amendment is unnecessary and I beg him to withdraw it.

[Lord Anderson of Swansea]

My Lords, I moved the amendment in respect of Gibraltar—

[Lord Dobbs]

I beg pardon of the noble Lord, Lord Anderson, if I overlooked him. I think we have never gone into the same Division Lobby, but have always parted company with a smile and good grace, and I hope that that will continue. I apologise if I overlooked him in the tributes that I was so eager to pay to the noble Lord, Lord Foulkes.

[Lord Anderson of Swansea]

That is the story of my life and of Gibraltar. However, I hope that the noble Lord will recognise me and my noble friend Lord Wigley as tribunes of the people of Wales in the same way. As the noble Lord, Lord Foulkes, said at the beginning, this problem would not have arisen if there had been schedules to the Bill with that set out, but the problem the noble Lord, Lord Roper, mentioned, has arisen. Apparently the noble Lord, Lord Dobbs, fails to recognise that we are now in a new context because amendments have been passed—two last Friday and one so far today. The speed and the pressure have gone, so he should have a spirit of looking carefully at how the Bill might be improved.

As regards the people of Gibraltar, it is clear that there could be very serious problems for our good friends on the Rock if the UK was to withdraw, so they have a very proper interest in this. It is therefore a matter for reflection as to whether to ensure not only that their votes are counted but that the position of the Rock is seen to be clear. I hope that the noble Lord, Lord Dobbs, and his advisers, whether they are in the officials’ Box or wherever, will make time for reflection so that we can find common ground. This is in no way partisan; I am very ready to accept that there is strong support for Gibraltar throughout this House. Therefore although I will withdraw this amendment I hope that it will give an opportunity for reflection by all those of good will.

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[Lord Liddle]

My Lords, I will be very brief on this point, but my noble friend Lord Williams has raised an issue of fundamental importance with this amendment. It covers the role of the devolved Administrations, their views on EU membership and how those views are communicated to their electorate, and the risks that this whole venture poses to the union we care about most, the union of the United Kingdom. I care a lot about the European Union but I care even more about the union of the United Kingdom.

[Lord Dobbs]

Can the noble Lord clarify whether, when he says that this venture poses risks, he is talking about the Bill or a referendum as a whole?

[Lord Liddle]

I am talking about an “in or out” referendum, which this Bill is designed to generate in quick time. It is quite possible that the different parts of the UK will vote in different ways. As I said at Second Reading, the risk is that independence is defeated in the Scottish referendum this autumn, but that an EU referendum in which Scotland voted to stay in and England, by a majority, took the United Kingdom out would just reignite the whole argument about Scottish nationalism once again. The Government have to think very seriously about this problem. I quite accept that it is not easily dealt with through amendments to this Bill, but it is a very serious issue for the future of the UK.

[Lord Dobbs]

My Lords, I thank the noble Lords, Lord Williams and Lord Wigley, for the way they introduced this very important issue—there is no denying its importance. The noble Lord, Lord Wigley, himself readily acknowledged that the amendments go beyond the scope of this very simple and very narrow Bill, and the technical answer to them is that the UK’s relationship with the EU is not a devolved matter. However, that of course is not a sufficient answer to the points that they made.

Amendment 55 is a probing amendment, which has been put in a dignified and detailed matter, and I want to try to deal with it in that spirit. I have specific concerns about the amendments. The logical consequence of this group of amendments would be to raise at least the possibility that some parts of our United Kingdom might be denied the opportunity to vote. It would render a national referendum pointless because of the involvement of devolved parliaments, which I am sure is not the intention of the noble Lords who tabled these amendments at all. Noble Lords have waved the flags of the various constituent parts of our United Kingdom with pride, and I congratulate them on that. They have raised useful points which we should all be sensitive to, such as the possibility of Northern Ireland and the Republic being on opposite sides of the fence. It is a very serious, complicated issue. However, along with all the other issues that have been raised, that is fundamentally a political challenge. They are not ones that we should try to anticipate by an analysis, no matter how acute and insightful, of various hypothetical situations at this time.

The issue was raised of the possibility—indeed the necessity—of trying to pre-empt the outcome of the Scottish referendum, in case Scotland voted for independence. In the event of that very sad decision of Scotland to leave the United Kingdom, all sorts of new arrangements would need to be made, and the arrangements required for this Bill would be part of a much more complex bundle.

[Lord Wigley]

The noble Lord touches on a fundamental here. The implication of what he is saying is that if Scotland voted for independence it would undermine this Bill because of the complexity of issues that would arise. Surely that is not his intention. By accepting the amendment in my name, he would have the flexibility to deal with it.

[Lord Dobbs]

As I have said, I think that the issue would go far beyond the scope of any one single Bill. He and I, I hope, will be fighting on the same side of the barricade in order to retain the United Kingdom which we both value so highly.

The noble Lord, Lord Williams, said that he cannot even imagine what our responses would be in various situations. That is precisely the point: we cannot imagine them. We should not therefore try, because, in trying to do so in the form of legislation, we would inevitably get things wrong. I certainly do not think that we need to make that effort at this stage. In that spirit of understanding, I ask that the amendments be not pressed.

[Lord Williams of Elvel]

I am grateful to the noble Lord, Lord Dobbs. As I said, this was a probing amendment, intended simply to raise the problem as I saw it of how to involve the devolved Administrations in this referendum, because at the moment there is no mechanism for them to be involved. After all, they will be affected and they are elected by their own constituents to their assemblies or parliaments. I hope that the noble Lord has taken that on board. I hope that the Government have done so, too, because, if it comes to implementing the amendment in the name of the noble Lord, Lord Turnbull, this will be one of the issues that will be addressed by the Government at that point. However, in view of the sympathetic response from the noble Lord, I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.

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[Lord Dobbs]

Have your Lordships finished? This, of course, is a very simple amendment, but the discussion has shown that the issue is far from simple. The amendment from the noble Lord, Lord Shipley, would change the franchise for parliamentary elections to that of the local government franchise. The noble Lord wants to extend his net as widely as possible, but my noble friend Lord Teverson has indicated what muddy waters we swim in.

This amendment is far from simple on its own merits. For instance, by my reading of it, it would deprive British citizens abroad who are on the parliamentary register, but do not qualify for the local authority register, of their vote in this referendum. I know I will be told that there are later amendments that would correct that deficiency but it shows again that this is not a simple question. The issue of the franchise in all its possible forms was given detailed scrutiny in the elected Chamber, and that Chamber voted for the proposals set out in this Bill by a huge majority. It is not as a result of lack of study of this issue that we are where we are.

As has been said on several sides, there is no clear precedent for how we should set the parameters. That is what we are talking about—setting parameters and drawing a line. As a Parliament we have never come to a common, agreed set of conditions for votes in a referendum. Every referendum Bill that has gone through this Parliament seems to have had different conditions and different electorates attached to it. There are no precedents. It seems to me that the question arises: why should we give those groups whom we deliberately deny, for good reasons, the opportunity to express their views in a UK parliamentary election, a vote in our EU referendum?

I am not sure that there is any EU country which allows citizens of other, foreign countries the right to vote on issues which are entirely national. No matter how much those from foreign countries, from other EU countries, might contribute to our country, culture and society, that does not give them the automatic right to take part in all of our elections. When it comes down to it, in these muddy waters, it seems that one has to draw a line somewhere. The only sensible line is that the future of Britain lies first and foremost in the hands—

[Lord Hannay of Chiswick]

I am most grateful to the noble Lord for giving way, but he seems now to be in the process of rejecting all of about the next five sets of amendments before we have even got to them. That is a little impetuous, if I may say so. He is also ignoring the fact that of all those who have spoken in this first debate on the franchise, not one has supported the position in the Bill. It is the least justifiable of them all.

The noble Lord is of course quite right to say that some of the variants down here, including the one we are debating now, have complications about them, as the noble Lord, Lord Teverson, said. All that is being asked of the noble Lord is that he could take all these franchise issues away and think again in light of the fact that he has got the wrong one in the Bill. He has expended his eloquence, which is considerable, on this House in favour of people who are affected by this decision having a say, and now he is busy excluding several millions of them. British citizens who live in other EU countries will be deeply affected by this, and they are not going to have a say at all. European Union citizens who live here will be deeply affected; they are not going to have a say. It would be best if the noble Lord were to reflect a little more on this before dismissing out of hand all the amendments on the franchise that have been moved.

[Lord Dobbs]

I thank the noble Lord for his advice. I was hoping that he was going to get up and give me another example of a European country that accepts, on purely national issues, the right of foreign citizens to vote. There may be, and I would like to be able to examine those precedents.

[Lord Richard]

Would the noble Lord like to examine the situation of the Irish of this country?

[Lord Dobbs]

My Lords, they are included on the parliamentary register if they apply. This is the register which has been chosen, not by chance. The noble Lord, Lord Hannay, says that this is the worst possible register. It is not; it has been debated time and again. It is the register that we choose in our country as the standard for these issues, and have done so for many years. I do not see why the noble Lord should suddenly come out and decide that democracy as we have practised it in this country suddenly ought to be thrown out of the window.

[Lord Hannay of Chiswick]

I did not say that it was the worst possible measurement for any election. I happen to support the rules that we have for our national parliamentary elections, and will continue to do so. I merely said that it was the worst possible one for this referendum.

[Lord Dobbs]

I am suggesting that we have seen that these are muddy waters. We have to draw a line somewhere. Where is that line to be drawn? We clearly all have a different view on that but, as the sponsor of the Bill, I believe that where the line ought to be drawn is very clear. The future of Britain lies primarily, first and foremost, in the hands of British voters; not the citizens of other countries, no matter how friendly they are, how much they might contribute to our welfare or how much we enjoy them being here.

I therefore conclude that there is no need to change the provision in the Bill and that it is entirely acceptable. Indeed, it was accepted by an overwhelming majority in the elected House. I therefore suggest to the noble Lord that the case that he made, however cogently and politely, has not succeeded, and that it will not succeed in the world outside. The noble Lord is already writing headlines for the Daily Mail, which has a lot of readers—and on this issue they may well, just for once, be right: the future of this country lies in the hands of British voters, not other voters. I therefore ask the noble Lord to withdraw his amendment.

[Lord Shipley]

My Lords, I am grateful for the depth of this discussion, and in particular to the noble Lord, Lord Hannay, for giving such a clear exposition of the position. To respond to the noble Lord, Lord Dobbs, the issues around the parliamentary franchise are covered in amendments we have yet to debate, notably Amendment 59 and others.

[Lord Dobbs]

On that point, it would have been very helpful if these had been grouped together; we could then have had a comprehensive discussion rather than an elongated and fractured discussion on the issue.

[Lord Shipley]

The point is taken; perhaps we can do that on Report, because no doubt we shall discuss this again in great detail at that stage. I will say, in response partly to my noble friend Lord Teverson and also to my noble friend Lord Dobbs, that we have to think through the question: is this only for British citizens? If it is, citizens of the Republic of Ireland would have to be excluded, in which case my noble friend Lord Dobbs would have to amend the Bill because the relevant clause is out of date on the basis of what he just said. Is this for British citizens or for all those who will be directly affected by the outcome? In moving Amendment 57, I said that a change needed to be made because those who will be directly affected by the outcome should have a vote. That same principle will apply when we get to Amendments 59 and 63, and others later in the debate. For the moment, I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.