European Union Bill

Lord Lea of Crondall Excerpts

Monday 23rd May 2011 Lords Chamber

[Lord Willoughby de Broke]

I am sorry, was that an intervention or not? The idea that Government Ministers should be under a legal requirement to propagandise for the European Union really is too odd for words. It is absurd. On the one hand we have the noble Lord, Lord Clinton-Davis, saying rather sadly that no one speaks up for the EU so nobody knows how wonderful it is, while only a few moments earlier the noble Lord, Lord Radice, observed how often the noble Lord, Lord Sassoon, has said how wonderful our membership is. The noble Lord, Lord Howell, has frequently reminded us of the manifold benefits of paying £15 billion a year for the EU and running a £20 billion trade deficit. He is quite right to do so.

To make Ministers legally responsible for what is frankly propaganda is absurd. Surely the arguments have been made. People have now grown up and there are all sorts of means of communication. We have the internet, the hated Murdoch press which, of course, is balanced by the BBC and other spokesmen for the EU. I do not see how the Government have any role to play in this whatever. I hope that the Committee rejects the amendment without further debate.

[Lord Lea of Crondall]

My Lords, perhaps I may add just one dimension to the idea that referendums are neutral so far as the press and broadcasting are concerned. The BBC is not the other side of Murdoch. If you look at your BlackBerry each morning, you can see that what the papers and all the BBC programmes do is report what the Daily Mail says, followed by what the Daily Express says, followed by what the Times says and followed by what the Sun says; and so it goes on.

My noble friend Lord Radice is absolutely right to say that in the populist environment of the red tops, along with a lot of money from the foreign exchange markets and people with a particular interest in the City of London, it is difficult to see how a referendum could be conducted on a level playing field unless we do something. I am reminded of what the then Labour Government did in about 1967, which by common consent was quite useful. We had a counterinflation campaign. There was indeed government information, which could be called propaganda, which explained the economic necessity for doing what the country needed through social partners—a term much derided by people who did not know trading from an elephant. We were able to win the support of the majority of the people of Burton-on-Trent precisely because factual information was put forward.

We can go back to the referendum in 1975, but as a shot across the bows of those people who think that all the referendums will be a doddle because we have the Murdoch press going wild all the time, it is in fact because the Government are running scared of their own Back-Benchers. That is what it is all about.