European Union Bill

Lord Richard Excerpts

Tuesday 5th April 2011 Lords Chamber

[Lord Phillips of Sudbury]

My Lords, I start from a position of being strongly in favour of this country of ours remaining part of Europe. I think that it would be a disaster were we to come out. However, from what I have heard on this amendment, I believe that the Committee may underestimate the widespread scepticism in the country. Secondly, although I do not like saying it, there is a widespread scepticism about the ability and willingness of Parliament to protect what it views as its interests vis-à-vis the European Union. I have heard several Peers refer to trust in us and the need therefore not to have referenda or, if we have them, for them not to be binding or for us to insist on at least 40 per cent of the electorate turning out.

I speak as one who founded a charity, of which I am still president, called the Citizenship Foundation. We work with over half the state schools in the country and have done for over 20 years. We have worked assiduously to try to staunch the lack of adhesion to the European ideal among young people. For example, we put out the only guide to Maastricht that was readable and accessible to ordinary folk. For my own part, I have to say that there is a severe lack of trust in Parliament in this country among a great number of our fellow citizens. They look at the House of Commons and see, night after night, week after week and month after month, votes determined not by the honest opinions of the MPs who sit there but by the party Whips, who drive the MPs through like sheep. You may say that in this House the party Whips have too much power, but at least there is a Cross-Bench element that is totally independent, while all of us sitting here tonight would say that we will not be driven beyond a certain point.

If we have referenda and then we—not Parliament as a whole but each House of Parliament—say to the people of this country, “It doesn't matter what you decide, old folks. We will have the right after you have voted to say whether the vote should stand”, what can the people of this country possibly think about that arrangement? How can that salve the mistrust? How can it shore up public support for the European Union, which I suspect most of us in this House want to see? It cannot, in my view. I concede that I have unease about the scale and number of referenda that there might be, although the good and noble Lord, Lord Howell, said that they would be very few and that they would be clustered. However, if we are to entrust the people of this country with referenda, the worst of all worlds seems to me to be that they should be held on a basis where we can dispense with the outcome in either House.

Despite the fact that any of the parties in this country can get behind a referendum on either side of the debate as they choose, we will in effect be having a second bite at the cherry. Should we then say to the people of this country, “If 40 per cent of you do not go to the polls, we again have the right to dispense with the whole business”? We vote constantly in this House without having a 40 per cent threshold. It counts. Countless numbers of local elections do not reach a 40 per cent turnout. They count. Yet we have the temerity to try to impose these two conditions. For my money, that would be the worst of all worlds.

[Lord Richard]

My Lords, I have listened to the noble Lord, Lord Phillips, with great interest. He is about the only speaker on the other side of the House who has had a good word to say about the Bill in any shape or form, and even he was fairly grudging when he did so. It reminds me a little of the story of the man who was going through the courts in a civil action and lost at first instance. He went to the Court of Appeal and lost there; he went to the then House of Lords and lost there too. When he came out he turned to his counsel and said, “Where do we go next?”. His counsel looked at him and said, “You know, we should breed from you”. The noble Lord’s is about the only support for the Bill that we have heard either at Second Reading or today.

I start by making it clear that I do not like referendums. I believe basically in parliamentary democracy—that is what this country has lived with now for many generations and I hope that it will go on doing so for a large number of generations to come—so I do not approve of a situation in which it is felt for one reason or another that it is necessary to consult the electorate in the way that, for example, the Swiss do. I have some knowledge and experience of Switzerland, and I am bound to say that I find the extent to which they hold referendums there extraordinary. The polls are not very high; people do not take a great deal of interest in them. Occasionally there is an issue that excites people, in which case there is a proper contest. As the noble Baroness, Lady Williams, said, it is the same in the United States: if you see all the issues that are put on the ballot papers, you realise that it is consultation gone mad, to the point where it is distorting public opinion. So I do not like referendums; I am in favour of parliamentary democracy.

Let us look at the Bill. If we pass it and it becomes law, what are we going to be faced with in terms of referendums? It is all very well for the noble Lord, Lord Howell, and I am sorry that he is unwell, to stand here and say, “It doesn’t matter; there aren’t going to be any referendums anyway because this deals only with trivial issues and no one is going to have referendums on that sort of thing”. I do not believe it. I know exactly who would want referendums on that sort of Bill; one usually sits on the Benches behind me and the other one sits down at the other end of the Bench below the Gangway. Of course they want referendums. The scope for judicial review proceedings is considerable. If I were a practising barrister, which I no longer am, I would say in terms of the future of my profession that on the whole this would be a Bill to be welcomed as there will be a lot of work in it for members of the Bar, but that is not a good thing.

If this is going to be only about trivia, why on earth are we legislating? Either it amounts to something or it does not. If it amounts to something, I am against it; if it does not amount to anything, we should not be doing it. What is the point? This is an edifice that has been erected for political purposes that will do serious damage to our constitution.

--- Later in debate ---

[Lord Richard]

The noble Baroness has used the word “deference” perhaps three times. Who on earth has talked about deference? I did not mention the word and I have not heard it mentioned in this Chamber this evening. What on earth is she talking about?

[Baroness Falkner of Margravine]

I think that the noble Lord, Lord Richard, knows exactly what I am talking about, and what I am talking about is trust. I am talking about an attitude. He can read Hansard as well as I will tomorrow, and he will see that I said that there was a tone—I did not suggest that the word “deference” had been used—in proceedings earlier this evening, and the tone is, “We know best”.