Referendums: Constitution Committee Report

Lord Goodlad Excerpts

Tuesday 12th October 2010 Lords Chamber

[Lord Goodlad]

My Lords, I thank the noble Baroness for her very kind remarks about me, which were wholly unmerited but most generous. It was a great privilege to serve on your Lordships’ Select Committee, which performs an extremely important function. I wish the noble Baroness every success in the chair, which she will adorn with great wisdom and experience. She has covered the main issues in the report comprehensively. I echo her appreciation of the contribution of the committee’s advisers and witnesses, and the evidence given to the committee will be an important quarry for many years to come for those who are interested in the subject.

I welcome the Government’s acceptance of the majority of your Lordships’ committee’s recommendations, particularly on a referendum on change in the voting system for the House of Commons, or in Wales, on further powers for the National Assembly in accordance with existing legislation and on further transfers of power to the European Union, and that Parliament should judge which issues are the subject of national referendums. I shall therefore touch briefly on where the Government’s response disagrees with the recommendations of your Lordships’ committee.

The Government say in their response to your Lordships’ committee’s report:

“Parties across Parliament will have the chance to consider legislation as it goes through Parliament”.

Quite who drafted that, I cannot imagine, but the Government may rest assured that not only parties across Parliament but individual Members of both Houses of Parliament will scrutinise any forthcoming legislation with vigour. It is puzzling that the Government reject the view of your Lordships’ committee that decisions leading to past referendums have been taken on an ad hoc basis and for political convenience—in victory, magnanimity. Perhaps that is a pointer to the future. The Government’s response agrees with your Lordships’ committee that it is difficult to determine precisely in what circumstances a referendum should be held and agree with the suggestions for those occasions when a referendum would be appropriate. While providing a useful guide, it does not and cannot represent a definitive list. Your Lordships may think that there is no ad hocery or political convenience involved there.

In evidence, Peter Kellner argued that the decision to hold the 1975 European Communities referendum was a constitutional outrage. It was wholly to do with holding the Labour Party together. Vernon Bogdanor asserted that the offer of the 1979 devolution referendums was made for tactical purposes in order to overcome Back-Bench opposition in Parliament. Michael Wills from the other place opined that the referendum in the UK had been used as a political tool, but did not see anything wrong with that. Vernon Bogdanor recommended that referendum questions should be formulated by a neutral body such as the Electoral Commission. The noble Baroness, Lady Kennedy, reminded us that the Power commission, which she chaired, had recommended that an outside body should have control over the question.

David Butler told us that referendums in the UK are going to happen only when the Government of the day want one or when it would be too embarrassing because of past promises to get out of one. Normally, they will have a referendum if they think they are going to win it and not if they are not going to win it. It is really a matter of straight politics. Since that time, matters have changed. Homer, in the form of David Butler, has nodded and the forthcoming referendum on parliamentary voting systems will not be a caucus race in which everybody wins a prize. Ad hocery and political convenience are again matters of personal speculation. Your Lordships’ committee said that it is possible to set out in legislation specific issues that should be subject to a referendum, as has been done in the past. In their response, the Government agreed with that statement and said:

“We do not propose to set out in legislation the issues which should be subject to a referendum”.

No ad hocery or political convenience there.

The Government's response disagrees with your Lordships’ committee’s disbelief that local referendums are the most effective way of increasing citizen engagement with the local democratic process, saying that they can play an effective role in supporting local decision-making and empowering residents to make localism and the big society part of everyday life. There is a reference to excessive council tax increases. The common-sense view is that local referendums would oppose rather than support local decision-making. The Government are silent on who might pay for such referendums and what their cost might be. Perhaps there might be an opportunity for referendums on that matter.

On the subject of holding referendums on the same day as general elections, which your Lordships' committee opposed, as the noble Baroness said, the Government responded that a case-by-case approach was appropriate in that area. Again—no ad hocery or political convenience there, either.

Your Lordships’ committee recommended that the Electoral Commission should be given a statutory responsibility to formulate referendum questions, which should then be presented to Parliament for approval. The Government, in rejecting the recommendation in their response, said that when provision for a referendum was made by Order in Council rather than by legislation, the commission’s view would be taken into account in framing the question included in the order. Obviously, there is no question of ad hocery or political convenience there.

I, together with many other noble Lords of my generation, took part in the 1975 referendum on the renegotiation of terms of British membership of the European Community. I was a relatively newly elected Member of the other place and keen to support the Yes campaign. I persuaded the then Conservative agent from the Northwich division of Cheshire, the late Maglena Roberts, that we should have phone-in sessions so that I could personally respond to concerns. Despite her reservations after many years in her post about the merits of this new-fangled idea, not least on the grounds of advertising expense, she eventually went quietly—or relatively quietly.

On the first day of the phone-ins, as the clock in the Conservative Association office in Northwich ticked up to 10 o’clock, Maglena watched the telephone as if it was an anarchist’s bomb about to explode. At 11 o’clock I said, “Miss Roberts, will you please look after the telephone while I make us both a cup of coffee”. On the second day, the telephone eventually rang. The caller’s inquiry was, “Mr Goodlad, what is the position of animals in the European Community?” I glanced down at the desk on which Miss Roberts had thoughtfully spread out copious briefing on every possible subject that could be covered. There was no line to take on the position of animals in the European Community—far less a suggestion as to what I might say if pressed. Without, I hope, breaking step, I tentatively said, “Madam, I believe that in general the rules are very strict”, to which the caller said, “Thank you, Mr Goodlad, I am very glad to hear it”. That was the only inquiry. Halls were booked for public meetings—half a dozen, as I recollect, widely advertised at some expense. The maximum attendance at any meeting was two people, and the only question asked was from a lady who said, “When does the Women’s Institute meeting begin?”

As many noble Lords will recollect, the front cover of Private Eye at the beginning of the 1975 campaign featured a photograph of an elderly couple dozing in deckchairs on Blackpool beach with knotted handkerchiefs protecting their heads from the sun. The caption below the photograph was, “The Great Debate Begins”. I look forward, as I am sure do all noble Lords, to further great debates, which I trust will not be disrupted by less important matters.