European Union (Referendum) Bill

Debate between Lord Grenfell and Lord Forsyth of Drumlean

Friday 24th January 2014 Lords Chamber

[Lord Grenfell]

I am sorry to disagree with the noble Lord but I was quoting directly from Hansard. That is exactly what he said:

“Let us say that this Bill is imperfect and has got here by a most peculiar route”.—[Official Report, 10/1/14; col. 1808.]

It could not be clearer. In whatever context you wish to put that, it is pretty plain language. It is the sort of language one is used to hearing from the noble Lord, Lord Cormack. In this case, I do not quite understand his response.

Finally, in support of these amendments, please let us scrutinise this Bill properly. We have a right and a duty to do so. We must not just wave it through, as some would have us do, because that is not what our function is here. This first group of amendments is a very good test for this House. What we are proposing is not party political—it could not be further from party politics. These amendments seek to bring clarity to the people when they have a referendum. I repeat, let us not hear more, please, from the opposite Benches saying that, on our side, this is all a conspiracy to prevent the British people having a referendum. It is not.

[Lord Forsyth of Drumlean]

My Lords, it strikes me as quite extraordinary, following up on the speech from the noble Lord, Lord Quirk, where he talked to us about the verb “to be”; the question here is, “To be or not to be” because if this Bill is amended or talked out there will not be a referendum. If the Bill is amended it is going to go back to the House of Commons and it is going to run out of time. Let us be clear what is going on here. All this self-righteous talk about how we have a duty to consider this Bill—

[Lord Grenfell]

My Lords—

[Lord Forsyth of Drumlean]

I will give way to the noble Lord in a moment. The consequence of all this self-righteous talk about how we have a duty to consider this Bill properly will be that the British people will not be guaranteed a say before 2017 on whether they wish to be members of the European Union.

It seems it was not five minutes ago that this House was subject to an attack with it being suggested that we become an elected House. We fought off that battle on the basis that the other place was supreme; that the will of the other House should always be carried forward. The clearly expressed will of the other House was that this Bill should reach the statute book, otherwise it would not have come here. This House has to recognise that of course we have powers and duties—we could exercise our powers and duties in ways that frustrate lots of Bills—but in the end we look down the Corridor and we look at what the intention of the House of Commons was. It may be that this Bill came to this House because the parties opposite did not have the courage to kill it there but the fact is that it has been passed by the House of Commons and the noble Lord, in criticising us for not speaking and for trying to speed its passage, is making the case for frustrating the will of the House of Commons. Even worse, he is denying the British people the opportunity to be sure at the next election that, whatever happens, there will be provision on the statute book for them to have their say on the most important question facing our country’s future.

[Lord Grenfell]

My Lords, if the noble Lord is claiming that if we passed amendments there would never be a referendum for the British people on the EU, are we changing the whole concept of parliamentary democracy? Are we saying that no Government could ever introduce a Bill for a referendum? No. It is untrue. We are saying that this Bill is a wretched Bill. It is not the proper basis on which to have a referendum. That is all we are saying. It must be changed.

[Lord Forsyth of Drumlean]

The noble Lord knows perfectly well that we are not having an academic discussion here about whether the British people will have a referendum. What is being considered here is a Bill which—if it is passed unamended by this House and reflects the will of the House of Commons—will result in a referendum. The noble Lord’s views on Europe are perfectly clear and it is no good trying to pretend that the consequences of our actions, if we amend or delay this Bill, will be to deny the people a guarantee that they will get a referendum at the next election. I think that will have very damaging consequences for this House. People will say, “What on earth are these unelected people doing preventing us having our say?”. I have some sympathy with the noble Lord’s amendment—after all I made exactly the same case on the Scottish referendum—but I am not going to vote for it because I do not think that as an unelected Peer I have the right to prevent the House of Commons delivering to the British people the opportunity to have their say in a referendum.

House of Lords Reform: Committee Membership

Debate between Lord Grenfell and Lord Forsyth of Drumlean

Tuesday 8th June 2010 Lords Chamber

[Lord Grenfell]

My Lords—

[Lord Forsyth of Drumlean]

My Lords, would it not be more useful for the Deputy Prime Minister to set up a committee to look at the performance of the other place, given the amount of legislation that has come to this House to be reviewed and revised without having been debated or even considered in the House of Commons?

[Lord McNally]

My noble friend has always been skilled at getting an audience on his side and his point may well have merit. But the fact is that the three major political parties which fought the last election all had in their manifestos reform of this place. We are going ahead with those commitments as perhaps the other party should have done at some stage when it had the majority to do so.