European Union Referendum Bill

Lord Maclennan of Rogart Excerpts

Tuesday 13th October 2015 Lords Chamber

[Lord Maclennan of Rogart (LD)]

My Lords, it is a privilege to follow the noble Lord, Lord Bowness, with whom I broadly agree and have done for many years. The noble Baroness, Lady Anelay, opened this debate in a very clear way and expressed the views of the Government with regard to the Bill with clarity and balance. I hope that she will listen to some of the arguments that have been deployed today.

I am sufficiently old to recall the Second World War. When I was a boy, the street in which I lived in Glasgow was bombed and 12 people were killed. The next day, I was sent to the country to stay with the then chairman of Mowlem who had taken a house which was thought to be free from the likelihood of bombing. None the less, that experience has driven home to me the sense that the European Union has achieved a great deal for peace. It is now 70 years since the Second World War. I remember the French vetoing the European Defence Community and thinking that that was a tragedy.

The Government have put forward this Bill at a very awkward time. It seems to me that the public’s decision may be related more to the outcome of the renegotiations than to a sense of whether belonging to the European Union is in Britain’s interests.

The Prime Minister, for reasons that I fully understand, has not disclosed what his objectives are. That is understandable in light of the likelihood of the Europhobes saying that it was not enough. If he were to say what his objectives were, he might have to come to Parliament and to the people and say, “Well, I didn’t achieve all that I wanted to, but I have done my best”. We should have entered this national debate with a recognition that change—and change is needed—would take a long time, and that the best way to achieve it is not with one country taking on 27 others and saying, “Stand up to the mark”.

The noble Lord, Lord Kerr of Kinlochard, was the initiator of the last convention on the future of Europe, which seems to have achieved a great deal, and was implemented in particular by the treaty of Lisbon. That is the way in which we should achieve change: not with one against 27 but by bringing together a consensus among people in the European Union, recognising where we need to go. However, the manifesto of the Conservative Party promised this to the people. I fear that if the English reject membership of the Union, Scotland will stand up and say, “We need another referendum”. That would be a disaster.

At this point, the Government have to give some indication of what the consequences of leaving the European Union would be. That has been called for by a number of people speaking in this debate and it would be something that the Government could take into account, following the 1975 example.

Membership of the European Union brings us into harmony with most of the 500 million people living in the Union, and gives us a voice and influence in negotiating with other countries, particularly the growing countries such as China and India, and the United States. If we were not in the Union, our voice would be barely heard, despite our history of global involvement.

So far as the Bill is concerned, the franchise is too limited. We should provide that 16 and 17 year-olds have the power to vote. We ought to follow the Government’s commitment in their own manifesto to give people who have lived beyond this country for more than 15 years an entitlement to vote. We should also entitle people who have come from the European Union and are European Union citizens to vote.

These are necessary changes in the Bill. They are not fundamental but they would make the outcome seem fairer and longer-lasting. We should not close the debate by saying that the referendum is final; instead, we—and particularly the Prime Minister—should initiate a convention on the future of Europe, because many of the changes that we want to see, including treaty change, cannot be achieved by 2017. That is a difficult year because of the French and German elections. Treaty change will be involved if we are going to see the European Union develop as we would wish.