European Union Referendum Bill

Debate between Lord Forsyth of Drumlean and Lord Garel-Jones

Monday 23rd November 2015 Lords Chamber

[Lord Forsyth of Drumlean]

I know that the Liberals find it easy to occupy two opposite positions at the same time on a number of occasions but we cannot ask the Prime Minister to do that. Subsection (2) of the new clause proposed by the amendment states that this has got to be done no later than 12 weeks prior to the appointment date of the referendum. I should like to think that 12 weeks before the referendum the Prime Minister will have decided whether he is going to rule anything out. The Prime Minister will have a position, so that point simply falls.

In Committee, I used the analogy of the European Union being like a bear trap. No one in Britain today would want to put their foot in the bear trap and join the European Union as it is. The question is how to get your leg out of the bear trap. People like the noble Lord, Lord Kerr, say that it is just going to be too painful to remove our legs from the bear trap and therefore we must just accept the risk that we might be bleeding to death but that is much less painful. In this amendment he has now come up with the proposition that because of Article 50 it is not just one bear trap: if you take your leg out of the bear trap there are 26 others to get through, each one of which could cause enormous grief, so it is better to stay in the one bear trap. This is a ridiculous position. I am deeply shocked that he should put forward an amendment of this kind.

Perhaps the Minister can tell us whether Ministers are going to be bound by collective responsibility in respect of the Government’s position. If they are, it is asking a lot of them that they not only have to stand up and support something in which they may not believe, but they have also got to go out and explain what would happen if the opposite happened.

[Lord Garel-Jones (Con)]

My noble friend has just referred to something called “the Government’s position”. Does he accept that if the Government have a position, they owe it to the country to campaign on that position?

[Lord Forsyth of Drumlean]

No, I would not accept that. If the Government are people who genuinely have differences of view as to what is right for the country, then those members of the Government should be free to argue their case. As the noble Lord, Lord Stoddart, said, this is matter for Parliament, not for the Government and not for the Executive. It is for Parliament to decide what is in the best interests of our country. I hope that Parliament, by passing this Bill, will decide that the people should have an opportunity to express their view. That will then be advisory for the Government and I would expect the Government to carry on on the basis of what is suggested.

I shall make one other point. Even if the Government wanted to do it, it would be impossible to report on the relationship with the European Union that the Government envisage in the event of a referendum vote to leave the European Union. We do not even know what the European Union will be like. It is the European Union that is leaving us as it struggles with the disastrous consequences of monetary union. It is the European Union that will have to move towards a more integrated fiscal arrangement if the euro is to survive. The amendment is asking the Government to predict what it will do to maintain the stability of the euro and at the same time to predict what they will do.

In response to my noble friend, I have just thought of another argument. I would like to think that in the referendum campaign the Government will be respectful of the arguments which are put across and the way they are received by the public and that they will acknowledge and respond to these arguments.

I know why the noble Lord, Lord Kerr, has put forward this amendment. Of course it would help his case if the Government had to make these points. I have always thought that he was very even-minded and impartial on all these matters, but now he has left his former position he has turned into a politician, and a campaigning politician at that. I hope that my noble friend will not feel able to accept this amendment in any way.