UK-US Co-operation on Using Atomic Energy for Mutual Defence

Lord Hannay of Chiswick Excerpts

Wednesday 23rd October 2024 Grand Committee

[Lord Hannay of Chiswick (CB)]

My Lords, it is a great pleasure to follow the noble Lord, Lord Hannan, even if I feel compelled to correct slightly some of his history. It is not the case that all this is about English-speaking people. The great meetings that took place on various bits of the Atlantic included the Governments of most of what are now continental European countries. They were of course living in exile in London, but subscribed to the same values and qualities that we applaud today. They were, funnily enough, before the establishment of the United Nations organisation in 1945, called the “united nations”.

I will cast that little blemish aside and address the two amended agreements that we are debating today within what the noble and learned Lord, Lord Goldsmith, correctly described as the CRaG process. They are important and deserve to be considered by Parliament; for that reason, I greatly welcome that the Government have enabled time to be made available to do so. They of course relate to Britain’s nuclear co-operation with the US, dating back to the ending of the lamentable US McMahon Act, which cut us off from any process of nuclear co-operation for a period of years after the end of the Second World War; it was very damaging. We are also debating the strategically important AUKUS agreement, which provides Australia with nuclear-propelled submarines.

Your Lordships’ committee, most ably led by the noble and learned Lord, Lord Goldsmith, whose introductory remarks I totally subscribe to, has found both agreements to be strategically sound and in the UK’s national interest. We also found them to be consistent with our international obligations, including under the nuclear non-proliferation treaty. But—and there are a couple of quite important buts—some significant new issues have been raised, which we hope the Minister will reply to positively when he responds to the debate. Neither affects the treaty with the US, which, in a welcome way, is due to be ratified on its side before the expiry of the present Administration and present Congress.

The first of the buts relates to the CRaG process itself. The noble and learned Lord mentioned the unsatisfactory time limits within which it operates. These are, to be frank, absurdly short and do not allow your Lordships’ committee to subject treaties and agreements to proper analysis and scrutiny, nor to gather testimony. The UK-US MDA, which we are debating today, exemplifies that problem to perfection. It was triggered during the summer and conference recesses and, even though the recess days were taken into account, there was simply no time to organise evidence sessions before we drafted our report. We therefore had only one session with senior officials, for which I express my gratitude; their testimony was extremely useful. No evidence was taken from a Minister, and we had no time to get outside witnesses to come and give different opinions, perhaps, on the treaties that we were looking at. That is no way to handle the ratification of an important international treaty. I really doubt whether any properly constituted democracy permits such a cursory and inadequate ratification review—although no doubt “people’s democracies”, such as Russia and China, would do so with alacrity.

I hope, therefore, that the Minister in the new Government will consider carefully the operating procedures for CRaG documents and will enable them in future to be scrutinised rather more effectively than they are now. I do not expect a response on that point today because, as the noble and learned Lord said, the committee is proposing to put together its considerations relating to the CRaG process in a report before too long.

My second point also relates to parliamentary scrutiny. As a consequence of the decision to eliminate the 10-year review clause in the UK-US MDA—the committee is not objecting to that and the consequent prolongation of the agreement, sine die—there will now be no occasion at all for further parliamentary scrutiny of the operation of the agreement. That is perhaps inadvertent—I am being generous—but is surely a damaging step backwards. One way in which to resolve it would be if the Minister were to state without equivocation at the end of this debate that the Government of the day would bring before Parliament at 10-year intervals a report on the operation of the UK-US MDA so that it could be considered and debated. Such a report would not—I repeat, not—affect the US side, nor affect the maintenance of the amended treaty itself, sine die. It might be said that 10 years is a long way off, but infinity is a bit longer.

I hope that this debate can end in a meeting of minds between the committee and the new Government. That would surely get matters off on the best possible footing.

Illegal Migration Bill

Lord Hannay of Chiswick Excerpts

Committee stage
Wednesday 7th June 2023 Lords Chamber

[Lord Scriven (LD)]

My Lords, in Committee on Monday, the noble Lord, Lord Murray, used the example of India. We need to question not just how the list has been devised but the minimum criteria the Home Office wishes to have for each country before it even starts to discuss any agreement with it.

India does not have national asylum legislation: anyone who is a non-Indian citizen is determined as a foreigner under the Registration of Foreigners Act 1939, the Foreigners Act 1946 and the Foreigners Order 1948. This legislation generally governs foreigners within the territory of India. Article 2 of the Registration of Foreigners Act defines a foreigner as

“a person who is not a citizen of India”.

The other two pieces of legislation use the same definition. The Act and the order grant the Indian Government the power to restrict the movement of foreigners and carry out compulsory medical examinations, limit foreigners’ employment opportunities, and control the ability to refuse and return foreigners to their home country. All of these contravene the UN refugee convention. Refugee status is granted, but only to certain nationals of neighbouring countries. People with certain characteristics—for example, Muslims—are predominantly excluded from being granted refugee status.

People who are foreigners in India have further challenges when seeking asylum there: because of restricted employment, they find that they do not have sustainable livelihoods; there is no reliable community support network for refugees there; and access to specialised services for certain people or groups does not exist.

Quite bluntly, I ask the Minister this: is that the kind of situation he wishes to send some of the most vulnerable people in the world into? Ultimately, for every single country listed in Schedule 1, what criteria are the Home Office using before starting any negotiation with those countries?

[Lord Hannay of Chiswick (CB)]

My Lords, many very cogent points have been made in this debate, and I will not repeat them, but I will mention one or two relating to the international dimension. I, too, believe that the use of “in general” is one of the slipperiest pieces of drafting that I have seen in a long time. I suppose that the Home Office may have been ashamed to put “in principle”, the words more often used to get out of commitments in international law than any others, but it means much the same thing. It has no place in this legislation.

Secondly, it seems an enormous hostage to fortune to put a list of countries described as “safe” into legislation tabled in March this year and which will not become statute until much later this year at the earliest. By that time, I suspect that quite a lot of things will have happened in some of the countries listed that will make them completely unsafe. I do not want to refer to individual countries, although people will be aware of what happened last week in Uganda. It is a moving agenda, and it is not wise to fix it in that way.

My third and last point is that there has been much talk of the Government concluding agreements with countries to enable us to send asylum seekers—without considering their asylum applications—to them. I imagine —and perhaps the Minister could reply on this point; it would be quite helpful if he could listen to what I am saying—that it would be useful to know whether those agreements would come before Parliament in the form that the International Agreements Committee of your Lordships’ House takes them. I take it that the answer will almost certainly be “No, they won’t, because they will be based on a memorandum of understanding”. This House has already debated this and established beyond peradventure that the use of a memorandum of understanding in the case of Rwanda was entirely designed to avoid any parliamentary scrutiny. Will the Minister say whether an agreement that will be reached for return will be subject to the international agreements procedure—CRaG—or not?

[Lord Paddick (LD)]

My Lords, I am very grateful to my noble friend Lord Purvis of Tweed for his devastating critique of the government reasoning behind the measures in this Bill. As he said, the measures could have serious consequences for women and girls who have been trafficked, and he provided some examples of the sorts of numbers that might be involved. The facts presented by my noble friend appeared to show clearly that the system of referrals to the national referral mechanism is not being abused. As he said, much of the increase resulted from claims from those who were already legally in the United Kingdom.

I am very grateful—going back to Monday—to the noble and learned Lord, Lord Bellamy, for indicating something of the thinking behind this Bill as far as the Government are concerned. He said:

“All I am saying is that one should have this power; I am not necessarily saying the circumstances in which one should exercise it”.—[Official Report, 5/6/23; col. 1229.]


I am beginning to wonder whether this is a sort of remake of “The Wizard of Oz”, with these very scary things being put up front with very little behind them. In reply to what my noble friend said about the vulnerable women and girls who could be detained and then deported from this country, the Minister said it might not happen because, as he said, all the Government are saying is that the Government should have the power to do that, but they are not necessarily going to use it.

In relation to Schedule 1—the safe countries—many noble Lords have given graphic examples of why countries do not belong on a safe list. I have to say: what is the point of the list? As the noble and learned Lord, Lord Bellamy, said on Monday, in response to the noble Lord, Lord Cashman, who gave a particular example of a gay man being sent back to a hostile country:

“Secondly, and in practice, this is all predicated on the country being willing to accept them. At the moment, the only agreement we have is with Rwanda. There may well be others. I hesitate to give any commitment but it seems, if I may say so, most unlikely that the fears of the noble Lord are well founded. It is most unlikely that these postulated circumstances will arise in practice”.—[Official Report, 5/6/23; col. 1234.]


Well, if the Government are saying that each individual case will be considered on its merits, and if a country that is on the list is found to be not safe for that individual, what is the point of the list? What is the point if there is only one country—or potentially two countries—on the list to which the Government can return people? Is this just to try to scare the horses, with no substance behind it? That is increasingly what this Bill looks like.

European Convention on Human Rights

Lord Hannay of Chiswick Excerpts

Monday 18th July 2022 Lords Chamber

[Lord Bellamy (Con)]

The aim of the proposed legislation is to restore public confidence in the UK judiciary, to improve democratic accountability, to strengthen the right to free speech, to preserve the right to jury trial and to better protect journalists’ sources. I defy anyone in this House to vote against those objectives.

[Lord Hannay of Chiswick (CB)]

My Lords, can the Minister confirm that the trade and co-operation agreement which this country has with the European Union is contingent, from the European Union’s point of view, on our remaining in the convention on human rights? Can he give us the names of countries which have withdrawn from that convention?

[Lord Bellamy (Con)]

The noble Lord is correct that there are references to the European Convention on Human Rights in the trade and co-operation agreement. We are not withdrawing from the convention—I do not know how many times I must say it before people understand the Government’s position. Since we are not withdrawing, the question of who has withdrawn or been expelled does not arise.

EU Referendum and EU Reform (EUC Report)

Lord Hannay of Chiswick Excerpts

Wednesday 15th June 2016 Lords Chamber

[Lord Pearson of Rannoch (UKIP)]

My Lords, I cannot help mentioning that, of the 34 speakers in this debate, I can see perhaps only two who think that we should leave the European Union. I remind your Lordships, and anyone who may read this debate—and indeed the one that follows, where I cannot see a single Brexiteer on the Order Paper—that your Lordships’ House is a very Europhile place, well-stocked with former government Ministers, Members of Parliament and servants of the EU, who between them have been responsible over long, and what they no doubt regard as successful, lives for bringing this country to its present state of subservience to the corrupt octopus in Brussels. It must be disappointing for them to see so much ingratitude and anger boiling up among the British people against the project in which they have invested so much and in which they so fervently believe.

That is why, during this referendum campaign, we have seen Project Octopus turning into Project Fear—we are told to be fearful of leaving the clutch of its tentacles. This morning we have Project Panic as the Chancellor threatens us with all manner of taxes and pestilence if, as the world’s fifth-largest economy, we dare to take our own place outside the failing project of European integration and simply join the 160 other countries in the world that have not made the mistake of joining it.

At the heart of this threat of economic disaster if we vote to leave next Thursday lies a wholly improbable scare: that somehow we would lose our present free trade with the single market and have to pay job-destroying tariffs to export into it. I propose to spend the rest of these few minutes examining that central fallacy in the remain position.

Government figures suggest that around 10% of our GDP goes in trade with clients in the EU—supporting some 3 million British jobs; another 10% goes to the rest of the world; and 80% stays in our domestic economy. But EU overregulation strangles all 100% of our economy, so 90% of it would be set free from Brussels overkill if we leave the EU. Of course, we would have to meet single market requirements for the 10% that we export to it, just as we do for what we export to the foreign markets outside the EU.

[Lord Hannay of Chiswick (CB)]

The noble Lord says that EU regulation strangles our economy. Can he explain why the OECD found that we were the second-least regulated economy in the OECD—that is, we were less regulated than its non-EU members—and that the only country less regulated than us was another EU member, the Netherlands? Perhaps he could give a little thought to that before he makes foolish remarks such as the ones he has just made.

[Lord Pearson of Rannoch]

My Lords, I do not see that anything the noble Lord has said alters what I said. The Dutch Prime Minister recently went so far as to say that he thought a large proportion of the Dutch economy was afflicted by EU regulations. The noble Lord will simply have to wait until we are out of the European Union and then he will see how we set ourselves free.

As I was saying, we would go on exporting to the rest of the world as we do now. We would meet the conditions required by the rest of the world, just as it pays to put the steering wheel on the left if you are selling a car to the United States.

The Government’s ONS Pink Book reveals that our growing trade deficit with the single market reached £85 billion in 2015. This means that manufacturers in the EU sold us £85 billion-worth more in goods than we sell them. If we accept the Government’s suggestion that some 3 million jobs support the 10% of our GDP which exports to the single market, this means that there are around 5.5 million jobs in the EU which support exporting to us. So if the politicians in Brussels try to impose tariffs on our trade together, that would hit 2.5 million more jobs in the single market than it would here and would not be tolerated by EU manufacturers.

Let us take the specific example of our car trade, which the Prime Minister and other Europhiles pretend would suffer a 10% tariff on its exports to the single market if we leave the political construct of the EU, with consequent job losses here. That must be nonsense, because we import twice as many cars from the EU as we export to it—1.7 million cars in and 700,000 cars out—while EU manufacturers also enjoy having 64% of our domestic car market. So those powerful manufacturers, with their suppliers and employees, will simply not tolerate a tariff which would damage them so much more than us, however much Herr Juncker and Herr Schäuble and sundry other mischief in Brussels might wish to punish us for leaving the rest of the EU.

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[Lord Hannay of Chiswick (CB)]

My Lords, every one of the three reports we are debating today is relevant to the event that will take place a week tomorrow and is given a great deal of added topicality by that event. Each one, as is invariably the case with such reports of our EU Select Committee and the Select Committee on Science and Technology, is a small part of the complicated jigsaw that makes up our EU membership—one which is so poorly understood, alas, by the electorate and one which, also alas, is so badly explained by politicians. There is plenty of blame to go around for that lamentable state of affairs, but none of it, I suggest, is attributable to your Lordships’ committees or to the admirable chair of the EU Select Committee, the noble Lord, Lord Boswell, who introduced this debate with such lucidity.

No one who has read Article 50 of the EU treaty even once—I fear that there may be some at least in this room who have not done that—can possibly doubt what a cat’s cradle we will enmesh ourselves in if next week we vote to leave. No one also can, or at least should, doubt that we will be at a negotiating disadvantage if we decide to go down that path of withdrawal—a negotiation in which we will inevitably be cast in an adversarial position from the outset.

Let me just make this point. Up to now, the other 27 member states have unanimously made clear—and they really mean it—that they want the 28-member European Union to continue. That is an entirely valid position, from their point of view and an admirable one from mine. But do not doubt: the day we vote to leave, that will change. Then, the 27 other member states will know that we are no longer to be a member of the European Union, and they will look after their national interests in that context. That will not take account of our national interest.

We would thus, under the Article 50 arrangements, lose control over the content and timing. That is all the more so, of course, given that the views expressed sometimes in this Chamber and by Vote Leave seem to indicate a desire not to trigger Article 50 too soon—that is, in plain speech, to prolong the agony and uncertainty, which is likely to have an extremely damaging effect on investment in this country for even longer than would be the case if it was triggered straightaway. Indeed, it looks to me as if most of the two years provided for in Article 50 could well be taken up with the supporters of leave working out which of the future trading options with the EU we want to aspire to, because they certainly are not making a great deal of sense out of it yet.

On what basis do the supporters of Brexit base their sunny optimism as to the outcome of those negotiations? It is certainly not on any contact with the leaders of the 27 other member states who will be on the opposite side of the table from us—as far as I can see, none of them has had any contact with them at all. Meanwhile, the leaders of the leave campaign miss no opportunity to insult the other member states, and proclaim that they want to destroy the European Union or even, with supreme arrogance, that they want to give them a lesson and a wake-up call. Is that likely to encourage them to give us a good deal? I rather doubt it, even if they are not likely to be heavily preoccupied with the risk of contagion to their own protest movements if they are too generous to us. It is honestly no good saying that the Germans will still want to sell us BMWs and the French will still want to sell us wine. That is the politics of the saloon bar, not of the negotiating table.

The second report, on EU membership and UK science, on which I welcomed the introduction from the noble Earl, is equally sobering, as is the virtually unanimous view of our universities and research establishments that withdrawal would be seriously damaging to them. We have heard plenty of evidence of that. It is not just a matter of EU funding, of which, of course, we get a disproportionately large share—although, given the steady reduction in the Government’s own contribution to our scientific budget in recent years, it is a little hard to believe that they will leap forward and substitute for it with great alacrity. But there is also the important issue of collaboration, to which many noble Lords, including the noble Lord, Lord Taverne, referred. The studies done by Universities UK showed, if I understood rightly, that every pound, dollar or euro put into research in this country was worth 1.4 times as much if done within a collaborative European programme as if it was done in a purely national programme. That is not to be discounted. The scientific effort being made here and elsewhere in Europe is a crucial part of our national capacity to compete effectively in the decades ahead. It should not be subjected to a game of Russian roulette by politicians who have devoted a good deal more of their time to the humanities than they have to the sciences. I confess that I am one of those.

The noble Lord, Lord Boswell, was quite right to say that the three reports are not partisan, but I am sorry if I offend him by saying that all three are basically building blocks in the remain argument. They all represent compelling arguments why remain is in the national interests. When we meet next in this House, the die will have been cast. If, as I hope, the majority vote to remain, it will be important for the Government to set out and implement an agenda that enables us to play a leading role in a reformed European Union, to which we are committed as a wholehearted and constructive member. If the result goes the other way, some of us may be accused—I expect I shall be—of being bad losers. I would not accept that deploring an outcome that will, irretrievably and in a lasting manner, damage our economy, weaken our security and diminish our role in the world, is worthy of that characterisation.

European Union Referendum (Date of Referendum etc.) Regulations 2016

Lord Hannay of Chiswick Excerpts

Wednesday 2nd March 2016 Lords Chamber

[Lord Hannay of Chiswick (CB)]

My Lords, answering the first question on the Order Paper—the fixing of 23 June for the referendum—will not, I suspect, trouble the House for long. This really has to be the Government’s call and now that the period of negotiation is over, the case for moving to a vote without unnecessarily extending the period of uncertainty, instability and volatility that we already see around us is surely a convincing one.

When the Prime Minister’s Statement was repeated in this House last week, I said that I thought the reforms he had achieved were “substantive and valuable”. Having now read the Government’s detailed account of the negotiations in their paper, The Best of Both Worlds, I am confirmed in that view. I have no intention of going into a detailed exegesis of that paper, which I found clear and compelling, but I am puzzled that some members of the Government, the Lord Chancellor in particular, are challenging some of the content of that paper, which was issued in their name. I am puzzled, too, that the critics take so little account of the European Union’s track record in honouring such post-dated commitments to treaty change. In both the Danish and Irish cases, the post-dated commitments were honoured in both letter and spirit when the treaties were next amended. Nor were they ever challenged in the interim by the European Court of Justice. Since mottos seem to be in vogue, I recall that “pacta sunt servanda”, which can perhaps be rendered into the demotic as “sticking to your deals”, is an absolute rule in Brussels.

It is sometimes suggested that, if the electorate vote in June to leave the EU, we can then return to Brussels and renegotiate the renegotiation, getting better terms for remaining in the EU. Up to last weekend, this seemed to be the view of that Pied Piper of Hamelin of our days, the Mayor of London, but he now seems to have changed his mind—something he does quite often—admitting that the choice in June is indeed binary: in or out. That is wise, because that is what it is. The Government clearly regard a vote to leave as requiring us to trigger the provisions of Article 50 to establish the terms of our withdrawal. There is not a scintilla of evidence that any of the 27 other member states or the Commission or the Parliament would be prepared to enter into negotiation on any other basis. Indeed, the February agreement specifically says that these reforms will be taken off the table if we vote to leave.

We are told by leading Eurosceptics that the EU is rushing headlong towards political union and that, despite all that has been said in this agreement about ever-closer union, we will be dragged along behind them. Again, there is no real evidence for that assertion. Quoting Jacques Delors, who has not held any office, European or otherwise, for more than 20 years, is not evidence. The negative reactions to the Brussels deal of those outside government who hold those views in other member states indicate their belief that the EU will not now be heading into political union. Brandishing such fantasies should surely not be part of the serious national debate in which we now need to engage.

The issue of sovereignty, already mentioned this afternoon, and whether pooling it or hoarding it is in the country’s best interests, certainly will be part of that debate. But it is a complex subject not always well addressed. It is not enough just to mention the word “sovereignty” and expect the traffic to stop. Since the Second World War, successive Governments and Parliaments have chosen to exercise our sovereignty collectively with others on matters every bit as weighty as the European Union. Article 5 of the Brussels treaty, which set up NATO and which commits us to respond militarily, conceivably even in a nuclear exchange, to any act of aggression against one of its members, is one such commitment. So are our memberships of the United Nations and the International Monetary Fund. We accept the compulsory jurisdiction of the International Court of Justice, the International Criminal Court, and the International Tribunal for the Law of the Sea. None of this pooling of sovereignty is being contested in the current debate, so when the pooling of sovereignty is contested in the EU context, it is surely reasonable to take account of those other instances and to recognise that what we are really discussing is the case for a rules-based international community in contrast to shifting back into a new world disorder.

The one thing that makes no sense is any suggestion that the decision in June is not that important, that the outcome does not really matter very much, and that everything will be much the same the day after as the day before. We are in all probability talking about the survival—or failure to survive—of two unions, not one, and about an irreversible shift in Britain’s role in the world, which it will be too late to regret should the electorate decide to leave the EU.

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[Lord Forsyth of Drumlean]

My Lords, it is a pleasure to follow the noble Lord, Lord Hunt. I was struck by his comments thanking the European Union for its support for science and research. I will make a deal with him. I will give him £20 and then he can give me £10 back and I will try to understand the logic of his position. We are net contributors to the EU and the money we get back is our money. The difference is that we are told how to spend it by people who are not accountable to anyone.

[Lord Hannay of Chiswick]

Perhaps the noble Lord is not familiar with the research that has been done by Universities UK. It states that moneys which come through the programmes of the European Union are worth 1.4 times moneys that come from simple research in the UK without collaboration with others. Before he starts with “It’s our money” he should think of that.

[Lord Forsyth of Drumlean]

If the noble Lord had been listening to me, the point that I was making—I am sure he understood it—is that we are net contributors to the EU and therefore what comes back is money that we have already contributed. If we did not have to join the EU we would have that money and be able to spend it on our priorities in science and research.

The noble Lord, Lord Judd—I am not sure whether he is in his place—talked about how Ministers were wrong in the way they operated within the EU. They would come back and announce that something had been a great triumph when it had been a disaster. I confess that I have been in that position. The person who turned disaster into triumph was the noble Lord, Lord Kerr. He is brilliant at taking a disaster and making it look like a triumph—as we saw from his speech when he explained how the Prime Minister’s negotiation was a great triumph. I am delighted to see that he has lost none of skills.

However, the problem still remains. The fact that the Prime Minister, with all his energy and enthusiasm, spent six months going round the European capitals, flying here, there and everywhere, staying up half the night and coming back with a mouse of a negotiation, indicates just how impotent we have become in the European Union, and what is the central issue of this referendum campaign: how can we get back to a position where our Prime Minister can make minor changes to welfare without the permission of the European Union?

I have to say to my noble friend on the Front Bench, Lady Anelay, that during the debates on the referendum Bill, she assured us that the Government would not abuse their position and use taxpayers’ money for a particular position. The documents that have been produced to date are a travesty of these promises. My noble friend Lord Ridley did an excellent job in highlighting some of these points.

I look at the stuff that is coming out from the Government in arguing for remaining in the EU. We are told that 3 million jobs will be lost and that cheap flights and holidays will be at risk. The Chancellor of the Exchequer is abroad saying that our economy will be subject to a great shock, and he is getting some of his chums in the G20 to join in the clamour. How that helps to strengthen the pound, I do not know. Special advisers are getting on to business leaders, cajoling them into signing letters, and generals and others are signing letters. We even have the Governor of the Bank of England—a position that has always been outside politics—saying that our country depends on “the kindness of strangers”—a quote from “A Streetcar Named Desire”, or Emma Thompson running down the country. How any of those things are advancing Britain’s interests, I do not understand.

Of course, there is the big business agenda. Why does big business like Europe? Because it can go to Europe and spend £1.5 billion on lobbying and shut out competition. We had a classic example of that today. Look at the front page of the Times where Europe has suddenly, unexpectedly, decided that vaping should be treated as a tobacco product, so the cost should go up. I wonder who has been lobbying Brussels to achieve that? The tobacco companies and others. Who will suffer disbenefit? The people of this country who, in their hundreds of thousands, have been able to give up smoking tobacco to have vaping.

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[Lord Faulks]

Some courts are more predictable than others, but the confident assertion from all legal advisers whose opinion I have read is that, for example, were there to be an argument to the effect that our changes to migration arrangements were somehow contrary to the principle of free movement, there is no way that the European Court would say, “Well, the treaty has freedom of movement, but all the member states have agreed to the contrary that there should be this arrangement for the United Kingdom”. I simply cannot believe that it is arguable that there would be any other conclusion than that there was honouring of the agreement.

[Lord Hannay of Chiswick]

My Lords, could the Minister confirm what I believe to be the case, and stated when I addressed the House earlier: that in the cases of Denmark and Ireland, where postdated commitments were entered into for treaty change, which took quite a few years to fulfil, there was no evidence and no case in which the European Court of Justice sought to tamper with those agreements? That is rather more important than endless speculation about what it might do.

[Lord Faulks]

I am grateful to the noble Lord. He is quite right. Those are substantial precedents and a clear indication of what might happen—as he quite rightly said, in invoking the Latin maxim pacta sunt servanda.

European Union Referendum Bill

Lord Hannay of Chiswick Excerpts

Monday 14th December 2015 Lords Chamber

[Lord Hannay of Chiswick (CB)]

I speak as one from these Benches who participated in the earlier discussions on the Bill, and my name was on the amendments debated in Committee and on Report which would have permitted 16 and 17 year-old citizens of this country to vote in the EU referendum that will be held before the end of 2017. I have not wavered from that view, even though my name is no longer associated with the amendment that we are now debating. I believe that the issue at stake in this referendum is of a sufficiently fundamental and long-lasting nature to justify the inclusion in the franchise on this occasion of 16 and 17 year-olds. As other speakers have said, the evidence from the Scottish referendum in 2014 supports the contention that that age group is well able to handle the privilege of voting thoughtfully and responsibly.

That said, while this House has the right to ask the other place to think again, it has the duty, in due course, to recognise the primacy in legislative matters of the other House. In this instance, with a substantial majority, we asked it to think again, and as we have been forcefully reminded this evening, it did so and, by a slightly increased majority, again rejected the amendment providing the vote to 16 and 17 year-olds. Had the Bill returned to this House in the normal legislative procedure, I would have supported calling an end to the process.

Unfortunately, the waters have been massively muddied by the frankly rather risible invocation of financial privilege which the Government chose not to waive but rather to endorse. Someone will need to tell me how the authorities in the other place regarded a measure which we rejected some weeks ago, which involved the expenditure of many billions of pounds, as not covered by financial privilege whereas this one, which covers £6 million—and I do not imagine that the Government have underestimated the figure—falls within it.

[Lord Elton (Con)]

It seems that to a lot of noble Lords constitutional language is a foreign language that is not easily understood. I shall put what the Commons have said into English. It is, “You have asked us to think again. We have thought again several times. We are not going to change our minds, so please don’t waste any more time”.

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[Lord Hannay of Chiswick]

I shall continue, but I say to the noble Lord, Lord Elton, that I have agreed with him. I have already stated that if this matter had come back to this House in the normal legislative procedure, without the invocation of financial privilege, I would have supported the Government, so I think I have been very clear on that point.

Financial privilege has been brought into the matter. I regret it very deeply. Frankly, the arguments, as just read out to us, amount to the Red Queen’s argument in Through the Looking-Glass: “It’s so, because I say it’s so”.

What I think is arising in this debate is a kind of reductio ad absurdum of the use of financial privilege. We have to realise that by that £6 million yardstick, pretty well every piece of legislation that comes to this House could be ruled as being covered by financial privilege. There really are not many pieces of legislation, although I am sure that someone will provide me with chapter and verse if there are, that do not involve a cost as modest as that. That makes it difficult for us because it sets a precedent with far-reaching and damaging implications for the future work and role of this House. That is where I concur entirely with the noble Lord, Lord Cormack. I do not yield to him in any way in his love of this House and his desire that we should be able to do our work properly but, with the best will in the world, and for the reason that I have given about financial privilege, I am afraid that I will not be willing, in these circumstances and for that reason alone, to support the Government if a Division is called.

[Lord Wright of Richmond (CB)]

My Lords, I am sure that I am not alone in thinking that I have now heard sufficient argument so that, if the noble Baroness decides to test the opinion of the House, I am ready to vote.

European Union Referendum Bill

Lord Hannay of Chiswick Excerpts

Wednesday 18th November 2015 Lords Chamber

[Lord Willoughby de Broke (UKIP)]

My Lords, I am most grateful to the noble Baroness for her reply to my amendment, which would ensure that bodies need to be designated before the 10-week period. If the noble Baroness will repeat her assurance, I will be very happy to withdraw the amendment. I do not want to waste the House’s time. Everybody is well aware why designated bodies need as long a period as possible during which they are designated in order to campaign effectively, because of financial and other reasons. In the light of the noble Baroness’s remarks, I shall not press my amendment.

[Lord Hannay of Chiswick (CB)]

My Lords, I will speak to Amendment 11 and will respond to the Minister’s very full explanation of how the Government now intend to proceed. I express my gratitude to the Minister for listening carefully to our debate in Committee, when this amendment received support from all sides of the House, and for the courtesy with which she has consulted on the matter in advance of this debate. I am entirely happy to leave it in her hands, to be dealt with by a government amendment introduced at Third Reading. I hope that that amendment will cover not just gaming but pretty well any other happenstance that might occur. Heaven knows, it is probably an “unknown unknown” but the best way to ensure that it does not damage the referendum process is to make an amendment of this sort to the Bill.

I leave this issue in the hands of the Minister and the Government, confident that they will find a way to deal with it, in which case, of course, I doubt that the provision will ever need to be used. That would be very satisfactory, as it would be much better if there were two designated institutions slugging it out in what will be a vigorous national debate. However, we do need to make sure that this issue is addressed. With that, I state my intention not to press the amendment, and again thank the Minister for the efforts she has made so far and encourage her to go further down that road.

[Lord Forsyth of Drumlean (Con)]

My Lords, I add my thanks to my noble friend for the way in which she listened to the arguments put in Committee. I hate to rain on this parade at this stage but after reflecting on the amendment of the noble Lord, Lord Hannay, I have one or two worries which I hope that my noble friend will consider before she brings forward an amendment at a later stage in the Bill. As I understand it, this amendment would mean that if there was only one designated campaign, it would still get access to broadcasting time and taxpayers’ money to carry out the campaign in circumstances where the Electoral Commission had designated only one campaign. I entirely understand the concern the noble Lord had, which was reflected in the legislation for the Scottish referendum. Suppose two competing organisations wished to be the lead campaign, and there was disillusion with the decision that had been taken by the Electoral Commission and that was subject to judicial review, and that we got into a position where there was no clarity about the position of an opposition and therefore no alternative campaign. It would then clearly be absurd to put a quango—an unelected, unaccountable body such as the Electoral Commission—in a position where it could effectively ensure that only one side was supported with taxpayers’ resources and the ability to go to the broadcasters. It is highly unlikely that this situation would arise but, as the noble Lord has pointed out, his own worries, which the amendment is designed to deal with, are also highly unlikely. Has my noble friend thought about that, and what is the answer to my concern?

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[Lord Goldsmith]

The noble Lord and other noble Lords will have their own views on the next amendment, which I support, but I do not think it affects the principle of what I have been saying.

[Lord Hannay of Chiswick]

Could the noble and learned Lord confirm my own impression from reading the report he wrote and to which he referred, that the phasing-out approach that he took bears no relation at all to the phasing out in the amendment before the House now, which is not a phasing out but a guillotine at the beginning of 2017? If I remember rightly—he will correct me if I am wrong—he proposed that those Commonwealth citizens who currently have the vote from this country should not have it removed from them. That is a very different proposition indeed.

[Lord Goldsmith]

The noble Lord is right about that. Mind you, if the recommendation had been taken up in 2008 when I wrote the report, who knows where we would be today?

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[Lord Hamilton of Epsom]

I hear people saying no. Let us suppose that an opinion poll came out on 16 and 17 year-olds that was 70:30 in favour of pulling out of the EU. Would we be looking at this amendment now? I can tell you we would not. Let us not fool ourselves. This is all part of trying to tilt the playing field even more in the direction of those who want to stay in the EU. It is already tilted because the Government have the option of choosing the day the referendum will be held, and this is clearly an effort to tilt it even further.

[Lord Hannay of Chiswick]

Is this not a case of the pot calling the kettle black?

[Lord Hamilton of Epsom]

The noble Lord, Lord Hannay, will have to tell me what amendment I put my name to which tries to tilt the playing field the other way. All we have ever tried to do is keep it level. My God, that is an effort in a House like this, I can tell you.

European Union Referendum Bill

Lord Hannay of Chiswick Excerpts

Wednesday 18th November 2015 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Miller of Chilthorne Domer (LD)]

My Lords, these amendments seek to extend the Westminster franchise to those British citizens who have lived in the EU for more than 15 years. This extension to the franchise is an exception in the same way that the Bill allows for Members of your Lordships’ House to vote in the referendum.

In Committee, we heard many examples of why these British citizens should be enabled to vote in the referendum. I will not repeat all of them but simply remind the House that many in this currently excluded group have spent the whole of their working lives working for Britain. Many receive government pensions as they were soldiers, nurses or civil servants and so they pay UK taxes. In Committee, one of the points made—which was conceded even by those who seem to oppose this amendment—was that there should be no taxation without representation.

Many other people working in the EU are there because they are flying the flag for Britain. They have been encouraged by successive Governments of this country to expand their careers and look to the EU. For some this started when they were at university, with the Erasmus scheme getting them to spend time at EU universities, and for others it is because the UK has developed partnerships with firms such as Airbus. So Governments have encouraged British citizens to look on the whole of the EU as a place to study, work and live, and they cannot now pull the rug from under their feet. They should at least give them a say in whether that rug is pulled.

In Committee, some noble Lords could not understand why being a British expat in the EU is different from being an expat in, say, Singapore or Australia. As the noble Lord, Lord Anderson of Swansea, put it so succinctly, it is because of the network of arrangements upon which our citizens relied when they made their choice to live and work in the EU.

When I reflected on the Government’s response in Committee, I could not understand why they are not keen to enfranchise this group of citizens. I am glad to see the noble Baroness, Lady Royall, in her place because she asked a very important question. If the Government believe it is right for British citizens to vote in future general elections, as announced in their manifesto, why is it not right to give these people a vote in a referendum that will have a greater impact on their lives than a general election? The noble Lord, Lord Lexden, rightly said that it will be incomprehensible to our fellow citizens living abroad that a manifesto commitment cannot be implemented, by one means or another, to participate in a vote of such overwhelming importance.

When I reread the proceedings of the Committee stage, the only arguments I could find were from the noble Lord, Lord Dobbs, who said that the Electoral Commission would not know where the expats lived or who they were. However, the answer is that if you want to enfranchise them, they will apply for a franchise—they have passport numbers, national insurance numbers and fixed addresses—and, after all, those who have lived in the EU for 14, 13 or 12 years can register. It is only those above 15 years who cannot. Surely the Government would not deny such people the right to vote simply on that basis. It cannot be that difficult.

The noble Baroness, Lady Morgan of Ely, seemed to be against this exceptional franchise because she does not want to set a precedent for votes for life, which her party is against. I say to her that this enfranchisement is exceptional and should not set a precedent. The noble Baroness used the phrase about those working in the EU flying the flag for their country. I am sure she believes that and I wonder whether she might soften her position.

In replying for the Government, when it came down to not wishing to agree with the amendment, the Minister said that he was simply concerned with legitimacy. He wanted no sense that there had been an attempt to skew the result. He felt that the “safest way” to do this was to stick with the Westminster franchise. We should be looking not at safety but at the fairest way. In any case, we are not sticking with the Westminster franchise because we have already made a couple of exceptions. The Government have accepted them and they are in the Bill.

All I am asking for here is that those who have lived in the EU for more than 15 years can join with those who have lived there for a shorter time, and that for the referendum they may exceptionally have the right to vote on a really important matter for this country and for them. I beg to move.

[Lord Hannay of Chiswick (CB)]

My Lords, I rise to support the amendment moved by the noble Baroness, Lady Miller of Chilthorne Domer. We had a good debate about this in Committee and I think we established rather clearly that there is in fact no difference of principle on this matter between those who supported the amendment and the Minister who opposed it. His party has a manifesto commitment, which I am sure it is going to fulfil, to introduce legislation in this Parliament to give the vote to precisely the people we are talking about; that is, people who have been living abroad for more than 15 years. Admittedly, he is going to do that erga omnes and not just for those in the European Union, but there seems to me to be no difference of principle between us.

Nor does this amendment cross in any sense the line that has been frequently prayed in aid in previous debates—that this is a referendum which British people should be deciding. These people are British. They hold British passports and they are our citizens. The reason to give them the vote is that we are having a referendum which could fundamentally affect a large amount of the way in which they live. It could affect their healthcare arrangements, their ability to travel freely, their social coverage, their jobs and the way their children are treated. This is a huge range of things that could and will be affected if by any chance—mischance, in my view—the electorate votes to withdraw from the European Union. Yet the Government, who want these people to have the vote and believe that they are rightly going to be given the vote under their own proposals to be brought forward later in this Parliament, feel that they should not have it in the one vote which they really mind about. They are probably not all that interested in voting in our parliamentary, municipal and other elections, but they jolly well are interested in this referendum because their interests are at stake.

It would be really good if the Government could take a deep breath and say, “Yes, we agree that these people should have the vote because that is what our manifesto says, and we agree that this referendum vote matters more to them than anything else”. The Government have been saying for years now that the people must have their say. Did they really mean to exclude British citizens living elsewhere in the EU from having their say when their interests will be affected? I hope that we can move ahead with the amendment. Not only does it have logic and consistency on its side—two qualities which were given a rather hard time in the previous debate—it has common sense on its side as well.

[Lord Scott of Foscote (CB)]

My Lords, I rise to support this amendment as strenuously as I can, very much for the reasons already given by the noble Lord, Lord Hannay. I have a personal interest which I must declare. I have a daughter who lives in Spain with her English husband. Both were born in England and are English through and through. They have both always held English passports. They met in Spain, married and have two sons, both of whom hold British passports. All those members of my family are British, but they live in Spain under the arrangements made whereby the citizens of one EU country have the right to live anywhere in the EU. They have been in Spain for well over 15 years. The eldest of my grandsons is now 18 and at university, not in Spain but in the Netherlands, for reasons I do not quite understand. At any rate, they have been living in Spain for more than 15 years on the footing that they have the right to do so.

If the referendum required this country to leave the EU, that would create the problem that I am referring to, but to say that they should not have the right to vote in the referendum, given the interest and importance to them of this country remaining in the EU, seems quite unacceptable. I therefore wholeheartedly support this amendment.

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[Lord Hamilton of Epsom]

A large number of commitments have been made in manifestos that have not been brought in. That is rather like, by the same token, arguing that this is the moment to change the electoral mandate for 16 and 17 year-olds. Are we going to bring all these changes in on the back of a referendum Bill? Like my noble friend Lord Forsyth, I believe that we should have a constitutional convention to look into all these things. The whole thing is becoming more messy and piecemeal as it goes along, and I certainly do not approve of that at all.

All the time, amendments are being brought forward that are designed to make it more likely that the electoral register will be slewed in such a way that more people will vote to stay in than to leave.

[Lord Hannay of Chiswick]

I wonder whether the noble Lord would agree that voting for this amendment will make the electorate less piecemeal, not more piecemeal. It is the exclusion of people who are British citizens that is piecemeal and which his party, which he seems to treat with contempt, proposes to remedy. This is really quite an odd thing for him to do. It would be much more logical if they were included.

[Lord Hamilton of Epsom]

All the time, we seem to be trying to change the existing electoral register in favour of those who are more likely to vote to stay in than they are to leave. This is quite clearly changing the whole thing in favour of those who want to stay in the EU. I do not know why the noble Lord actually denies this. Does he really think that people living in the EU for more than 15 years will vote to come out? It is extremely unlikely. He knows that as well as anybody else. We have established that there is an electoral register and now we are starting to mess about with it. Once it includes the 16 and 17 year-olds, a whole host of other people can be put in. That moves totally away from the original register on which we were having this referendum.

If everybody wants to hold a referendum in this country which is narrowly won by those who say we should stay in the EU when there is all the gerrymandering that has been going on, do noble Lords really think that that decision will be accepted by the country when it is obvious that the whole thing has been slewed in favour of those who want to stay in the EU?

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[The Minister of State, Ministry of Justice (Lord Faulks) (Con)]

My Lords, the purpose of these amendments is to allow British citizens resident in other EU member states to vote in the EU referendum, regardless of the time they have been resident overseas. They would, therefore, lift the 15-year time limit on voting rights in the referendum for British citizens resident overseas, but only for those Britons resident in the EU. I have listened to the arguments put forward today and in Committee. I fear that, as with all the proposed changes to the franchise, the Government’s position remains the same.

I am, of course, sympathetic to the case. Indeed, as has been referred to, the Government are committed to getting rid of the 15-year time limit and have committed to bringing forward a stand-alone, dedicated Bill to provide for votes for life in due course. On the principle of removing the 15-year rule, therefore, I have no argument with the amendments. I can also understand the desire of British citizens who have been abroad for more than 15 years—whether they live in the EU, or within Europe in Oslo, in the point made by the noble Lord, Lord Grocott—to participate in the referendum. I appreciate that some will feel frustrated that they will not be able to participate. The other part of the 100,000 obviously sent their emails to me, rather than to the noble Baroness, Lady Morgan. They can argue that they might be affected by the vote, but I fear that that does not change the Government’s position on the franchise as a whole.

[Lord Hannay of Chiswick]

My Lords, there seems to be a perhaps excessive interest in the probably not very large numbers of British citizens who live in Norway. It might be worth recalling that, whatever the result of the referendum, they will not be affected. They live in a country in the European Economic Area, which is part of the single market. All their rights and privileges, and all the advantages they get from that, will remain with them whichever way we vote. That is what makes them different from British citizens in EU countries.

[Lord Faulks]

I am grateful for that interruption. The Government’s commitment is to votes for life for everybody, whether they live in the EU or elsewhere. The point is not in terms of their direct association with the EU, but whether they are British citizens who live abroad. Therefore, the point that I understood the noble Lord, Lord Grocott, to be making, which had some force, was that it is mere happenstance whether an individual lives in a country in the European Union or outside of it.

Removing the 15-year rule will be a complex and important constitutional change. It is not something that we suggest should in any way be rushed by way of a single amendment. It needs a whole Bill to be implemented properly—a Bill that plainly will be opposed by the party opposite. There are decisions to be taken. The media and the public should have a chance to scrutinise these changes. That is something of an echo of the argument I advanced unsuccessfully on the previous amendment. We will need to consider questions of potential fraud and how we should update the registration system. It is not something that should in any way be rushed through. This is just a small sample of the decisions that would need to be taken and implemented. Changing the franchise in this way is no small task. Giving effect to such a change would take a significant amount of time and resources in central government and in local authorities.

In many ways this is the most complex change to the franchise being proposed today. The group of people in question are almost by definition not known to us, as British citizens do not need to register when they move abroad. There are many, like the relations of the noble and learned Lord, Lord Scott, who will be well known and easily identifiable, but for many others it is difficult to have an adequate canvass. We could hardly go door to door, as electoral registration officials can in the UK. I entirely accept the contribution that many who live in the EU have made over a long period to Great Britain, as the noble Lord, Lord Lester, pointed out, although they have not hitherto taken part in general elections if they are outside the Westminster franchise. Verifying identities for others is a complicated task where a person has been away for at least a decade. For example, it might be difficult to prove that they have been previously resident in the UK.

These changes have to be made judiciously and carefully to ensure that the system remains transparent. My noble friend Lord Lexden said in Committee and again today that the Government should have started the process of the votes for life, which would, of course, incorporate this amendment. I know that is an issue close to his heart. I assure him and the House that the Government are committed to this change, but without knowing the date of the referendum I cannot, of course, guarantee that the change will be implemented in time. As I said, the decisions are complex.

I return finally to the point that I have made before. Indeed, I think it is one of the areas of common ground between this party and the party opposite at least. This process must be seen to be fair. There is clearly a view taken, as exemplified by the contribution of my noble friend Lord Hamilton, that a change of this sort may have an ulterior motive. I do not presume to guess how anybody is going to vote, whether they live outside the United Kingdom, outside the EU or whether they are under 18 or not. However, it is important that this should not in any way be seen to be some form of specially amended franchise so as to achieve a certain outcome. Nothing should undermine its legitimacy. The public might ask why we have made this change now just in time for the referendum. Should it not have been done as a much more careful stand-alone vote?

[Lord Faulks]

The position is that British citizens are not able to vote in referenda in other European countries. This minor exception, which includes Peers and Gibraltarians who are members of the Commonwealth, is a very minor change to reflect that fact rather than to reflect the fact that Gibraltar happens to be in Europe and is part of the south-west area. I do not think it follows therefore that there should be an automatic change to the whole approach.

[Lord Hannay of Chiswick]

Before the noble Lord sits down—I think he is winding up—I do think it is a bit bizarre that we have got as far as the housemaid’s baby now. It is a very small baby—it does not matter very much. It is a change. However, the Ministry of Justice seems to be singularly ignorant of the role that British embassies, consulates and other diplomatic missions in the EU play. They have a duty of care to British citizens living in those countries. They know where a lot of them live—not, I am sure, all of them—and they have a duty of care. If those citizens are accused of a crime, they have to try to help them. So it is no good simply saying, “We don’t know where they all are. It’s a huge problem”. That is not actually the truth.

[Lord Faulks]

I would not dream of underestimating the role of British embassies and consulates around the world. They play an extremely valuable and continuing role. Nevertheless, it is asking a great deal of them—even of the most conscientious embassy—to be conscious of the whereabouts of all the various citizens living in countries outside the United Kingdom.

European Union Referendum Bill

Lord Hannay of Chiswick Excerpts

Monday 2nd November 2015 Lords Chamber

I have asked myself why the Government would resist giving them a vote, especially a Government who allegedly want to give them a vote for life. I have asked myself whether it is a matter of the cost. That is why I have tabled Amendment 18, so that the Minister can explain whether it is too difficult and costly to register them. I find that hard to believe, however, given that the Electoral Commission advertised in February 2015 in the ex-pat press that you could still register online to vote in May 2015. For me, there is no rational reason to deny these people a vote. This Bill provides for exceptions to the normal Westminster franchise, and this group have a right to be an exception and be given the franchise for this EU Referendum Bill. I beg to move.

[Lord Hannay of Chiswick (CB)]

My Lords, I support this group of amendments. Amendments 17 and 19, which are mine, are of a similar thrust to that of noble Baroness, Lady Miller, whose amendment has been clearly and compellingly introduced.

When the Minister replies, I hope he will recognise that we are in calmer waters than we were last Wednesday in discussing the franchise. There is no difference of principle between those moving these amendments and the party of which he is a member, which stated in its manifesto that it believed that this category of person—people who have lived abroad for more than 15 years—should get the vote. I heartily support this view.

I hope that the Minister will also recognise that this class of voter—as I hope it will be—in the European Union countries has a greater interest in voting in this referendum than he or she ever had, or will have, in national parliamentary elections. It would be extraordinary if the Government did not exert themselves to ensure that these British citizens have the vote on this occasion, when their own rights and livelihoods are at stake. The Government have made a great deal of the saying, “the people must have their say”. Surely these are people who ought to have their say. They and their futures are directly involved in this. Frankly, it would be appalling if the Government, later in this Parliament, in an act of supreme generosity, gave them the vote—but after the referendum in which they wish to vote. I hope the Minister will give serious consideration to this issue.

[Lord Spicer (Con)]

When the noble Lord said that all UK citizens living abroad should get these rights, did he mean “abroad”? The first amendment in this group refers just to Europe. If he meant “abroad”, that is very interesting.

[Lord Hannay of Chiswick]

Naturally, since I rose to speak to some amendments on the Marshalled List, those are the amendments I am speaking to. If I did not repeat on each occasion, “Those citizens living abroad in other EU countries”, then I am sorry but that is what I intended.

[Lord Flight (Con)]

My Lords, this is clearly controversial territory and I look forward to hearing the Government’s rationale as to why the line has been drawn where it has. I have to say that I cannot see the argument for allowing British expats in EU countries to have the vote, but not all expats. There does not seem to be much difference between your career taking you to Berlin or to Singapore. Indeed, those who have gone to Singapore are often more likely to return to live in the UK in due course. Where to draw the line is a tricky question. The Scottish referendum was arguably wrong to exclude Scottish citizens who were at that time living in England. If we are to have expats, we should have them all, not just a particular category.

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[Lord Grocott (Lab)]

My Lords, I would like to make a brief intervention, having heard the words “matter of principle” used by a number of contributors. As someone new to this particular debate and this group of amendments, it is slightly odd—is it not?—that a British citizen living in Stockholm under this amendment would be able to take part in the referendum but a British citizen living in Oslo would not. I certainly cannot see an issue of principle that would establish why that should be the case other than what seems to be a weak argument—certainly a very weak argument if it is elevated to being an argument of principle—which is that somehow or other one’s entitlement to vote in an election, whatever the election happens to be, should be dependent on someone else’s assessment of how significant the outcome of the vote would be for the individual concerned.

We do not do that in any other election that I am aware of. If you have young children at school, you are more likely to be affected by the outcome of a local government election than if you do not, because, as we all know, the bulk of local government expenditure goes into education. A person’s right to vote is simply not dependent—or it could never be described as a matter of principle to be dependent—on our estimate of how greatly or significantly the outcome of the vote will affect them. I wonder whether in the rest of the contributions we could acknowledge the validity of that argument.

[Lord Hannay of Chiswick]

My Lords, just before the noble Lord sits down, could I possibly correct him in so far as my own reference to a principle was concerned? When I introduced the amendment I said that I did not think that there could be any difference of principle between those of us moving this amendment and the Government who represent a party which in its manifesto said that it was going to give these people a vote. That was the issue of principle which I said did not exist between us; I did not widen the reference.

[Lord Grocott]

My Lords, I was not pointing the finger at any individual and certainly not at the noble Lord, Lord Hannay; I was simply making what I think is a very valid point that it is not for us to judge how significant an election outcome is to someone when we are proposing either to give them the franchise or to withhold it from them.

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[Lord Spicer]

It is notable that pretty well every speaker has spoken in support of what the noble Lord, Lord Flight, said. It was the reason why I intervened on the noble Lord, Lord Hannay, when I asked him whether he really meant “abroad”—because if he had, it would have been a very significant thing. However, we are where we are. I hope the Government—

[Lord Hannay of Chiswick]

I am sorry; I think the noble Lord has misunderstood yet again what I said. In my opening remarks I said that I welcomed and supported what was in the Conservative manifesto. When it is brought before this House, I will vote in favour of it. I am in favour of the vote being given to all British citizens who live abroad, irrespective of where they live. However, in the context of this Bill, which is about an EU referendum, I have advanced an amendment which is designed to give people who have a serious interest in that referendum the vote. But there should be no mistaking it: I am not distinguishing between the two except in the context of this Bill. I shall be there to vote with the noble Lord when the Representation of the People Act comes forward.

[Lord Spicer]

I very much understand why the noble Lord makes a distinction, because—I will say it again—the amendment that he has produced in its form will hope to skew the results. One point made in this short debate is that the reason for having this rather skewed amendment is that people who live in the European Union like living there. Well, fine, but it gives a perspective on the answer that they might give in a referendum. I have no doubt that the noble Lord has that in his mind. I therefore say to the Government, who are meant to be neutral in all this, that in the interests of fairness and neutrality, and if they are going to extend the franchise, they should listen to the arguments for doing so on a worldwide basis.

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As has been said in this Chamber in other contexts, it is most important that registration should not be rushed, in case those who may be newly enfranchised feel that they have been excluded from the register because it has all been too rushed.

[Lord Hannay of Chiswick]

Is the Minister seriously suggesting that, if and when the piece of legislation we are now discussing goes on the statute book—which I hope and think will probably be around Christmas—the Electoral Commission will have any inhibition at all in getting on with it, should it contain a provision that this group of people should have the vote? Surely he is not suggesting that the Commission has to wait until the Government decide the date of the referendum before it starts work.

[Lord Faulks]

The date of the referendum is of course unknown. No doubt the Electoral Commission will fulfil whatever the existing legislative obligation requires it to do. It may require a great deal of energy and expenditure, and while I am not saying from the Dispatch Box that it would be impossible, one should not underestimate the complexities involved in the process.

The noble Lord, Lord Shipley, said in effect that he is concerned that there was some form of delay by the Government. Perhaps I may reiterate that the Government are committed to scrapping the 15-year rule and they are currently considering the timetable to do this. The date of the referendum is not known, so I am afraid that I cannot make any commitment that votes for life will be in place in time for the referendum. However, we should remember that many British citizens living abroad will be eligible to participate in the referendum vote.

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Moved by

[Lord Hannay of Chiswick]

21: After Clause 5, insert the following new Clause—
“Report on the consequences of United Kingdom withdrawal from the European Union
(1) No later than 12 weeks prior to the appointed date of the referendum, the Secretary of State shall publish, and lay before each House of Parliament, a comprehensive report on the possible consequences of withdrawal from the European Union, taking into account the reports published under the Review of the Balance of Competences.
(2) The report provided for by subsection (1) shall include information on—
(a) the effect of withdrawal on the rights of individuals within the United Kingdom, including the effect on employment rights;(b) the rights of European citizens living in the United Kingdom following withdrawal; (c) the rights, following withdrawal, of United Kingdom citizens living in another country that is a member of the European Union;(d) the legislative and statutory consequences of withdrawal for each government department and for the devolved governments of the United Kingdom, including for social and environmental legislation; and(e) consequences of withdrawal for law enforcement, security and justice in the United Kingdom and in the devolved jurisdictions.”

[Lord Hannay of Chiswick]

My Lords, we have now moved away from the franchise—and not before time, as we have spent quite a lot on it. I suspect the Minister will be able to pass on the baton at this moment, but we are moving on to a matter of substantive policy. Above all, these amendments seek to address what most debaters on both sides of the argument in this House, the other place and the country recognise as being a genuine problem: the lack of objective information about the implications of the referendum vote. All the opinion polling over many years has demonstrated that there is a great deal of misunderstanding, and sometimes misrepresentation, of the facts of our membership and what would be implied by our leaving the European Union if the vote goes in that direction.

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[Lord Grocott]

I am grateful to the noble Lord for giving way. I do not disagree at all with what he is saying about providing as much information as possible on the consequences of withdrawal. As other amendments propose, that information should also address the consequences of remaining in. Both sides should be presented. What I am not absolutely clear about is his suggestion that there can be an objective set of propositions on these matters. How would one present an objective position on, for example, the costs of the common agricultural policy?

[Lord Hannay of Chiswick]

I am sorry to disappoint the noble Lord but the amendments to which I am speaking do not relate to presenting anything about the common agricultural policy. That is not in the list of areas provided here. These amendments, and the request for a report from the Government, address factual areas where people’s rights or responsibilities will be affected by a vote to leave. The previous Government provided a lot of evidence-based material of that nature in the balance of competences review—a review which the present Government seem to prefer to forget that they had any paternity interest in, but they did. It was, I thought, a pretty good piece of work and there is a huge amount of material there. However, it is not yet addressing satisfactorily some of the factual areas. What are those factual areas? First, there is the question of the rights—

[Lord Grocott]

I am sorry to interrupt the noble Lord again and I am grateful to him for giving way. He slightly threw me by saying that this has nothing to do with the common agricultural policy. However, subsection (2)(d) of the proposed new clause refers to,

“the legislative and statutory consequences of withdrawal for each government department”.

It would be very strange for the information on the consequences of withdrawal for the department concerned with agriculture not to include a reference to the common agricultural policy.

[Lord Hannay of Chiswick]

I am sorry. I will get to that. I hope that the noble Lord will be patient and wait until we get to that part of the amendment. I will then explain what it is intended to suggest.

The first area where it is suggested that it would be valuable for the electorate to have a factual assessment of the consequences of a decision to withdraw relates to the rights of individuals, including their employment rights. It is not important to tell them how these rights would be affected by a decision to stay in as in that case the rights would be the same as they have now. The second area concerns the effect of withdrawal on the rights of EU citizens in this country, many of which are secured under EU law. They also need to know what the consequences would be.

The third category is the rights of British citizens in the rest of the EU, the people about whose ability to vote we were discussing in the previous set of amendments, but who have serious rights bestowed on them under EU law that they would lose if we left. I am afraid that it is no good, as the noble Lord, Lord Hamilton, kept saying in stating that it is sure to be all right on the night, and that there are an awful lot of EU citizens here and an awful lot of our citizens there, and that it will all roll out. That is the leap in the dark proposal. People who leap into the dark sometimes find that they have fallen rather a long way.

Then there is the point raised by the noble Lord, Lord Grocott, which is a further category—the legislative and statutory consequences of withdrawal, department by department, and addressing the legislative burden. That asks the Government what they would have to do in order to replace the common agricultural policy if we withdrew. Presumably nobody in this House seriously believes that the British agricultural economy could survive without any governmental involvement. There would have to be a British agricultural policy and that would have to be enacted by Parliament. There would have to be a British policy on research and on business regulation, and a whole range of things, many of which are contained in European Union law. This amendment asks the Government to set out what those requirements would be in the circumstances that I am describing.

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[Lord Pearson of Rannoch (UKIP)]

My Lords, before the noble Lord replies—

[Lord Hannay of Chiswick]

I do not know whether the noble Lord, Lord Pearson, is intervening in my speech. Perhaps I could reply to the noble Lord, Lord Hamilton. That is the normal practice. The point that he raised is perfectly valid, but it is not called for in this amendment. The question of the financing of these policies would as usual escape the control of your Lordships’ House and be dealt with in a Budget. I imagine that British farmers need to know under what regime they would live, what the rules and regulations would be, and above how all that regime would be brought about in time.

[Lord Pearson of Rannoch]

My Lords, perhaps I can put a little flesh on my noble friend Lord Hamilton’s question. I do not know whether the noble Lord, Lord Hannay, saw the Pink Book figures that emerged on Friday. They state our gross contribution for 2014 as £20 billion, of which the mandarins in Brussels were graciously pleased to send back to us a mere £7.5 billion. In the spirit of the noble Lord’s question, does the noble Lord, Lord Hannay, agree that we would have at least £12.5 billion clear to meet any financial difficulties arising from the points that he is making?

[Lord Hannay of Chiswick]

No, I do not agree and I do not have to address it in this debate, because it is not what we are debating. I remind the noble Lord, Lord Pearson, that in the most recent certified figures, which were produced for 2013—I am not aware of the ones to which he has just referred—the British net contribution per capita was ninth, behind that of France, Germany, Italy, Sweden, the Netherlands, Belgium and Luxemburg, and a few other countries.

[Lord Dobbs]

My Lords—

[Lord Hannay of Chiswick]

No, I will not take more interventions on the budgetary issue. That is not what this is about.

[Lord Dobbs]

It is not about the budgeting—I am grateful to the noble Lord for giving way. I want briefly to draw his attention to a Legatum Institute report today which ranks the prosperity of various nations in the world. Britain happens to have the best record in the last year of any major European country. Interestingly, according to that report the first and second most prosperous countries in Europe turned out to be Norway and Switzerland. I do not know what the noble Lord reads into that but I thought that it would be of interest to his discussion.

[Lord Hannay of Chiswick]

I will probably cause the noble Lord, Lord Pearson, apoplexy if I say that what I read into it is that we are probably paying less into the European Union than we ought to, if we are so prosperous and yet only ninth in our per capita contribution.

[Lord Spicer]

Can I ask one question about what is in the noble Lord’s amendment? In Amendment 21, subsection (2)(e) of the proposed new clause refers to comparing what the effect will be on jurisprudence, criminal law and so on. How dynamic will be the base from which this assessment will be made? It is always argued, for instance, that we will never have a totally Europe-wide criminal law but we all know that that is the direction we are going in. What is the baseline from which this assessment will be made?

[Lord Hannay of Chiswick]

I think that the noble Lord is referring to the last paragraph of the subsection, which is on law enforcement. The situation there is fairly easy to follow. The present situation is that we have opted back into, I think, 36 justice and home affairs measures—no, it was fewer than that. It is Protocol 36 but the number is somewhere in the 30s, and those measures are the ones that apply in this country now. The ones that we did not opt back into do not apply and would therefore not be affected by a decision to withdraw. The ones that we did opt back into and which do apply in this country would be affected by a decision to withdraw. They include things such as the European arrest warrant.

If I may skip on to this part of the amendment, the implications for law enforcement, security and justice and, above all, for the European arrest warrant are extraordinarily serious. We discovered at the time of the Protocol 36 discussions, which were pretty intensive in this House, in the other place and in the public press, that the consequences for law and order on the island of Ireland could be extremely serious if the European arrest warrant did not exist. It has in fact managed, for practically the first time in recorded history, to depoliticise the issue of extradition between the two parts of the island of Ireland. It is now possible to get back criminals, including terrorists, who are wanted for trial in Northern Ireland from the south without a highly politicised process, and very expeditiously. That would be lost if the European arrest warrant ceased to apply in this country and, I suggest, that would have pretty serious implications for the rule of law in Northern Ireland.

[Lord Hamilton of Epsom]

Does the noble Lord not accept that there are extradition treaties with other countries that are not in the EU, so there is absolutely no reason why they should not go on within the EU after we had left?

[Lord Hannay of Chiswick]

I really do not think that we should delay the Committee with a replay of the Protocol 36 debates. The noble Baroness, Lady Anelay, is looking quizzically around. She was the Chief Whip at the time and was very familiar with the arguments. The fact of the matter is that every legal body in this country—the Bar Council, the Law Society and anyone else noble Lords might like to think of—came forward at that time and said that to renegotiate extradition agreements with each of the other member states of the EU would be defective and slow, and that it would not work as well as the present arrangements.

In any case, this is not a request to go around that course again. Parliament has decided that we are in the European arrest warrant and in the other wings that we opted back into. This is a request for the Government to provide factual information about what would be at stake if the electorate were to vote to withdraw from the European Union. It is surely reasonable for that information to be provided and along with it, naturally, the implications for law and order, law enforcement and so on—and for Northern Ireland.

On the need to introduce new legislation, I mentioned the agriculture and fisheries policy. We would have to construct a new tariff. We would have to decide the tariff we were going to apply, rather than the common external tariff of the European Union. That is no small matter. It affects every single business in this country. The level at which we would apply the tariff would have to be decided. It could be lower than the common external tariff, which would be helpful to freer trade; or higher, in which case we would have to pay compensation to every other country in the world; or the same, in which case, what the hell were we doing? These are important points and I hope that the Minister in her reply—

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[Lord Skelmersdale (Con)]

My Lords, before the noble Lord replies, can we get back to some sort of order, so that we can have the points explained with some degree of logicality? If the noble Lord, Lord Hannay, has finished his original speech on presenting the amendment, could he perhaps move it so that we can get on in the normal way?

[Lord Hannay of Chiswick]

Yes, I would be delighted to do that. I have been interrupted rather a lot of times. I will reply to the noble Lord, Lord Pearson, before following that sage advice. I was not addressing just the question of our trade with other member states. There will be plenty of other opportunities to do that. I was talking about our trade with the rest of the world. If the vote goes for withdrawal, we will have to construct a new British tariff. If that tariff is above the level of the common external tariff, we will have to pay compensation under the WTO rules to every other member of the WTO. These serious matters need to be brought out into the open. I beg to move.

[Lord Wigley (PC)]

My Lords, I support the noble Lord, Lord Hannay. I cannot see how any reasonable person could possibly object to the amendment, in terms of getting the information that is needed to enable people to come to a balanced decision. Of course, whichever way they vote, the information should be neutral and factual.

My Amendments 28 and 29 are linked to this group and refer to two specific areas, including agriculture, which the noble Lord, Lord Grocott, addressed a few moments ago. Amendment 28 raises the issue of European Union structural funds. This area is of great significance to two-thirds of Wales, which are within the structural fund area and which, since 2000, have received several thousand million pounds, first from Objective 1 funding, then convergence funding and now the current round that runs to 2020.

Currently many organisations in Wales in the public and private sector look to these sources of funding to make a vital difference. If leaving the European Union during this time is going to change the entitlement to such funding, it clearly has a direct, immediate effect on such organisations, whether universities, local government or people in the private sector. They have a right to know about this.

It is not unreasonable to ask for an assessment in the generality but also specifically with regard to the regions that have a direct entitlement to such funding. Some areas, such as South Yorkshire, Merseyside, Cornwall and Northern Ireland and, in the past, the Highlands and Islands of Scotland have benefited from such funding. It is of material consequence. It is made available on the basis of the low level of the economic performance in areas such as Wales. Our GVA per head now stands below 75% of the UK average, because of the failure of successive economic policies. We will not go into whether that failure is on account of what has been done here at Westminster or in the Assembly, but the funding is because of that failure. We are entitled to such funding to try to trigger the economy. Cornwall has undoubtedly succeeded to a considerable extent by using this funding, perhaps better than we have in Wales. Although the authorities in Brussels say that the way in which Wales has used the funding has been an example to other parts of Europe, none the less, we still have these economic problems. People in Wales deciding whether to vote to leave the European Union or to remain in are entitled to some assessment of what effect a loss of this funding might have.

I take the point that was made in the context of the earlier exchanges that perhaps the Treasury would make up for this loss. But history does not fill us with a lot of confidence about that. Until 2000, we were not getting anything at all, because the Treasury refused to put forward proposals to Brussels that would entitle Wales to such funding. It drew a map, divided from north to south, and made sure that neither side of that line was entitled to get the money. It was only when a new map was put forward that we got our entitlement.

Then there was the experience even after we started getting money from Brussels. In 2000, when the Objective 1 money was coming through, we found that it was not being passed on by the Treasury to the National Assembly. We were expected to spend the money but were not getting the contribution from the Treasury because we were already being looked after very well indeed. I went off to Brussels with a delegation to see the then Commissioner for Regional Policy about this. When we explained the situation to him, he turned to his officials and asked in French, “Could this possibly be true?”. His officials confirmed that, yes, Brussels was passing the money over to the Treasury in London and it was not being passed to those areas that were entitled to get the funding. It was outrageous. To his credit, the Commissioner took the matter up with the then Chancellor of the Exchequer, Mr Gordon Brown, and in the financial review a few months later—in July 2000 or 2001, if I remember right—an adjustment was made of the £442 million that had come from Brussels which was meant for Wales but had not been passed over. How on earth can we be expected to have full confidence that London will step in and fill the breach when that has happened in the past? At the very least we should have an assessment made as to what the effects would be, not just in Wales but in the other areas that might be affected by this.

Amendment 29 moves on to the question of agriculture. Whatever the pros and cons in various parts of the United Kingdom of the common agricultural policy may be, the farming unions in Wales have no doubt whatever what the impact will be, as 80% of farm incomes in Wales are dependent on Brussels. Of course, we will be told, “Ah well, that will be made up for again”. Are we going to go back and have something like the Milk Marketing Board regime or the type of sheep meat regimes that we had prior to the European Union? So much of our market for sheep meat is in Europe and the dependency of sheep farmers in particular on the European Union is very considerable indeed. I am not saying that I know all the answers to these arguments—I do not—but the farmers and those in the universities and other sectors of the economy are entitled to know them. At the very least, clear and unbiased statements about the factual reality should be put out by a Government who have looked at both sides of the argument.

At present, Wales gets a net advantage of some £40 per head per annum from the European Union. It is not a tremendous sum but it is an advantage—other areas will no doubt have a disadvantage. People should know, to the best of our ability to tell them, what the effect of pulling out would be. That is the point of these amendments, which have the same objective as the earlier amendment that has been moved. I very much hope that the Government will give some firm commitment on these matters.

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[Lord Hannay of Chiswick]

I am sorry to interrupt the noble Lord, but I think I might have been responsible for some of the language there and I have to tell him that it was explicitly put into the treaty to safeguard the British position as a permanent member of the Security Council. If he reads it carefully, he will see that we are under no obligation whatever to follow a European decision unless we participate in it ourselves, and these decisions are adopted by unanimity. The saving clause is that our responsibilities under the UN charter are preserved despite the move forward on common foreign and security policy. So I am sorry to say that this fox is just about as dead as it could be.

[Lord Blencathra]

I am grateful to the noble Lord, and of course I bow to his incredible knowledge of the workings not just of Europe but of the United Nations. Nevertheless, part of the treaty of the European Union has conditions asking all the contracting states, the members of the union, to concert with the EU high representative. That is not the position that we had 20 years ago, and it shows the inexorable move to the EU wanting to take more and more power. I give way to the noble Lord, Lord Kerr.

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[Lord Blencathra]

I have to agree with my noble friend. The United States will do what is in the financial interests of the United States and its companies. It may talk tough about not doing a trade deal with the sixth largest nation on earth—the United Kingdom—but, when it comes to pounds, shillings, pence and dollars, the Americans will trade when it is in their financial interest to do so.

[Lord Hannay of Chiswick]

Will the noble Lord consider carefully whether he is falling into the best-known trap for British commentators on American policy, which is to think that we know what American interests are better than they do? In fact, that statement last week was made by a member of President Obama’s Cabinet. I happened to be at a conference at the weekend at which people from both sides of the divide in the United States—in quite senior positions—made it clear that the policy reflected a cool and careful judgment of where the United States’ interest lay. If we choose to ignore it, we do so at our peril.

[Lord Blencathra]

My Lords, I am not suggesting we ignore it but I am suggesting that we analyse it and possibly take it with a pinch of salt.

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[Lord Grocott]

My noble friend makes my point very effectively: these are matters of debate. There is no objective analysis of the cost of the CAP and the likely expenditure in the UK that can be resolved by putting statistics into a computer. He makes a perfectly valid argument from his own perspective.

I am tempted to go down memory lane. Believe it or not—this may come as some surprise to the House—40 years ago, in 1975, I would occasionally go to meetings of the Agriculture Ministers of the European Union, in my lowly capacity as a Parliamentary Private Secretary. I have to say that the conclusions reached by the Council of Ministers at the time were not always in Britain’s interests.

However, let us not go down that road, because I am not disagreeing with my noble friend. These are not matters of fact but matters of judgment. Part of the judgment might be whether—

[Lord Hannay of Chiswick]

I am grateful to the noble Lord for giving way. All afternoon, he has been making a very persistent effort to draw our discussion on to grounds that are not covered by the amendments. If he reads the amendments carefully, he will see that nobody is suggesting that the Government should be asked to quantify the support it would give to agriculture after we withdrew. They are being asked to state, purely as a matter of fact, what the consequences would be—statutory and legislative—if we ceased to be in the European Union and ceased to have the common agricultural policy applied to us. That information can be provided factually: so much in structural support, so much in market support, and so on. These facts are all to be found in the budget of the European Union. The amendments I have tabled do not ask the Government to speculate on other matters, although they do ask the Government to say what would be needed by way of legislation to fill that gap.

[Lord Grocott]

I am afraid that the noble Lord, Lord Hannay, has a different reading of the amendments from mine. Amendment 29, in the name of my noble friend Lord Wigley, inserts a clause that states:

“No later than 12 weeks prior to the appointed date of the referendum, the Secretary of State shall publish, and lay before each House of Parliament, a report on the consequences of withdrawal from the European Union on the provision of financial support for agriculture in each region of the United Kingdom”.

Presumably he is saying that no part of that consideration would take account of the support, if any, to be given to agriculture in the event of our not being in the European Union. My contention is that undoubtedly there would be support for agriculture should we not be a member of the European Union. That is why my comments are entirely relevant to these amendments—and certainly to that one.

In any event, my broad point is that any discussion of this sort inevitably goes beyond dry legal jargon. It ends with a matter of judgment at some point, as do nearly all matters of foreign policy—if I am allowed to refer to relations with the European Union as matters of foreign policy. The noble Lord, Lord Hannay, knows that better than most of us. It seems to me that we either support all of these amendments or none, but we do it with the acknowledgment that they will not solve the problem for anyone. At the end of the day, people will still have to make their own judgments.

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[Lord Higgins (Con)]

My Lords, I have listened throughout the debate and I remain a little puzzled. A number of possible reports have been proposed but no one has made it clear at which audience the reports are intended to be directed. I suspect very strongly that, even if all these reports were published, the percentage of those voting in the referendum who will have read any of them will be a tiny fraction. Therefore one is bound to ask: at who else are these reports to be directed? They may well be very useful for Members of Parliament but it is unlikely that any of them is going to change our views very significantly at this stage.

To take up the point made by the noble Lord, Lord Green, I think it would be helpful if we had more information. I agree entirely with the noble Baroness, Lady Royall, about the problem of asylum seekers. There is great movement at present not only of asylum seekers but also of migrants. As the noble Lord, Lord Green, pointed out, very complicated issues are arising about the effect on the population and the way in which those coming to the country may eventually become full citizens. I think he is right about that but none the less I am very doubtful whether the various reports which we will consider will have much effect on those voting, even if we include 16 year-olds, but I look forward to hearing the view of the Front Benches on this issue.

Because this is an advisory referendum not a binding referendum, as the note from the House of Commons Library makes very clear, we may find ourselves with a somewhat inconclusive result, in terms of both turnout and the majority. In those circumstances the matter may well have to go back to Parliament and these reports may be very useful in that context, so I am in favour of the reports but we need to be clear what their purpose is.

[Lord Hannay of Chiswick]

My Lords, I hope that I may put this point to the noble Lord. All the opinion polling that has gone on in recent months has shown that the people who have made up their minds already are a relatively small proportion on both sides, and that a very substantial number of people have neither made up their minds or believe that they have yet been provided with sufficient factual information to enable them to do so. I do not believe that we should surrender to the sort of cynicism which has percolated through this debate whereby it has been questioned whether providing factual information will be of any use at all, will be read by anyone at all or will be unbiased, et cetera. The purpose of these amendments, which were carefully drafted so as not to stray into the realm of advocacy, is to try to fill a gap which I would have thought all the objective evidence shows exists and needs to be filled. I hope that the Minister, who has listened extremely patiently through this long debate, will see her way to moving ahead in a direction whereby help can be provided by giving factual information which would enable people to make up their own minds.

[Lord Higgins]

I entirely agree with the noble Lord that it is helpful to have more information; that is entirely common ground between us. I merely said that I thought it would be rather naive, for want of a better expression, to suppose that these reports would be read by more than a tiny percentage of the people voting. They may be taken up in the press, of course, and get somewhat wider dissemination, and that would be useful. I am merely saying that we should not exaggerate the effect on the people voting. However, the reports may have a useful purpose in the mean time and perhaps in the longer term.

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Naturally, I heard the strong calls last week on Second Reading and again today for an in-depth assessment of the implications of a vote to leave or remain in the European Union. The Government will now give careful consideration to what we may be able to bring forward, by way of an amendment on Report, which would command the support of both Houses. However, before I comment in more detail, I wish to listen carefully to the remaining arguments that will be made today on the provision of information. Three groups of amendments remain and it is important that I listen to the noble Lords who move them. Therefore, at this stage, I invite the noble Lord, Lord Hannay, to withdraw Amendment 21. I also invite other noble Lords not to move the remaining amendments in this group when they are reached in the list in the usual way.

[Lord Hannay of Chiswick]

My Lords, I welcome all the contributions that were made today, even if some of them strayed into what is known as the ”Second Reading repeat” category. We heard many views expressed and I think we have made progress. I thank the Minister for her response to the debate—which was, as usual, thoughtful and considered—and for her willingness to take this all away and consider what sort of amendment the Government could introduce on Report. I would certainly not be so churlish as to either criticise or reject that.

I am a little puzzled by her recoiling in horror from any time factor to be associated with the provision of information. I was not quite sure whether she thought that 12 weeks was too long or too short. In any case, a time factor of some sort is pretty desirable; the risk otherwise is that there will be controversy about the material being produced too late. It would not be the first occasion on which the Government have arrived too late with material and it would be bad and contrary to the Government’s own interest if that were to happen in this case. So I hope the Minister will not exclude the possibility of a time limit when she considers all that has been said in this debate. On that basis, I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.

Amendment 21 withdrawn.

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[Lord Forsyth of Drumlean]

I am saying that the Office for Budget Responsibility should not do it and I am saying that the point made half an hour ago by my noble friend Lord Flight is absolutely right. These are matters of judgment, and the people who should make the arguments are the people who are on either side of the campaigns. It seems to me, listening to arguments from the noble Lord and from others on his side, that they have got quite a lot of work to do if they are going to persuade the British people to vote to stay in the European Union. Whether or not staying in the European Union is in the best interests of our economy is a matter of judgment. Even in Greece it would appear that a majority of the voters still think that it is in their interests to be in the European Union and within the eurozone. I am very happy to leave that to the judgment of the British people in the referendum.

[Lord Hannay of Chiswick]

Unless I have got it completely wrong, the noble Lord is basically advancing the argument that Governments should not produce economic forecasts at all—they are a complete waste of time, they are always wrong so let us ditch them. However, he supports a Government who regularly produce economic forecasts at the time of the Budget. Those economic and fiscal forecasts are regularly reviewed by the Office for Budget Responsibility and I think we are all a bit the wiser for it. Of course it does not give you the answer to everything and like the noble Lord, Lord Kerr, I would be happy to support the addition by the noble Lord, Lord Blencathra, but this dismissal of all forms of forecasting on the impact on the economy of staying or leaving is frankly to go back about 150 years in the practice of economic policy.

[Lord Forsyth of Drumlean]

The noble Lord exaggerates to make his point. I am not arguing against economic forecasting. I am simply saying that the record on economic forecasting is not very good and the Bank of England is a classic example.

This is not about economic forecasting. This is about the effect on the United Kingdom’s economy of withdrawal from the European Union which is a huge issue. It is not just about the implications for the economy directly as a result of taxation or fiscal policy or matters of that kind. It is about the impact of immigration, it is about what happens in terms of the advantages that we would gain by being outside the European Union, our ability to negotiate our own trade agreements, our ability to be free of suffocating regulation, our ability to decide matters for ourselves, our ability to control our borders—all these things will have an impact on growth rates and the future of our economy. I am simply arguing that the Office for Budget Responsibility does not have the expertise or the ability to do that. I am delighted that the noble Lord supports my noble friend Lord Blencathra’s amendment looking at the other side of the equation, which is staying in.

I will repeat a point I made earlier. It is astonishing to me that we are members of the European Union and the arguments that we have heard from the Europhiles—the people who wish to remain in the European Union—have all been characterised in terms of the threats of leaving rather than the benefits which we have. That seems to indicate a degree of uncertainty.

European Union Referendum Bill

Lord Hannay of Chiswick Excerpts

Wednesday 28th October 2015 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Anelay of St Johns]

I know the noble Lord’s experience of these matters so he is probably well ahead of me on this, but perhaps I can remind him that in 2006 and 2007 Germany and Finland swapped presidency dates to avoid national elections in each, so it can be done.

I was also asked a pertinent question by the noble Lord, Lord Greaves—

[Lord Hannay of Chiswick (CB)]

I am most grateful to the noble Baroness for giving way. I honestly think these so-called precedents which she has brought to the House to show it can be done ignore one really rather important point. She is probably in a similar position to the Prime Minister—that nothing is excluded as far as his own position in the campaign is concerned—but what is surely totally excluded is that, in the middle of our presidency, the Prime Minister of this country should campaign to leave the European Union.

[Baroness Anelay of St Johns]

We have not reached that point yet, since this is merely the first clause of a Bill trying to deliver the ability to hold a referendum, but these are all serious points. Noble Lords are pointing out that any decision about setting a date must take into account all the circumstances under which a referendum would be expected to operate. The Government would have to take a decision about which date to recommend to Parliament; it would then be for Parliament to consider that and to set their view.

The noble Lord, Lord Greaves, pointed out that in the past there has been at least one occurrence of local election dates being moved. Amendments were agreed in another place to rule out those May dates in 2016 and 2017 specifically to ensure that the referendum does not clash with known local government dates. There is certainly no expectation that local government dates should be moved. That is not our plan and we do not see that happening. However, without wishing ill on any Member of any party in the other place, if there had to be a completely unforeseen parliamentary by-election or local government by-election and it was decided that a by-election might be held on the same day as the referendum, I think the House might consider that to be rather a different matter, but we have no plan to move other elections to combine them with the referendum.

My noble friend Lord Hamilton has moved his amendment and the noble Lord, Lord Liddle, has spoken to his. At this stage, I say formally to the noble Lord, Lord Liddle, that I hope he may see fit not to move his amendment when it is called from the list, and I invite my noble friend Lord Hamilton to withdraw his Amendment 1.

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[Viscount Trenchard (Con)]

My Lords, I, too, support the amendment in the name of my noble friend Lord Hamilton. I was interested in the remarks of my noble friend Lord Flight. It is interesting that the Electoral Commission did not support the amendment; I thought that perhaps it was because the status quo should go first and a departure from the status quo should come second but, as my noble friend Lord Flight remarked, normally in a referendum the change that you seek comes first and the present position—the status quo—comes second. I am not clear which is right, so I think that probably my noble friend Lord Hamilton is right in saying that alphabetical order should prevail.

I am not going to enter into the debate on the intricacies of the Welsh language, as put forward by the noble Lord, Lord Wigley. I am perfectly happy to accept that what he says is correct. But I was clearly struck by the fact that he is one of those noble Lords who will campaign to remain a member of the European Union—and, I would like to say, to remain a member on the present basis, whatever the Prime Minister is able or unable to negotiate.

He also remarked in quite strong terms that leaving the European Union would be extremely detrimental to investment. It is not possible to know that without knowing the basis on which the United Kingdom might cease to be a member of the European Union—I would rather say, might cease to be a “full member” of the European Union. Ideally, I think that the Prime Minister should work for a trading relationship with the European Union, which could well be as a trading member of the European Union. So I do not really like the referendum questions—“remain” or “leave” the European Union—because “leave” sounds like a tugboat will come and attach a tow rope to our little island and tow us off into the Indian Ocean or somewhere where we might enjoy better weather. The reality is that we cannot leave the European Union in a geographical sense because we are adjacent to core eurozone members.

I would like to see the Prime Minister achieve substantial and significant reforms to our basis of membership, which may well mean that we cease to be a member on the current basis. The relationship with the other members of the European Union might be some kind of associate status or a reformed EEA or a reformed EFTA. I therefore take issue with the noble Lord’s strong comment that it would be detrimental to investment if we were to leave the European Union.

[Lord Hannay of Chiswick]

I was startled to hear the noble Lord, Lord Hamilton, give as a reason the way in which names are produced. It is entirely true that it normal practice to use alphabetical order for names and for names of countries, but it is not so for verbs—and these are two verbs. So I do not think this has any validity. The Electoral Commission wants the wording in the Bill for the very simple reason that it put it forward. It would be a bit startling if it now found that it had put forward the wrong wording. It has not; it has put forward the right wording, and the Government, who did not start with this wording, moved to the Electoral Commission’s wording in the other place—and I honestly suggest that that is the best place to stand.

[Baroness Smith of Newnham]

My Lords, I am rather new to the process of legislation. This is the first time that I have been involved in the passage of a Bill. Until the noble Lord, Lord Hannay, spoke, I was thinking that perhaps I had slipped back to Second Reading, even though we are on the second group of amendments. I am slightly puzzled by hearing a whole set of reasons from people who are in favour of leaving or remaining. I hope that my intervention will be wholly objective. I do not claim that my Welsh is up to knowing whether “aros” is the right word, but will the Minister confirm that the Government have checked the translation, in addition to the work done by the Electoral Commission?

In response to Amendments 3 and 4, I find it bizarre that we are discussing whether “leave” or “remain” should be in alphabetical order. This is not an election between people; it is a referendum on a question. The Electoral Commission has undertaken a lot of consultation, we have been extensively briefed and the other place was extensively briefed. The Government have taken the Electoral Commission’s wording, and I suggest that these amendments are not helpful.

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[Lord Balfe]

I also thank the noble Baroness for her intervention but this is a Bill not about extending the franchise but about a European referendum. I intend to vote yes in this referendum unless some dreadful tragedy happens in the renegotiation. I am not persuaded that extending the vote is part of the purpose of this Bill. It is as simple as that. It will lead to a lot of problems. It may be within the noble Lord’s prerogative, as he appears to be responding to this amendment, so I ask him to raise with his colleagues the need for a fundamental look at the electoral system in this country.

I was recently monitoring an election in a place called Kyrgyzstan, on the border with China. It has introduced biometric testing for being on the electoral register. I learnt when I was there that Mr Ban Ki-moon, the Secretary-General of the UN, believes that this is a way of having votes without fraud. There are all sorts of ideas out there and I believe that these amendments, which I might be prepared to support in a Bill extending the franchise, are none the less not right for this particular Bill. I ask the noble Lord to communicate to his colleagues the desirability of a look at the way in which the franchise works. It seems to me odd, and has done for a long time, that people can pay tax and not have a vote, and people can pay no tax at all, can be living in, for instance, Brussels with highly paid jobs for many years, and according to some noble Lords be completely out of touch with reality and the world, yet they can vote in a UK election.

I suggest that we need a fundamental look at the franchise. I have steered three children successfully through the gap from 16 to 18—they are now well beyond it—and they vote for a variety of parties. I look round and see that all three of the major parties represented in this House have had votes from our family in the recent past, so they are certainly capable of making up their minds. I end where I began: I do not think this Bill is the place to extend the franchise.

[Lord Hannay of Chiswick]

My Lords, my name is on an amendment similar to the one introduced by the noble Lord, Lord Tyler. I agree with him in saying that the amendments seek to achieve the same objective by the same method.

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[Lord Hannay of Chiswick]

The noble Earl has made some very moving points about various aspects of the vulnerability of young people, but does he not accept that the matter we are debating now, which is whether or not they should have a vote in one referendum between now and the end of 2017, does not really link up with all those issues of contagion that he has referred to in other contexts? I understand perfectly well why it might be wrong to put 16 year-olds into flats of their own and give them a lot of money. Fortunately, it is a criminal offence to give somebody money to vote, so that will not happen. Perhaps he might consider whether the parallels apply across the whole board that he has sketched in with such passion.

[The Earl of Listowel]

I thank my noble friend for his intervention. I regret that I was not able to speak at Second Reading—what I have said is probably more of a Second Reading speech—but I have been involved in a lot of other business in the House.

My understanding is that the noble Lord is very clear in his mind that his intention with this amendment is to change the franchise specifically for this particular occasion. But I regret to say, and I have followed this debate about lowering the franchise several times, that my sense is that there is a large body of Members of your Lordships’ House who wish to expand the franchise much more widely and see this occasion as an important opportunity to proceed with that. One has heard many references this afternoon to the Scottish referendum as a justification for acting in this way. I think I have spoken long enough. I look forward to the Minister’s response.

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[Lord Faulks]

It is not a question of cutting people out, it is a question of deciding, on all the evidence, with careful consideration of what we know about what most young people of a certain age can or cannot do, and coming to a consistent view. The view has been taken that the age should be 18. Why should we change it simply to deal with this particular opportunity to vote?

[Lord Hannay of Chiswick]

Perhaps the noble Lord could help a little on this. He is advancing, as always, a highly sophisticated presentation of a totally negative point of view on giving the vote to 16 and 17 year-olds, but he is a member of a Government who held the door open to give Scots 16 and 17 year-olds the vote. Where were all those arguments then? Lying on the floor, I suppose.

[Lord Faulks]

Although it is tempting to go down that route and describe the cause or causes of the door being open—I was not in any position to argue that matter then—I think that we should return to the basic fact that, after careful consideration, 18 was considered the right age. Of course the noble Lord, Lord Kerr, is quite right: there is an element of arbitrariness about whatever age you choose. The question is: is it an age which has, by and large, received approval and consent? Yes it is. Of course that does not mean that this is the last word on the subject; people will differ about these things. There will be people who think that 21 was the right age and it should never have been lowered to 18.

Noble Lords will know that the power to determine the voting age for Scottish Parliament and local elections in Scotland was devolved to the Scottish Parliament, and the Scottish Parliament decided to lower the voting age to 16 for those elections. The Government have responded to requests to increase the powers of the devolved Administrations and will soon devolve similar powers to the Welsh Assembly.

Devolution, by its very nature, gives rise to the possibility of different laws applying in different parts of the United Kingdom. It does not mean that we must harmonise our differences. The fact that people may do certain things in Scotland aged 16—get married without parental consent, formally change their name, access their birth records if adopted—does not mean that the same rules must or should apply across the United Kingdom. One of the advantages of devolution is the capacity of different parts of the United Kingdom to make these choices.

More specifically, what about the precedent set by the Scottish independence referendum? The decision was made by the Scottish Parliament that whoever opened the door would decide on the franchise. It is right that decisions about the franchise for elections and referendums that affect the whole of Great Britain and Northern Ireland are made by this Parliament. As I said, decisions of the Scottish Parliament do not and should not prevent Parliament from taking a different decision.

The Government do not think that this is the right vehicle, as my noble friend Lord Higgins pointed out so cogently. Any change to the entitlement to vote must to be considered properly and fully in specific legislation. I gave some examples where the law places restrictions on 16 and 17 year-olds. Any proposal to lower the voting age must be carefully examined in that overall context.

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Moved by

[Lord Hannay of Chiswick]

10: Clause 2, page 2, line 7, after “at” insert—
“(i) ”

[Lord Hannay of Chiswick]

My Lords, the purpose of this amendment, which is relatively incomprehensible if you look at it, and others in the same group is to provide that the electorate for the referendum should include EU citizens resident in the United Kingdom, the sort of electorate who vote in local elections in this country and in European parliamentary elections. It has an innovation on that, which is designed to meet the concerns of those who feel that it would be wrong for European Union citizens living in this country for a very short time to have the vote, as they would under the arrangements for local and European parliamentary elections. Therefore, it requires five years’ residence here before EU citizens could vote in the referendum.

This is not an attempt to change the franchise for a parliamentary election in this country. I am sure that the Minister will tell us about how this is unprecedented in any other member state and so on. One of the points about precedents which the noble Lord missed when he was telling us about how few countries have the vote for 16 and 17 year-olds is that no other member state of the European Union has ever held a referendum to leave the European Union. When they have held referendums or their parliamentary elections, they were about things infinitely less consequential for the future of the country than this vote will be for us, so I do not think that any of those analogies are particularly helpful but, in any case, I insist that there is not the slightest attempt here to create a precedent for our parliamentary elections. This is purely and simply for this referendum.

What is the basis for it? It is quite simple: if you are a European Union citizen and you have lived here for five years, you are almost certainly employed and you are paying taxes, so you are fulfilling all the “no taxation without representation” basic criteria. You are also someone whose status in this country will be radically affected by the outcome of the referendum because all sorts of rights that you enjoy now under the European treaties will be removed if we vote to leave and negotiate under Article 50 of the treaty to withdraw. These people would be critically affected by this decision and, to my mind, to not give them the vote on it would be a considerable inequity because it could affect them and their children, and if they have been here for five years many of them are probably going to be here for even longer. The case for giving them a vote is compelling and that is why I and other noble Lords have put down these amendments. Since the night is wearing on I will not weary anyone with a longer speech than that explanation and I hope very much that there will be—as there has been in the signatories to this amendment—cross-party and no-party support for an approach of this sort. I beg to move.

[Lord Green of Deddington (CB)]

My Lords, I suggest that there are two rather key points that the noble Lord has not addressed. One is that no other country in the European Union grants a vote in a referendum to foreign citizens, even EU citizens. The fact that most other referenda are on rather smaller issues strengthens the case against giving a vote to EU citizens in Britain on an issue of major importance. Secondly, on a point of fact, the number of EU citizens of voting age in this country is of the order of 2.7 million. The noble Lord has taken out those who have been here less than five years, so you are talking about 1.9 million people. These estimates are based on the Labour Force Survey, so they are not precise but you are talking about the order of 2 million voters. The likelihood surely is—particularly on the arguments the noble Lord has made—that these people will vote for the UK to stay in the European Union. What is going to be the impact on the public of knowing that this change has been made for this purpose? It will be seen as an attempt to swing the vote in favour of staying in the Union with the use of foreign votes.

[Lord Hannay of Chiswick]

We are in a rather peculiar situation. The noble Lord intervened in my speech and is now making a speech all of his own.

[Lord Green of Deddington]

No, I have finished.

[Lord Hannay of Chiswick]

Okay, I think the noble Lord was intervening in my speech and, if he had listened carefully to what I said, he would have heard that I most particularly noted that the parallels with other members are not very apt because nobody has ever voted to leave the European Union—nobody has ever voted in a referendum whose outcome, if it went in favour of leaving, would deprive a large number of people in the country of their rights under EU law. I covered that. I know that earlier in this debate we forswore use of words such as xenophobia but I have to say that some of the arguments he advanced in his brief intervention were, let us say, rather close to the line.

[Baroness Royall of Blaisdon]

My Lords, I fully support the noble Lord, Lord Hannay, and, indeed, I put my name to one of the amendments. I will just add two points. I believe that it is right to enable these citizens of other member states to have a vote in this referendum precisely because their very being in this country is linked to membership of the European Union. If it were not for the freedom of movement within the European Union they would not be working here, contributing to our economy and helping build our society. Therefore, it is right that they have a vote. I also ask the Minister: in his view, what would happen to these citizens if we were to leave the European Union? Would they have to leave? One does not know. We have to have answers to these questions at some stage before we progress much further along the referendum line. If they did have to leave, this country would miss out a great deal by losing their contribution to our society and, most especially, their contribution to our economy. We are all familiar with the phrase “no taxation without representation”; they are paying taxes and therefore they should be enabled to vote.

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[Lord Hamilton of Epsom]

My Lords, we have been discussing virtually all day how we are going to try to make this referendum fair. We want to keep the playing field as level as we possibly can. Enfranchising 1.9 million people of European nationality is a blatant opportunity to try to swing the vote in favour of staying in the EU. Of course, so much is going wrong for all these people who want us to stay in the EU. Let us face it: the EU is imploding as we watch and one crisis follows another. It is going to be quite tricky for anybody who wants us to stay in the EU to win this referendum. Therefore, I agree that those people who do want to stay in have got to try every trick in the book to try to swing it in their direction. However, let us see this for what it is: this is a referendum for the British people to decide whether or not they want to stay in the EU. This is not a decision for foreigners who happen to be living in this country.

[Lord Hannay of Chiswick]

The noble Lord, Lord Hamilton, and the noble Viscount, Lord Ridley, before him, used the argument of whether we would all be supporting this if these people were all going to vote no. I am afraid that his question reveals his own motive—to stop these people getting the vote just because they might vote yes.

[Lord Hamilton of Epsom]

I cannot believe that the noble Lord, Lord Hannay, is actually putting this amendment forward because he has no intention to increase the franchise of people who will vote for his position, which is to stay in the EU. Come on—let us see this for what it is: this is trying to slant things rapidly in the direction of those who want us to stay in the EU. It is absolutely blatantly obvious that that is what it is all about. For anybody to pretend anything different is absolutely ridiculous.

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[Lord Blencathra]

The noble Lord is little premature. If he is still here in half an hour, he may hear my speech supporting the noble Lord, Lord Green of Deddington, as he seeks to remove Commonwealth and Irish citizens from the register. I hope that the noble Lord will be here to support that amendment.

I was concluding by saying that the vote on Maastricht would have been a devastating change to the EU. I had no idea what the consequences would be. Denmark would not have been thrown out, of course, although I heard one EU commissioner at the time saying that it would be if it did not comply. That noble Lord is no longer with us.

When the Irish voted against Lisbon, again that was mega bomb under the EU and the Irish again had to vote until it came up with the right conclusions. I speculate, if Ireland had not voted again on the Lisbon treaty, would the treaty have gone ahead or would Ireland have been put into a second-class category? I do not know but it was a mega decision that Ireland and Denmark took, so I do not think that we can say that this referendum that we are having in Britain is more important than some other European referenda.

[Lord Hannay of Chiswick]

This situation is completely different. In the case of the Danish and Irish referendums, had those negative results been upheld, the only consequence would be that a treaty called Maastricht or Lisbon would not have come into force. Nobody would have had any rights, privileges or advantages removed from them. The whole of the European Union would merely have stayed where it was.

The noble Lord is quite right in saying that Denmark and Ireland would not have been chucked out. At that time there was no machinery to do that. There was not even a withdraw clause, but it would not have happened. The point is very simple. The result would have simply been—as was the case in the vote on the constitutional treaty in France and the Netherlands—to negate something that might have come into effect had it been ratified. This is completely different. Here, you are taking away various important rights and privileges that European citizens here have as a result of our membership of the European Union. You are depriving them of those things. It is honestly not like for like.

[Lord Blencathra]

I do not accept that if there is a decision to leave we will be taking away some fundamental rights from European citizens who are living in this country and that they should therefore have a right to vote in the referendum to protect those rights. On Report we may have a list of what those rights may be. I can understand the noble Lord’s point that there is a difference in quality or perhaps in quantity in these referenda, but I do not accept that the referenda in Denmark and Ireland were of a vastly different magnitude to this one. We could not vote in the Danish referendum and rightly so. I did not want the right to vote in the Danish and Irish referenda, and I do not see how this referendum is so different that other non-British nationals should have the right to vote in it.

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[Lord Faulks]

I fear that in order to get a really adequate answer, the noble Baroness may have to regroup her amendment. I endeavoured to say that what might happen to EU nationals was a matter of hypothesis which I fear that the Government are not prepared to go into at this stage.

[Lord Hannay of Chiswick]

I am most grateful to the Minister for having responded in such a thoughtful way to this amendment, although I have to say that in earlier parts of his statement, I thought he was tempted back again to the reductio ad absurdum he employed on the previous group of amendments. However, we moved on to better ground and he addressed some of the arguments very well. He was very careful, though some others in this debate have been less careful, not to predict that we would know who voted in which way in the referendum, and be able to say, “It was the foreigners that did it”. Other Members of this House seem not to know that we have a secret ballot, but we do.

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[Lord Green of Deddington]

Okay. The hour is late, and I shall be extremely brief; I think that I can do this in five minutes or so. Let me set out very briefly the reasoning behind my amendments to Clause 2. Your Lordships will be well aware that the franchise in the referendum Bill is based on that which applies to general elections and is the same as for those. As such, it includes Commonwealth and Irish citizens, whether or not they have become British citizens. That is the point. It is nothing to do with racism and nothing to do with xenophobia: it is a question of who is a British citizen. My amendments are intended to base the franchise on that very concept, because a referendum is not comparable to an ordinary general election, which can be reversed five years later.

I believe that only those who have become British citizens should be permitted to vote. It is interesting that this point about the franchise appears to have been waved through in the other place. There was no discussion of it, and certainly no vote on it. We have, as I mentioned, a total of 3 million Commonwealth citizens in this country, of whom 1.8 million are British and will get the vote and 1.2 million are not British, and, I suggest, should not get the vote. I would add to that the 340,000 Irish citizens for the same reason. Of course they can become British citizens—there is no reason why they should not—but, until they do, I do not believe that they should have the vote.

The reason for the present franchise is largely historical, but the opposition Benches might like to recall that in 2007 the noble and learned Lord, Lord Goldsmith, made a report at the request of the then Labour Government on the UK citizenship law. He was a former Attorney-General, and he concluded in respect of the Westminster franchise:

“Ultimately, it is right in principle not to give the right to vote to citizens of other countries living in the UK until they become UK citizens”.

That was a Labour Attorney-General, and no action was taken by the Labour Government. I have been in touch with the noble and learned Lord because I was quoting from his report, and he replied that he could not be here tonight but authorised me to say that he supports the amendments I have tabled. There are three essential reasons for this—

[Lord Hannay of Chiswick]

I think the noble Lord is doing a little selective quotation from the views of the noble and learned Lord, Lord Goldsmith, who in his report said that the franchise should not be removed from anyone who has it. Would the noble Lord like perhaps to enlighten the House to that bit of the report?

[Lord Green of Deddington]

The quote was precise. The proposal was that it should be phased out, if that is what you mean—

[Lord Hannay of Chiswick]

What I am asking is what you mean.

[Lord Green of Deddington]

Well, what the noble and learned Lord said is that it should be phased out. His view was clearly, as in the bit that I quoted, that those who are not British citizens should not continue to have the vote.

Of the three reasons, the first is the importance of the decision for Britain’s long-term future—that is obvious. Secondly, there is the issue of reciprocity, since no EU Government permits British citizens to vote in their general elections, let alone in a referendum, and no Commonwealth country, except New Zealand, permits foreign citizens to vote in referenda. Thirdly, and lastly, there is the need for clarity. This proposal would remove the anomaly that citizens in Malta and Cyprus, as has been mentioned, can vote not as EU citizens but as Commonwealth citizens. With this amendment, they would not vote as either.

There is a further anomaly in that Commonwealth citizens are able to vote very shortly after they arrive in Britain. For example, a Commonwealth student could be on the electoral register in a matter of weeks. There are no formal checks on his or her nationality, or even on his or her right to be in Britain. An electoral registration officer has the right to ask further questions if he believes that that is justified and he needs it before making a determination. However, in practice, it very seldom happens because of the risk of appearing to discriminate. So that of itself amounts to a significant loophole, which is surely unacceptable in a matter of such importance. I should mention in passing that Gibraltarians are not affected because they are British citizens under the British Nationality Act and therefore will get the vote in any case.

There has been some discussion as to whether the various groups proposed for the vote are likely to affect the outcome. As far as I know, there has not been any effective polling to tell us how these people might vote, or how many of them would do so. I suggest that that is a further reason to have the franchise on a clear and defensible criterion.

I close by pointing to the need that is bound to arise for reconciliation. As noble Lords will have noticed this evening, there are certain differences between Members of this House, and of course there are very strong differences in the public. Sadly, one side in this argument will have to face a future for this country which is deeply unwelcome to it. That makes it even more important that arrangements for this historic referendum should be above reproach, as the Minister said, in respect of the question, which I think is now settled, of the franchise, which we are debating today and involves millions of voters, and in the use of government resources, which we will discuss later in this Bill.

As the Minister said, any suspicion that the franchise has been manipulated to achieve a particular result would be deeply harmful for many years to come, as the noble Lord, Lord Blencathra, also said. That is why we need a crystal-clear principle for this franchise, and I suggest it should be the following: only British citizens, of whatever origin—it is not a question of xenophobia or racism—should decide Britain’s future. I beg to move.

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[Lord Forsyth of Drumlean]

The noble Lord has not dealt with the fundamental point, which is that we do not have a vote in Irish referendums. I have an Irish son-in-law, and I will ask him, but I would be very surprised if people on either side of the border in Ireland lie awake at night worrying about whether or not they might have a vote on the decision that Britain has to take as to whether or not it wishes to remain part of the European Union. That is a pretty poor argument, given that we are concerned here with enabling the British people—British citizens—to decide the future of their country in a referendum in a way that is seen to be fair and equitable.

[Lord Hannay of Chiswick]

I honestly think that the noble Lord is treating in a very light-hearted fashion an extremely serious matter. I have had quite a lot of dealings with the Irish dimension in the context of the Government’s repatriation of some justice and home affairs legislation. If the noble Lord does not think that people are losing sleep on both sides of the border about the possibility that Britain might not be in the European Union, I am sorry, but he has not been reading very much. They are losing a great deal of sleep about that. If that were to result in the reinstallation of border controls, for both people and goods, the results could be pretty disastrous. A lot of sleep is being lost. If we were to move in the direction that this amendment proposes, it would merely increase the agitation.

[Lord Forsyth of Drumlean]

It is interesting that the noble Lord is anticipating that we are going to leave the European Union. I did not say that they were not losing sleep over whether or not we would leave the European Union; I said that I doubt they are losing sleep over not having a vote in the British referendum, which is an entirely different point. I am by no means making light of our relationship with Ireland; I think it is very important. However, what people in Ireland are losing sleep over is the amount of money and the destruction that their membership of the euro has cost them. But that is a debate for another day.

The hour is late. I support the noble Lord, Lord Green, and think that the oblique nature of the attacks on his arguments, rather than dealing with the substance of the amendments, indicates that this is a matter that we should return to at a later stage in the Bill.