European Union Bill

Lord Dykes Excerpts

Wednesday 8th June 2011 Lords Chamber

[Lord Kerr of Kinlochard]

I am sure that Burke was not thinking of the situation of the EU Bill which is before us. The noble Lord is absolutely right. He may have been thinking of a situation in Ireland which developed in ways that bore some resemblance to that during his lifetime, but I am sure that when he was addressing the Bristol electorate his concern was simply with explaining to them how he saw the role of Parliament and the sovereignty of Parliament. It is because I think that he was right about that that I think that we should vote for the amendment of the noble Lord, Lord Williamson, which I hope he will press to a vote. It does not restore full parliamentary sovereignty, but in a situation where—in his words—a derisory turnout had voted, the question of whether Parliament’s will should be overruled would be raised. That is a little bit of Burke that would be rescued from the mess of Rousseau that we are in.

[Lord Dykes]

I rise briefly to speak enthusiastically in support of this amendment and to thank the noble Lord, Lord Williamson, for his remarks—I agree with them all. I was, like others may be, a little startled when the noble Lord, Lord Tomlinson, began to say that he rather agreed with the first part of the speech of the noble Lord, Lord Waddington. But I understand what he was getting at. The beauty of the amendment is that it can appeal to a whole range of Members of this House in deciding, irrespective of their own particular views on the virtue of referendums, or referendumitis, or the danger of referendums, or whatever, that this would be a good way of making more respectable a given referendum result with a turnout requirement—following the wisdom of the noble Lord, Lord Rooker, in a totally different context—and would make sure that we were not trivialising the exercise in a way that would disconcert the public in a big way. The beauty then is that, if the threshold is not reached, the power goes back to Parliament and the Government as the noble Lord, Lord Waddington, would always wish.

On 5 April, in the early stages of the Committee of the whole House, the noble Lord, Lord Davies of Stamford, in referring to Schedule 1, said:

“if we present to the electorate the sort of issues in Schedule 1 and ask them … to turn out at the polls”—

in referendums—

“we are being not only completely unrealistic but deeply insulting to them”.—[Official Report, 5/4/11; col. 1694.]

I have left out a few of the smaller words, but essentially that is what he said.

The electorate would say that that is what they elect parliamentarians to decide. We could easily have participation rates of less than 20 per cent, and we would return, therefore, to the Vernon Bogdanor example. I believe that this matter is important for parliamentarians in both Houses, but particularly here, as this House has an opportunity to improve the Bill in a way that government Ministers have already started to do with their generous amendment. We must work hard to restore public faith in the public’s ownership of first-rate parliamentary standards of tradition, work and devotion to the public good. My personal view is that I am very fearful of referendumitis and this Bill would deliver a lot of it in the future if the situation were allowed to get out of hand.

Most sensible citizens are highly intelligent and quite rightly regard subjects other than mere politics as far more important and crucial. I often do. I would cite family and children, the local community, jobs and job prospects, football and—even better—rugby, holidays, the kids’ results at school and music. Very many of those things are more important than politics. The public want to enhance political quality by leaving the political decisions to their elected representatives, even if some of them in the other place are sometimes rather nerdy people, like Bill Cash or John Redwood. We have to remember the warning words of my noble friend Lady Williams when she spoke of the disastrous example of California, which had become a bankrupt state as a result of excessive referendumitis and foolish populism. This amendment provides a pragmatic way of making the results of referendum—if there has to be one—more respectable. I hope that this House will support it.

[Lord Stoddart of Swindon]

My Lords, I wish that the noble Lord, Lord Dykes, would not describe people who oppose his points of view in such terms as “nerds”. It does not enhance debate and it is quite unnecessary to lampoon one’s opponents.

The amendment has a certain superficial attraction, but we need to be extremely careful what we do. If you say that a decision on an item on which a referendum is to be held can take effect only if 40 per cent of the electorate vote, you could say that about almost every election we have. People are elected to the House of Commons—certainly in by-elections—on a turnout of less than 40 per cent of those entitled to vote. Why on earth should that be legitimate and a referendum on a matter which is to be transferred to European governance not be accepted? We have to be very careful not to create a precedent here which might be used in other circumstances that may be inconvenient to Parliament and certainly to local authorities, where the turnout is very often far below the 40 per cent of those entitled to vote.

The noble Lord, Lord Tomlinson, talked about the various alternatives that might be put on the ballot paper. If you pass this amendment, there is another alternative which is that you can campaign for people not to vote. That is good democracy, is it not? Or is it? If you encourage people not to vote to get the decision you want, that is extremely bad democracy. I do not want to delay the House any further, but I believe that before we vote we should be very careful about what we are doing.