European Union Bill

Debate between Lord Richard and Lord Waddington

Wednesday 8th June 2011 Lords Chamber

[Lord Richard]

My Lords, I speak in partial support of this amendment. I cannot say I am very enthusiastic about part of it, but nevertheless I agree with the general thrust. Before I turn to the amendment, I would like to say how much I admire the noble and learned Lord, Lord Howe, particularly his actions in the 1950s in persuading the Conservative party in Wales to agree to a set of referendums on whether pubs should be open on Sundays. I say that because in the valley where I was brought up there was a Labour majority of 35,000, but the club with the biggest membership of all was the local Conservative club. Why? Because it was open on Sundays. He deserves to be commended for his altruism, which deprived the Amman Valley’s Conservative party of a considerable amount of beer money.

My Lords, I am not too keen on this amendment for one reason. We have a figure which, if it is not reached, then prima facie at any rate the referendum should not be valid. However, in those circumstances where the turnout does not reach 40 per cent, the result is deemed to be valid because the matter will come back to Parliament and, if each House passes a resolution saying that, despite the turnout being under 40 per cent, the measure should go through, then it will go through. I question the value of that. If you have that in the Bill, it seems to me it is slightly pointless having a 40 per cent plateau. If one is going to have a figure that the turnout must reach for the referendum to be effective, why should Parliament give the Government a second chance of getting their policy through? If there is a condition that you must have 40 per cent, surely if you get that 40 per cent the referendum is valid; if you do not, the logical conclusion is that the referendum is not valid. If it were as simple as that, I would support the amendment entirely. On the other hand, I must say that if the amendment is one the House is prepared to accept, I would certainly go along with it rather than not have anything like it.

[Lord Waddington]

My Lords, I find the amendment rather strange. I certainly agree that a poor turnout may be taken as complete lack of interest in having a referendum on the issue, but a poor turnout certainly could not be taken as support for the measure in question. One must remember what sort of measures we are talking about: these are measures that cede more power to the European Union. So if there is a low turnout, the one thing that is absolutely certain—along with the fact that there may be lack of enthusiasm in voting at all—is that there is minimum support for ceding more power to the EU. That seems to me to be an absolutely rotten reason for handing the whole matter back to Parliament. Half the trouble at present, and the reason there is so much distrust over this whole area, is that people feel that, over the years, Parliament has been far too fast to cede more powers to the EU.

As I have said before, it seems extraordinary that when the people give to our parliamentarians the opportunity to use certain specific powers they then spend the whole of a Parliament handing over those powers to other people. No wonder there is a lack of understanding of what is being done in the people’s name. It is pretty nonsensical to say that if there is a low turnout in the referendum, we should hand the whole matter to Parliament, which is half the cause of the trouble in the first place. After all, it is Parliament which the public feel, with fairly good evidence, cheated them of the opportunity of a referendum when Lisbon turned up as a rehash of the European constitution. That is one of the causes for the Bill. We are having a Bill now to try to rebuild some of the lost confidence in the EU, and we should judge the amendment by that problem. As far as I can see, the amendment would add to the problem rather than reduce it.