European Union Referendum Bill

Debate between Lord Dobbs and Baroness Butler-Sloss

Monday 14th December 2015 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Butler-Sloss (CB)]

My Lords, if I understand it correctly, the House of Commons, through the Speaker, has said that this is a matter of finance. If that is correct, it is the short answer to what we are dealing with tonight. I cannot understand why noble Lords are banging on about all the other subjects if we really cannot deal with this matter because it is a financial issue. I find it very difficult to understand what we are spending time on at the moment.

[Lord Dobbs (Con)]

My Lords, since this may be the last opportunity that any of us have to discuss the Bill, I will start my few very short remarks by paying tribute to my noble friend Lady Anelay and her ministerial colleague, my noble friend Lord Faulks—but particularly to the noble Baroness. I speak from the heart, and from a little raw experience, when I say that this historic Bill holds the prospect of many bear traps but that all of them, except one, have been avoided by the patient and very sensitive work of the Minister. I am sure that the whole House will want to not only congratulate but thank her for her tireless efforts.

But—there is a bear trap. I must apologise for not being able to be in the House for Report but it seems that the noble Lord, Lord Tyler, made up for my absence in spades. I was on the other side of the world but, reading Hansard, it was as though I was here. He quoted me extensively, repeatedly and even voraciously—and, as always, far more eloquently than I could. I felt rather like Banquo, the ghost at the feast, with the characteristically shy and retiring figure of the noble Lord in the unaccustomed role of Macbeth. I am grateful for the praise that he showered upon me. He was kind enough to mention beforehand that he might and I make no complaint.

I think it is reasonably well known that I, along with a good number of other Conservatives, support the principle of giving the vote to 16 and 17 year-olds. I would have been happy to have signed the original amendment. I will not repeat the arguments today; others have done that and the lines are all too well known. But I am still waiting for a convincing answer as to why the Government acquiesced in granting the vote to young people in the referendum in Scotland. It all seems a little untidy. I know that our unwritten constitution is often a rather rumpled bed, depending on who was the last to sleep in it, but every so often it is wise to give the sheets a bit of a tug to straighten them out. That is why I supported the original amendment.

Yet—how may I put this delicately?—while the noble Lord, Lord Tyler, quoted me largely correctly, I am afraid that he did not quote me completely. He failed to mention the comments I made in Committee about this not being a black and white argument, but one that is actually quite subtle and a matter of judgment and of balance. I find it alarming when some see this matter as one of absolute principle in which no quarter can be given. I wish that I was as certain about anything as some appear to be about everything. I think that there is a stronger argument for giving the vote at 17 rather than at 16 and, in my view, probably not at 15. We have to draw the line somewhere, but where to draw that line is no longer the issue here today.

If I may stretch my metaphor, we have by this stage climbed into an entirely different bed. This is no longer about the rights of vibrant young people but about the rights of largely elderly, perhaps less vibrant and entirely unelected Peers—if that is the right and polite way to say these things; I am never quite sure. We asked the other place to think again, as is our right. As the noble Lord, Lord Tyler, mentioned, last week there was in the other place an explosion of incontinence, with one honourable Member calling our vote “a constitutional outrage” by,

“superannuated, unelected, unaccountable panjandrums … They should learn their place”.—[Official Report, Commons, 8/12/15; col. 880.]

It was pretty exciting stuff, I thought. Perhaps the honourable Member for Peterborough was looking for a job. The remarks seemed to show little understanding of the role and work of this House. It is sad that so many MPs seem to disappear by tea-time and so never get to see the work that this House does late into so many nights. There may be many bars where you can find a Member of Parliament, but sadly so few—present company excepted—seem to bother to come to the Bar of this House and find out what it is we really do.