European Union Referendum Bill

Debate between Lord Hamilton of Epsom and Lord Willoughby de Broke

Wednesday 18th November 2015 Lords Chamber

[Lord Willoughby de Broke (UKIP)]

My Lords, I support the amendment in the name of the noble Lord, Lord Forsyth. I declare my interests as a member of UKIP and a dedicated “outer”. I am not sure which members of UKIP the noble Lord, Lord Hamilton, thinks will vote to stay in. I hope he was not referring to my noble friend Lord Pearson. I assure the noble Lord that he definitely wants us to get out. I cannot imagine that a UKIP member would vote to stay in the EU.

Leaving that aside, on all the previous amendments the noble Lord, Lord Faulks, rightly made the point that this referendum needed to be seen to be fair. He has said that on several occasions today and in Committee. However, regardless of who wins or loses, the referendum will be seen to be manifestly unfair if one campaign, whether in or out, is preponderantly better financed than the other. I do not agree with the noble Lord, Lord Stoddart, who seemed to imply that just because an organisation has less money, it will lose. That is not necessarily the case at all. Even if we have a few pounds less than the “stay in” campaign, we will still win. However, it would be much nicer and better, and would be seen to be fairer, if the campaigns had equality of financing.

[Lord Hamilton of Epsom]

Surely the real problem is that if the “stay ins” win the referendum by a very narrow margin, and they are seen to have been financed much more heavily than those who want to leave, those who want to leave will cry foul and say that the others won because they had more money. Whether that does the trick at the end of the day is debatable, but the fact is that it would be used as a reason to say that the referendum was completely slanted in the direction of the people who wanted to stay in.

[Lord Willoughby de Broke]

The noble Lord is absolutely right. I do not disagree with him, but it reinforces the point of the amendment of the noble Lord, Lord Forsyth, that we need equality of financing, however that may be achieved. That is up to the Government, I hope, in spite of the Electoral Commission’s worst efforts. We do not seem to be getting anywhere with the Electoral Commission so the Government ought to take this amendment seriously and look at how they can reallocate the financing arrangements so that both the ins and the outs have the same amount of money to spend. It is not, as they say, rocket science. It is actually quite simple to do. That will eliminate the concerns that the noble Lord, Lord Hamilton, expressed, that either side may have cause for complaint at the end of the referendum. There has to be equality of financing so I very much support the noble Lord’s amendment.