European Union Referendum Bill

Debate between Lord Flight and Lord Davies of Stamford

Wednesday 4th November 2015 Lords Chamber

[Lord Davies of Stamford]

That is an extraordinary question to ask me. I am the living embodiment of the fact that one can change one’s mind. I believe that Mr Corbyn has, in the light of events, learned wisdom which he did not possess 10 or 20 years ago. I assure the noble Lord that that wisdom consists in supporting—I repeat, supporting—our membership of the European Union. That is the official position of the Labour Party and will, of course, remain so.

[Lord Flight (Con)]

The noble Lord must be aware that a large number of members of the Labour Party—among those who are left—happen to have views about EU membership which are not that supportive. Although the Labour politicians at Westminster may or may not have strong views, they control the spend and the members of the Labour Party are not going to be very happy if the party spends all their money campaigning in a direction which they may not support.

[Lord Davies of Stamford]

I do not think that the noble Lord is a great expert on the views of the Labour Party. I would be delighted to take him to some party meetings in Lincolnshire where he would find enormous support for our membership of the European Union from people in all walks of life. The fact remains that the Labour Party supports our Members of Parliament in the other place who, by an overwhelming majority, have voted, and will continue to vote for our policy of believing that it is fundamentally in this country’s interests to remain part of the European Union.

I must move on to speak to Amendment 58. If there is a discordant element in my sudden change of subject, I say, in anticipation of someone rising to complain, that I am not responsible for the grouping of amendments.

European Union Referendum Bill

Debate between Lord Flight and Lord Davies of Stamford

Monday 2nd November 2015 Lords Chamber

[Lord Davies of Stamford]

My Lords—

[Lord Flight]

My Lords—

--- Later in debate ---

[Lord Davies of Stamford]

I come now to my second point, which relates to what was said by the noble Lord, Lord Wigley. A citizen of this country is entitled to think that the politicians who he or she pays for will do an honest job in a case like this, by not merely providing an opportunity for a referendum to take place but providing what we can by way of elements to enable that individual elector to take a decision.

I want to re-emphasise the point made by the noble Lord, Lord Wigley. Any Government who are half competent—or even a quarter competent—will, in circumstances like this, produce their own study of the cases for joining or leaving, along with the costs of leaving or not leaving and so forth. Any Government who were 10% competent would be going through those exercises and, as he said, given that those studies will have been undertaken, they must not be kept under lock and key in Whitehall. The public in a democracy have a right to know to what conclusions the Government have come in their own studies. They have a right to have disclosed to them material information of that kind, which may be available in Whitehall or elsewhere in the interstices of government. On those two counts, it is absolutely essential that we do what we can to ensure that such reports are identified, undertaken and, above all, made available to the British public.

[Lord Flight]

I wrote to the Treasury about the reduction in the guarantee to £75,000 to have the reason confirmed. I have had a letter back from the Treasury saying that it is doing its best to negotiate that it cannot go any lower than £75,000, so I wish it luck.

I very much agree with my noble friend Lord Higgins but, to be candid, for even wider reasons the exercise is unlikely to be of huge use. First, if you are to have papers about staying in, you have got to have papers about coming out. Secondly, and fundamentally, the issues that are so important are matters of judgment. We do not yet know what the agricultural arrangements may be or what trade agreements there may be with America and India, and so forth. You could take an educated guess but a factual paper must not have educated guesses in it. A whole lot of historic dead data about the EU one way or the other will, candidly, not excite anyone in the slightest, but it is not the job of the Government to publish opinions. It is the job of the campaigning entities to express those expectations and opinions.

[Lord Davies of Stamford]

The whole point is that the individual campaigns will not have access to the material which the Government will have produced. It is essential that the public have access to that; if they cannot have access to it through the campaigns, the campaigns themselves will not know what material the Government have on the subject.

[Lord Flight]

Most of the factual information is already there in various forms, so it would not have to be reprinted by a government department. The crucial point is that the campaigners will set out their expectations and judgment as to what will happen one way or the other. As the noble Lord pointed out, leadership in this situation one way or tother is likely to win the referendum campaign.

The proposals seemed to start by suggesting that there should be a whole set of papers on either the advantages of staying in or the problems and risks of staying out. If we ended up with a fair and balanced covering of both sides, I think it would be pretty much a waste of time.