European Union (Referendum) Bill

Lord Kinnock Excerpts

Friday 24th January 2014 Lords Chamber

[Lord Dobbs]

If I may be allowed to make progress, I will do my best to do precisely that and to answer the questions that have been raised. They are about the questions in the amendment which the noble Lord, Lord Armstrong, tabled. I am afraid that I simply do not have time to acknowledge all those who have spoken, although I thank noble Lords for their, by and large, reasoned and reasonable contributions, and in particular for the elegant way in which the noble Lord, Lord Armstrong, introduced his amendment.

I am not entirely unsympathetic to what has been said. As I said at Second Reading, the case about the question is arguable but not overwhelming. Although some noble Lords have implied that we are standing at the gates of hell, and that almost any question would be better than this one, it is worth remembering that the Electoral Commission did not condemn out of hand the question that stands in the Bill. Some of the references to the commission’s findings that were made during this debate were hugely exaggerated. I have its findings here and have read every word. The commission said:

“We found that the wording of the question itself”—

the question contained in the Bill—

“is brief, uses straightforward language, and is easy to understand and answer”,

not that it was confusing and misleading, as the noble Lord, Lord Armstrong, suggested. The Electoral Commission had its reservations, of course—

[Lord Kinnock (Lab)]

Since the noble Lord is quoting from the Electoral Commission’s report, his quotation, in order to be accurate, should be precise. Exactly after the phrase which he has quoted, the words of the Electoral Commission are,

“however … the phrase ‘be a member of the European Union’ to describe the referendum choice is not sufficiently clear to ensure a full understanding of the referendum as a whole … The question wording does not make it clear for some people what the current status of the UK is within the EU, and the referendum choice as expressed in the question is likely to lead to confusion”.

If that is not a clear dismissal of the version of the question that the noble Lord is offering, I do not know what is.

[Lord Dobbs]

I thank the noble Lord. That is precisely why I do not wish to take too many interventions.

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[Lord Kerr of Kinlochard]

I, too, support the amendment moved by the noble Lord, Lord Roper. The analogy with 1975 is interesting. As the noble Lord, Lord Dobbs, has reminded us again and again, the House of Lords passed without difficulty the Bill for the referendum. Of course, the difference was that the governing party had had in its election manifesto a commitment to having a referendum, and the renegotiation was taking place; it had taken place by the end. It was not a future renegotiation and a referendum in another Parliament; it was a referendum in the here and now. It was completely uncontroversial as a Bill, the question was in no way slanted and it went through like a dose of salts.

That was a totally different situation from the one we face with the Bill in the name of the noble Lord, Lord Dobbs. In 1975 there was a public information campaign in a very narrow sense. There was in Whitehall a referendum information unit, staffed partly from public service, partly from outside, which provided— genuinely impartially—information to the two campaigns, and the campaigns made what use they wished of it. There was very little direct communication by the Government with the elector.

The requirement then was not nearly as great. It was not long that we had been in the European Union. People could remember what it was like to be outside the European Union. There had been huge debate about Mr Heath’s application. There had then been an election, which was fought on a number of issues but that was one of them. The public were pretty familiar with the issues. People who have for a generation and a half assumed that the rights they acquire by being members of the European Union are permanent rights, people who live in Spain or Italy or Ireland, and enterprises that have made their decisions about investment on the assumption that our membership of the European Union single market is permanent are going to have to think about how these things would change.

The noble Lord, Lord Turnbull, got it exactly right and I agree with everything he said. The noble Lord, Lord Hannay, was correct to say that the four assessments called for in this amendment would have to be genuinely factual, impartial and independently produced. It is a serious requirement which should be in the Bill. I agreed with the noble Lord, Lord Liddle, when he said at Second Reading that it was a principal defect of the Bill that there was nothing in it about facilitating unbiased debate before the referendum was held. This amendment would correct that defect, and I support it.

[Lord Kinnock]

I support the amendment. If I can be biblical for a moment, I shall take as my text what no less a person than the Prime Minister said in his Bloomberg speech. He said:

“If we left the European Union, it would be a one-way ticket, not a return”.

There can be few bigger questions ever to present themselves to the British people in this or any other age, certainly in peacetime—questions about war, of course, are characteristically not put to the British people. If that is the dimension of the decision, it is very clear that it must be subject to a full assessment, not as an addendum or an afterthought but as a basic prerequisite of conducting a referendum and a meaningful vote in it.

The reason for that is very straightforward: there is no commercial organisation of any dimension, even quite small concerns, which would begin to undertake any significant shift in its product range, in its marketing, in its location and in a proportionately big investment decision without undertaking a full evidence-based assessment of the impact of taking that decision. It would be an assessment of the impact not just on the firm and its labour force but perhaps on the locality, the environment and on transport needs. Anyone who has been part of such decision-making, as many people in this House, including me, have been, is familiar with the very refined techniques that now exist for undertaking comprehensive and thorough impact assessments. That is what the whole of commerce does. Indeed, it is what the whole of local government does. There can be no significant decision facing any council in this whole country that has any kind of recognisable implication for the community, the budget of the council or the well-being of the citizens that is not subject to rigorous impact assessment, particularly risk assessment. Useful techniques exist for undertaking those exercises in ways that are comprehensible to the citizens of the locality as well as to the decision-makers, executive and elected, in the council.

If we are faced as a country before 2017, or maybe after it under the terms of European Union Act 2011, with this monumental choice whether to book a one-way ticket, not a return—in the words of the Prime Minister—an assessment of impact that is comprehensive, thorough and communicated in understandable language would be a basic, vital requirement.

To the list that exists in the proposed “Referendum condition” clause, which is commendable and touches on most of the issues that would be of significance to people, we could add some more words from the Prime Minister. He said that we would have to think about,

“the impact on our influence at the top table of international affairs … That matters for British jobs and British security”.

It is not a detached, academic consideration of whether we have lost an empire and still seek a role, or anything esoteric at all. He said, rightly, that it matters for British jobs and British security.

We could add that question to the list: can we realise the Prime Minister’s and the Chancellor’s ambition of remaining in the single market, whatever happens to our membership of the European Union? The Prime Minister said that that is the most important single reason for us belonging to the European Union. If that is the case, surely the issue must be examined with great rigour. What would be the impact, that we could assess, on our participation in the single market? The results of that assessment should of course be available to the British people for prolonged discussion and comprehension before they come to casting the fateful vote.

[Lord Anderson of Swansea]

My Lords, I suspect that there is one other potential impact of deep concern to my noble friend, the noble Lord, Lord Wigley, and myself: the danger that there will be differential social, economic and environmental effects within different parts of the United Kingdom, irrespective of the Scottish dimension. I hope he would agree that that matter should also be canvassed so that those who live on the periphery of the UK can also be aware of what their vote would mean.

[Lord Kinnock]

I am grateful to my noble friend. We could add a number of matters that absolutely, legitimately and centrally would determine attitudes in any referendum—as I said, whether it is held under the terms of this Bill, the one that succeeds it because this Parliament cannot dictate to the succeeding Parliament, or the terms of the 2011 Act. Of course, as my noble friend said, that is absolutely central.

As the noble Lord, Lord Wigley, and my noble friend Lord Anderson will know, I am not in any sense or form a secessionist or nationalist—quite the contrary, I am a unionist in more senses than one. But the fact is that if we were to have a referendum it would be entirely sensible for us to make an arrangement that ensured that its results were acknowledged according to England, Wales, Northern Ireland and Scotland—if it is still part of the United Kingdom, which I dearly hope it will be. That is not in order to create trouble within this United Kingdom but, quite the contrary, so that people could signify their comprehension of the detail of the impact assessment and their calculation of what the real effects of departure could be for the part of the country in which they live and work and which they hold most dear.

I do not want to tire the House with a list of the various concerns that would have to be subject to impact assessment. I simply use what I have said and the illustration provided by my noble friend to further illuminate the argument supporting this amendment. I appeal to the noble Lord, Lord Dobbs, to give full recognition to the force of this argument because I know, whatever his enthusiasms about a referendum or our participation in the European Union in future, he would not want Britain to go gentle into what could be a very dark night. He will want to ensure that the British people are in possession of dispassionate analysis and very thorough assessment of what the effect would be of departure from the European Union in order that their vote in a referendum was one of maximum information and, one hopes, wisdom.

That being the case, and respecting the noble Lord, as I do, I hope that he will accept the intellectual, constitutional and political rationale put to him by me and my noble friends in the course of this fairly short debate and be willing to embrace the amendment.

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[Lord Tugendhat (Con)]

My Lords, I agree with every word that the noble Baroness, Lady Boothroyd, said and therefore will not waste the time of the House by going over the points in detail. That was admirably done by my noble friend Lord Bowness and the noble Lord, Lord Grenfell, in their speeches. I just want to make one particular point: both at Second Reading and in our debates today, I have heard it alleged that those of us wishing to amend the Bill are trying to sabotage the principle of a referendum and that there is some deep-laid plot to deny the British people the right to a referendum. The reverse is true.

As I said at Second Reading, I support the position set out by the Prime Minister in his Bloomberg speech. I shall campaign for a Conservative Government and when one is elected I shall campaign for a yes vote in the referendum when it occurs. But because I take that referendum very seriously, I am anxious that it should be held on the best possible basis: the details should have been fully thought through; it should be designed to provide the British people with the most objective possible choice and all the information that they require; and, before the referendum takes place, the British Government should have the best possible chance of achieving their objectives. I supported an earlier amendment and shall support this one, not because I wish to cut across the House of Commons or deny the British people the vote but because I wish to see the referendum carried out on the best possible basis and designed to achieve the result that the Prime Minister said that he wants to see.

[Lord Kinnock]

My Lords, the only reason we have the Bill, and certainly the only reason that we have a Bill with a deadline, is the repeated failed attempts by the Prime Minister to mollify and pacify the euro-secessionists within the Conservative Party. Because of the risks, speculation and difficulty to which it subjects our country unnecessarily, I think that it is the most fruitless and most dangerous appeasement since Danegeld.

What is the Prime Minister seeking to negotiate? That is central to the Bill. He was good enough to tell us in his Bloomberg speech that he wanted to negotiate a new settlement with our European partners in the next Parliament,

“a new settlement in which Britain shapes and respects the rules of the single market but is protected by fair safeguards, and free of the spurious regulation which damages Europe’s competitiveness”.

He does not go into more detail about that; I suppose that we will have to wait for it. He calls for a proper and reasoned debate and then says:

“I say to our European partners, frustrated as some of them no doubt are by Britain’s attitude: work with us on this”.

I use those quotations to illustrate the complexity and the need for co-operation with European partners to make any significant progress on the kind of negotiation that the Prime Minister and the Chancellor of the Exchequer envisage: to negotiate a new settlement, which has at its centre powerful and influential participation in the single market but with our obligation shorn of any of the duties and contributions to which we object.

I think that that summarises fairly the approach to be taken in the event of the Prime Minister being engaged in that new settlement. That would make the whole process very fragile. The date, which is the subject of our debate now, makes it even more fragile. Why is that? Because the specification of the date of December 2017 means that the furthest possible realistic date to honour the undertakings of the Bill, by which negotiations would have to be concluded, would be, let us say, October 2017, 17 months after a general election in which the Conservative Party hopes to be victorious. It gets even more complex because, just underneath the provision relating to 31 December 2017 is the date of 31 December 2016 as the date by which the date for the referendum must be appointed by the Government.

Do people really believe that after the date of the referendum has been specified in December 2016, we can expect our partners in Europe—despite their distractions, which the noble Lord, Lord Kerr, has properly pointed out, with their acute domestic questions relating to their general elections—to whom the Prime Minister has appealed for patience, to stick with us when they know very well that we are facing a deadline of a maximum of 12 months, during which time the referendum must be held after the date has been appointed?

That brings me to my final point. I think that noble Lords will recognise it to be a practical point because, with the galaxy and diversity of talents and experience in this place, there is any amount of acquaintance with negotiation. Probably everyone in this House has done it, in one way or another, whether as a trade unionist, an employer, a politician, a civil servant, a manager or a parent. We have all engaged in negotiations and I suppose that there are a couple of basic golden rules about them.

The first rule is that you signify a deadline for the conclusion of negotiations only if that deadline can be one of your weapons—for example, “If we do not finish this deal by next Tuesday night, the deal’s off the table”, or, “If you don’t make the deal by next Tuesday night, we’re having a ballot and going out on strike”. So you use a deadline to influence the negotiations themselves, but only when you are a participant in negotiations and have sanctions. You can negotiate with your children, if you have a more democratic parental relationship than my children tell me I had in their upbringing, because there can be a withdrawal of privileges and a denial of this, that and the other, simply because they have not kept to their side of the bargain. That is part of growing up and of being a parent. You can do the same thing as an employer or a trade unionist, or any form of negotiator using sanctions to try to uphold the deadline and secure your objective.

What sanctions are in the hand or pocket, or the red box, of any member or putative member of a future British Government who have set themselves a deadline to negotiate a complex and comprehensive new settlement with the rest of the European Union, a prominent feature of which is our implacable right to continue to operate with full privileges and obligations in the single market, if we expect them to be willing to endorse that and give us our way in the name of reform? The reform objective is decent and very supportable. I have been working and campaigning on reform of the European Union in a variety of ways for a very long time past, so I support the objective of reform. However, what reforms can you undertake while ensuring that they are copper-bottomed, secured in negotiation and adopted as policy, or even as treaty amendments, if you are working against a deadline? In this case, there are no realistic sanctions to be employed against those who will not bear with us, negotiate in good part and come to a conclusion according to the timetable set down in the Bill.

The reality—is it not?—is that you never set a deadline unless you can enforce it and use it as a weapon of negotiation. If you make a deadline in any other circumstances, the calendar and the clock will do your opponents’ work for them—or at least, not your opponents but your partners in negotiation. It is easy to make the error sometimes and I have been known to slip into it very occasionally myself. I ask the noble Lord, Lord Dobbs, to consider whether even his objective of securing this legislation to facilitate a referendum is really served by having an explicit deadline in the Bill. It is a deadline that takes no notice of the objective realities of our politics and other peoples’ politics, as the noble Lord, Lord Kerr, so forcefully pointed out. That is evidenced by any knowledge at all of the conduct of political and constitutional affairs in the European Union. A deadline takes no account of the even more basic realities of the biology and psychology of negotiation.

[Lord Spicer]

I am sorry to interrupt the noble Lord, Lord Kinnock, but I am worried that he is getting so carried away that he might hit his neighbour in the face. I can see that from here but he probably cannot.

[Lord Kinnock]

That is the last thing I would do to my noble friend Lady Quin. I would never take on a Geordie lass in that or any respect. I am very grateful to the noble Lord for permitting me what I hope is a courteous way to conclude my speech.

I sincerely hope that the noble Lord, Lord Dobbs, thinks in these practical terms because he is sincere in his objective, but if we in this House are not to make fools of ourselves we simply cannot allow, on a gigantic issue of this kind, a deadline to be set for the conclusion of immensely complex negotiations that will affect the destiny of our country.

[Lord Maclennan of Rogart (LD)]

My Lords, I ask that the seriousness of the Bill be taken into consideration in determining when a referendum should be held. It is not about effecting changes or reforms only for the benefit of the United Kingdom. If that process has to be postponed until after the election, as has been said, we have a very short time in which to achieve those changes. The terminal date for the referendum seems not even to allow for that possibility to be achieved.

I think that our ambition should be greater. I served in the Convention on the Future of Europe in 2002, and it was noticeable at the time that many countries came to that operation without a clear view of how they would wish to see the EU reformed, but gradually, and very largely due to the skills of the noble Lord, Lord Kerr, a consensus was reached. There were certainly some exceptions—people like David Heathcoat-Amory, who did not agree with the end results—but the reality was that substantial steps were taken to improve the operation of the EU.

In 40 years the EU has transformed the history of Europe. It has made it a place where justice, democracy and peace can reign, and that is something from which we should not back off. We should accept that we can improve the methods of enhancing those goals. I think that for Britain to stand apart and say, “We want certain changes for us alone”, is designed to create a hostile reaction, whereas we should go into this process of reform saying, “We recognise that there are other countries that wish to see change, that wish to see the institutions more democratised, that wish to see not just a single market but one that embraces services and that wish to see not just economic change but security changes to see how we can co-ordinate our defence and security policy and make it more effective—not just an alliance between France and Britain, but something involving other countries as well”.

As we witness China growing in importance and its GDP rapidly rising, and as we see India and the BRICs growing in strength, it becomes more important from a global point of view that the European Union is stronger and is recognised by all its citizens to be a vehicle for influencing the better outcomes that we all seek to achieve. That cannot be done with a deadline of December 2017. It requires us to recognise that if we are going to have 28 countries working together to improve the operation of the Union—and we have seen it improve—we require longer to bring together the consensus which we need.

Last week, I was with the Select Committee in Brussels and Paris and what probably struck me most was the disparity of views about how to achieve these goals. For example, the European Parliament needs to have some right of initiative, as do national Parliaments, in indicating the direction of policy, but that has not clearly come on to the agenda yet. Although as a result of the convention and the Lisbon treaty the European Parliament has now has a right of co-decision and much greater authority and consequently greater democracy, we need to ensure that the voice of the European Parliament has greater influence on events.

I believe that the time is ripe for another Convention on the Future of Europe to enable member countries in all their governmental forms to come together collectively and work out a consensus. We need it to enable us to have the evidence of the citizenry presented, not just matters decided by conclaves of Governments who say that they are looking after their own. We need to have a full, open, transparent discussion about the limitations of the European Union, its achievements and its possibilities.

To set a date like this is to threaten the other member countries of the European Union with the possibility that Britain, one of the most influential countries, one of the most respected democracies in western Europe and, indeed, in Europe, might back out. That would be, frankly, a historical disaster, not just for this country, but for the European Union and for global governance, so let us not decide to set a limit to the decision-making of a referendum in this country. Let us amend this proposal. That does not mean that we need to be against referendums entirely, but let us be realistic about the time it takes to change the ways we do things. Let us endeavour to do it properly, systematically and thoroughly. Therefore, I support the amendment.

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[Lord Dobbs]

If I can lean on the noble Baroness’s patience, I suggested at the start that I needed a little time to cover these issues and I will—precisely, right now—get to the very point that she raised. We need a date. Why do we need one? For the people. We do not need more empty promises. We need a date not as a straitjacket but as a sensible commitment to the people, one they will trust and that will rebind us in their trust because we have failed them. We need a mechanism for this country to be able to move forward. Simply saying that we will have a referendum at some point is not good enough. Why 2017? It is a specific date. Without a specific date, the mistrust that has built up will never be swept away. I already explained that it is not a straitjacket. It has all sorts of flexibility to it but it is an ambition, target and objective that we can all work towards.

[Lord Kinnock]

Can the noble Lord enlighten us? The undertaking to have a referendum by 31 December 2017 arises precisely out of that given by the Prime Minister in his speech from January last year in saying that it had to be in the first half of the next Parliament. Does the noble Lord realise that he is now trying to argue that we must still have the referendum before 31 December, regardless of whether the absolutely vital negotiations have been completed, the achievements —let us call them that—have been agreed to and all the other processes in the European Union have reached conclusion? We have heard about the implausibility of that kind of time schedule. In other words, he would rather stick to the date than employ any common sense whatever.

[Lord Dobbs]

I beg the noble Lord’s pardon, but I do not think that he heard what I said. I said that the date could be changed, but it would have to be for a darned good reason, a reason that the people would accept.