Referendums

Lord Soley Excerpts

Wednesday 12th February 2020 Lords Chamber

Asked by

[Lord Soley]

To ask Her Majesty’s Government what plans they have to review the rules for referendums.

[Earl Howe (Con)]

My Lords, the rules on referendums are set out in the Political Parties, Elections and Referendums Act 2000, and the Government have no plans to review or change them. An Act of Parliament is required before any UK-wide referendum can be held. This means that all referendum legislation is thoroughly debated, and Parliament can decide to legislate for different rules for each referendum.

[Lord Soley (Lab)]

I do not like referendums for governing this country, but if we are going to have them, particularly on major issues, is it not important that we have a minimum turnout and higher level of approval in order to make major changes? The horrors of the way that politics and economics were divided in this country on Brexit were bad precisely because it was a narrow division, and it would be even worse if the same happened in Scotland or, particularly, in Northern Ireland. We need to think about minimum turnout and a maximum in order to make a major change acceptable. That needs to be agreed, and everybody has an interest in agreeing it.

[Earl Howe]

My Lords, I recognise the noble Lord’s consistent interest in this topic. However, Parliament would need to go down that kind of road with a good deal of care. This country has no history of applying thresholds to the making of laws, for example, or the electing of our representatives. Both those things require a simple majority. To start applying special thresholds for referendums would require special and clear justification.

Leaving the European Union

Lord Soley Excerpts

Wednesday 22nd May 2019 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Evans of Bowes Park]

My noble friend is absolutely right that Conservative MPs were indeed elected on the manifesto, and there is nothing hard line about that whatever. We believe that the deal we have will deliver the benefits of a customs union but with the ability to develop an independent trade policy, which is what we want to see in the future.

[Lord Soley (Lab)]

The noble Baroness keeps repeating this, but she knows as well as everyone else in the House of Commons and elsewhere that the deal will not go through. That may be a bad thing or a sad thing but it is reality, and it is time to face up to that because the country is in such an appalling state. There are only two options. I do not like referendums, I did not want referendums like this and I certainly do not like referendums on a finely judged point. But we are stuck in a situation which cannot continue, so either you go for a referendum or in some way we withdraw it. The alternative at the moment is to be stuck in this position, not just until August but beyond August. Either the Prime Minister or a substitute or replacement Prime Minister has to take a decision on this. We cannot go on in this situation, because we will be stuck in this situation throughout the summer and beyond.

[Baroness Evans of Bowes Park]

People have not seen the withdrawal Bill yet. It is being published on Friday, so I urge the noble Lord and colleagues down in the other place to wait, look at it, reflect, and understand that we need the Bill in order to leave the EU, whatever you wish the future relationship with the EU to be. I would ask everyone to look at the Bill and consider it, and then the vote will be brought forward at Second Reading. I hope that we will then see the Bill begin to pass, and we can then move on, as everyone here has said, to the future relationship with the EU.

Exiting the European Union

Lord Soley Excerpts

Monday 10th December 2018 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Evans of Bowes Park]

As I said in my response to the noble Baroness, Lady Smith of Basildon, and the noble Lord, Lord Newby, we will explore a number of ways in which this reassurance might be achieved. The Prime Minister has been clear that she has heard the voices of both Houses and will do what she can to achieve those reassurances.

[Lord Soley (Lab)]

There is a section in the Statement that implies that the two Houses will have more influence than they had before. Many of us think that is long overdue; had Parliament been involved earlier, it might have got us to a better place than we are in now. The Prime Minister talks in the Statement about being more in contact with the House of Commons in particular, but presumably also with this House. If the Government can expand on that, we might get an approach from Parliament that helps the Government in what is by any standard a major crisis.

[Baroness Evans of Bowes Park]

In the debate last week, the Prime Minister said in her opening speech—and I repeated it here in my opening speech—that we are looking at ways in which Parliament can be more involved. Specifically, in the Statement today, she said and I repeated that:

“We are also looking closely at new ways of empowering the House of Commons to ensure that any provision for a backstop has democratic legitimacy and to enable the House to place its own obligations on the Government to ensure that the backstop cannot be in place indefinitely”.


The Prime Minister will continue to hold discussions with Members to think about how best to do that.

Brexit: Withdrawal Agreement and Political Declaration

Lord Soley Excerpts

Thursday 6th December 2018 Lords Chamber

[Lord Soley (Lab)]

My Lords, I voted remain in the referendum. I was not surprised by the result. I also took the view that referendums are a bad idea at the best of times. Referendums on complex issues are an even worse idea, and it is even worse when you have a referendum and you have not worked out what you will do if you get an answer that you did not expect and did not want. That has been the tragedy of all of this from the beginning.

Along with the withdrawal agreement, the Government published their document on the future political relationship between the EU and the UK. If David Cameron had thought out what he would do if he got the result that he did not want, that paper would have been ready for publication within a few weeks of the referendum result—because that paper would have been a good paper on which to negotiate. It is one that can and probably will form a structure of negotiation in the years to come—and it will be years; this will not be quick.

The referendum was conducted by the Conservative Party because it was split. That is not unusual. We did the same with Harold Wilson when we were split on this issue. It is what happens in a parliamentary democracy such as ours when Parliaments cannot easily agree. The tragedy of all this is that the nation is deeply divided on the European Union and has been for years. That division has not been resolved. Noble Lords who have spoken in this debate have identified that, and I associate myself very strongly with their remarks.

The divisions are deep. They run through not just the political parties, which is why the House of Commons is in so much difficulty, but trade unions, business, community groups and, as the noble Lord, Lord Leigh of Hurley, said, families and friends. If we have a division such as that, we need to ask ourselves how we will solve it when it is such an important issue. All noble Lords in the debate have recognised how important this issue is, but we are deeply divided. If we could have a discussion on the declaration on the relationship between the UK and the EU, that would be more productive than what we are doing at the moment.

My noble friend Lord Parekh made a perceptive and fascinating comment, as someone who comes from an Indian subcontinent background, about the nature of the relationship between Britain and Europe. It has long been my view that one of the reasons why the British were so uncomfortable with Europe is that they thought they had joined a supermarket and increasingly came to the conclusion that they had joined a superstate. I have no problem with Europe becoming a superstate. I think that it needs to, and I will say a little more about why that should be in a moment, if I have time. But the problem is that, going right back to the referendum of Harold Wilson’s, we were talking about this as a supermarket. The supermarket is obviously appealing, but the superstate bit is not appealing to the British.

The strapline of the Brexiteers in the referendum, “take back control”, was not just about immigration. It gave a feeling that the British were losing control of making their own laws and of sacking their own Government. “How can you sack the Government in Brussels?” people would ask. It is actually a more democratic structure than people realise, as my noble friend Lord Tomlinson said, but that is not the perception. One thing that has worried me about this debate is the number of people who seem to think that if we have another referendum we will automatically get back in. I have to say that I think if there were another referendum it might well come to the same conclusion. What would be worse would be if it came to a slightly different conclusion with only a small majority in favour of remain. We would be in a worse position than Nicola Sturgeon is in in Scotland, where she keeps saying, “We will have another referendum”, but she will not say when because she is not sure she will get the right answer. We really do not want to be constantly in that situation, so we need to find a way to build a greater consensus, a greater understanding of how the world has changed and why we need a very close and powerful relationship with Europe.

I was very pleased with paragraph 128 of the political declaration about the close association between the EU and the UK—the recognition by the Government of a proposal I made a year or so ago about the need for very close parliamentary links between the European Parliament and the British Parliament. That will be vital. In areas such as security we are going to have to negotiate things in order not to become unsafe. We also need a parliamentary link, otherwise we will start to go off in different directions. That is also important in other areas. One of the real dangers to Britain’s economy is that investment will not come into Britain in the way it used to. Another is that we do not have an agreement on security. I have spoken before about the European arrest warrant, which is vital, as are other matters. A third, to which people have paid too little attention, is that we will lose, and the European Union will lose, considerable influence in politics around the world.

Noble Lords should ask themselves whether Britain will still be a member of the Security Council of the United Nations in 30 years’ time. The answer is, almost certainly not, in the present situation. They might want to accept that, and there is a case for doing so. What I am really saying, as others have said, is that the answer is not another referendum: we would end up having referendums and just winning or just losing them. I do not think that answers of that type are relevant. It would not surprise me, in the current situation in Parliament, if the Prime Minister noted that she is quite popular in the way that she is handling this and could therefore win a general election with a working majority: I would not rule out anything in the current situation. But whatever happens, we have to build a closer relationship with the European Union and recognise that we both bring to the history of the world, actually, very important assets, and that it is a matter of recognising and using them.

We really need more time on this. The answer—through what is likely to be a very muddled approach, but I suspect that it will come to this in the end—is to have an extension of Article 50, which will then give us time to negotiate on what the British people voted for, but in a more sophisticated way. At the end of that process, even if it is in 10, 20 or 30 years’ time, if we want to put something to the public in terms of what we have agreed, that makes sense. Having negotiations of the type we have had, which have gone so badly wrong because we were not ready to negotiate, has led to an agreement which my noble friends on the Front Bench are right to oppose. We need to put this to one side, give ourselves more time and get on with those negotiations—and I fear that future generations will have to decide whether we stay in the European Union or not.

G20 Summit

Lord Soley Excerpts

Monday 3rd December 2018 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Evans of Bowes Park]

I thank the noble Lord. He is right that there was agreement that reform is needed to improve the WTO’s functioning. A step forward was that progress on this will be reviewed at the next G20 summit. The G20 has given the WTO a strong mandate for reform and we now want to see everyone working together. I can certainly assure him that our priorities for WTO reform include ensuring the continued effectiveness of the dispute settlement mechanism, including the role of the appellate board. We want to enhance transparency in the system to improve trust and to enhance the rules by ensuring clear disciplines on distortive subsidies and state-owned enterprises. We will be taking these forward strongly. He asked about migration. I can say that we will indeed be at the upcoming intergovernmental launch of the global compact. We support this compact, both in terms of international co-operation and as a framework to help us deliver our commitments under the sustainable development goals.

[Lord Soley (Lab)]

My Lords, in view of the rather chaotic state of the Government, this might seem a slightly premature question, but the Statement refers to various attempts to make deals with other countries on trade. There are some interesting references to how that might be done. Given that we are going to be a rule taker from the EU for quite some time—some of those rules are very good: data protection rules, for example, are of a very high standard—is it our intention to negotiate trade deals with other non-EU countries using those rules, or are we going to have different rules for every country we negotiate a deal with?

[Baroness Evans of Bowes Park]

Obviously, we will have discussions with different countries and work out trade deals that work best for both parties, but we have been very clear that we will not be lowering our standards in a whole array of areas, because we have been world leaders in setting them and we want to remain so.

October European Council

Lord Soley Excerpts

Monday 22nd October 2018 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Evans of Bowes Park]

Well, yes, because we have already accepted that and been clear about that in relation to the implementation period.

[Lord Soley (Lab)]

In the near future we are likely to have an agreement—good, bad or indifferent, we wait to see. There will then be this implementation period, but I take the same view as that taken by the noble Lord, Lord Howell, I think: there is no way that this complex political and economic arrangement between the UK and the EU is going to be sorted out in just a couple of years. This is going to be work in progress for quite a few years to come, and I still do not understand from the Government the sorts of structures they have in mind to ensure that the UK and the EU stay close together politically and economically, because it is in their interests to do so. Picking up a point made by the noble Lord, Lord Newby, the common security and defence policy will continue; we will have no say on how that is used but we are indicating that our forces will stay involved. I am not asking for an answer to that issue, but there are many issues of that type. I need—and I think the House needs—some idea of the structures we are looking at beyond the implementation period that will allow us to ensure that we have a continuing good agreement. Is it a Joint Committee or is it something bigger?

[Baroness Evans of Bowes Park]

The noble Lord will be aware that alongside the withdrawal and implementation Act and treaty there will be a future partnership or future framework document setting out where discussions have got to about the future relationship. That will be the first time the noble Lord will see where we have got to in that discussion. That will then be the basis of the negotiation discussions, once we have agreed the withdrawal agreement and implementation period, to take forward that relationship. On the structure and scope of the documents, some of the things we have mentioned that we have started to make good progress on will be obvious from that document. That will then be worked on and will be the basis of the future partnership that we will look to have by 2021.

Brexit: Negotiations

Lord Soley Excerpts

Monday 15th October 2018 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Evans of Bowes Park]

As we have said, we do not want to see the backstop used at all. We anticipate that we will be able to move seamlessly from the implementation period through to our future partnership but, to have this insurance policy, we need a backstop. We have been very clear about what that backstop must not do. We have put forward proposals to make sure that we can offer a solution to that and we will continue to discuss with the EU how to ensure that we achieve that outcome.

[Lord Soley (Lab)]

I am relieved to hear that the Cabinet is behind the Prime Minister, but I have to say that some of them look and sound remarkably like Brutus, so she should be advised to take caution. The Minister and the Prime Minister have both used the word “gap”. Is that a gap of months or years? Is there some indication of how long it will take?

[Baroness Evans of Bowes Park]

I say again: we do not intend there to be a gap.

Salisbury Incident

Lord Soley Excerpts

Wednesday 14th March 2018 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Evans of Bowes Park]

We are certainly aware of a number of individuals who have presented at Salisbury District Hospital following the recent incident. Those individuals have been assessed and discharged, and have been advised that if they subsequently feel unwell they should re-present at hospital. Advice has been provided to GPs, acute hospitals and emergency departments across the NHS on the action that should be taken if individuals present following exposure to chemicals. There is some evidence that repeated exposure to trace levels of a contaminant over an extended period could cause harm, and that is why a lot of the focus of the current work is on preventing long-term exposure. However, I shall take the comments and suggestions made by the noble Countess back to the Department of Health.

[Lord Soley (Lab)]

My Lords, an attack with a weapon of mass destruction on British soil is profoundly serious and very dangerous, and the Government deserve our support throughout the House on their reaction to this. It is very clear that Putin is using this to boost his nationalist image of “Russia surrounded”, and we have to be aware of the propaganda value of that. We also have to be aware that he uses it to threaten and frighten anyone in Russia who is thinking of moving over to the West; this is really a terrorist-type attack on such people. The Chemical Weapons Act is profoundly important here. There seems little doubt that the production of banned chemical weapons is going on in Russia, and that needs to be addressed at every level possible. All our allies are important in that.

My other point is about Russia Today. I regard RT as a pretty sophisticated propaganda channel but it would be a mistake for us to take any action to ban it, for two reasons. First, if we did, it would give the Russians—or the Russian Government, to be more precise—a wonderful excuse to ban the BBC, which is one of our ways of talking to the Russian people. Secondly, it would make us look, and the Russian state would certainly use it in this way, as if we were against a free press.

[Baroness Evans of Bowes Park]

I thank the noble Lord for his very constructive comments, and I agree with them. The noble Lord sitting in front of him asked earlier in the week about Russia Today. As I said then, any revoking of a broadcasting licence is a matter for Ofcom, which obviously has stringent rules relating to ensuring that news is reported accurately and impartially. The noble Lord is right, however: Russia enjoys a near monopoly over Russian-language media across the post-Soviet space and uses it to spread disinformation. It is as important as ever that Russian speakers have a choice in the media that they consume and are able to access reliable and objective information. So, in addition to BBC Russia, we will be investing about £8 million next year in supporting public service and independent media operating in the Russian language.

Brexit Negotiations

Lord Soley Excerpts

Monday 11th December 2017 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Evans of Bowes Park]

I am afraid that I do not accept that premise because we believe the best way to avoid a hard border is to negotiate the right trading relationship between the UK and the EU, and that is what we will now be able to do. Discussions on the border will be a critical part of the phase 2 negotiations.

[Lord Soley (Lab)]

Correct me if I am wrong, but I believe I heard the Minister say that during the period of payments—which I welcome, incidentally—trade will continue on current terms. I think that was the phrase that was used. If that is right, what does that mean if it does not mean either the single market or the customs union or something of that nature? Admittedly it is only for the period in which the payments continue, but for that period, trade continues under current terms, which is, I think, the Statement the Minister read out.

[Baroness Evans of Bowes Park]

It is actually during the implementation period that the UK’s and the EU’s access to each other’s markets could continue on current terms. During the implementation period, we would stay in all EU regulators and agencies and take part in existing security measures.

Sexual Harassment in Parliament

Lord Soley Excerpts

Monday 30th October 2017 Lords Chamber

[Lord Soley (Lab)]

I strongly support this approach. It is long overdue. Having tried to deal with it before, I have a lot of sympathy with it. We are engaged in a very complicated process involving not just Members of both Houses, but members of political parties and relationships between parties and Members. On top of that, you have the complication that every Member—particularly in the House of Commons, but also here—is also an individual employer. There is not necessarily a clearly drawn-up contract of employment; it varies immensely. Going down the road of having a contract, which I am not unsympathetic to, has payment implications, which opens up a whole can of worms. I really want to support this as it is very important, but there is a complex set arrangements here that we need to tackle right the way through.

[Baroness Evans of Bowes Park]

The noble Lord has highlighted exactly the complexity. It is critical that we get it right, which is why I did not want to give a false timetable. We cannot rush this, only to get it wrong, but we want to move along because we consider it important. I have been in a number of meetings today, and the points the noble Lord has raised are certainly things we are all well aware of. We will work across the House and across parties to make sure we have a robust system in place that Members, staff and the public can have faith in.