European Union (Referendum) Bill

Lord Teverson Excerpts

Friday 31st January 2014 Lords Chamber

[Lord Grenfell]

My Lords, I strongly support the amendment of the noble Lord, Lord Shipley. I declare what may be a tangential interest: I am entitled to vote in local elections in France.

I feel very strongly that people who are entitled to vote in local elections here as EU citizens should not be denied that right. My fear is that if we were to deny them this right, we would be reinforcing the image of a country that was on its way out of the EU. You could look at it the other way around, too: if we were to allow this amendment to go through, which I hope we will, then to my great pleasure we might be reinforcing the image of a country that was engaging properly with its European partners.

I think particularly of my French friends, who are living here in Britain. There are thousands of them living here—not all of them my friends—and maybe I will be destroying my own case here by saying: do not count on all of them to vote in an “in or out” referendum for Britain to stay in. Some of them may think that Britain is too much trouble to keep in the European Union. I venture to add that I think the vast majority, if given the vote, would want Britain to stay in, not just in their own personal interest but in the interests of Britain, France and the European Union.

[Lord Teverson (LD)]

My Lords, I shall be slightly contentious because I am not sure I completely agree with the argument put forward by my noble friend Lord Shipley. I feel strongly that Britain should remain within the European Union, unless it might be as the noble Lord, Lord Grenfell, just said and at some point in the future Britain becomes rather destructive to the European Union and we might come out. I do not know. I think we have to take this issue as a responsibility that British citizens take upon themselves to make up our mind what we are going to do. I do not know that the local government or national electoral rolls are the right ones. If I were given a logical choice, I would say it should be British citizens and perhaps I would add those with 10 years’ residence or less or something like that. It is very difficult to do in a list that has to be brought together and it would probably be impossible for residency. I do not know. However, I do not think the arguments are compelling one way on this. I think that if we come to a referendum, it is up to British citizens to make up their own mind and, if they want to commit suicide economically and in every other way, that is up to them.

[Baroness Whitaker (Lab)]

My Lords, I shall put a contrary point. If residency is to be the test of voting, as it is in other votes, and if London is the sixth city of France, as some of us may have heard on Radio 4 this morning, surely these job-creating, tax-generating people ought to be represented, as they are in local elections, for very good reasons.

[Lord Teverson]

Did the noble Lord, Lord Giddens, want to make a comment?

[Lord Giddens]

I hope the noble Lord will accept that that all British citizens living in EU countries should have a vote in the referendum.

[Lord Teverson]

Yes, I do. I am just putting a principle. My noble friend kindly introduced this probing amendment, and I am exploring some of the issues.

[Lord Davies of Stamford]

The noble Lord says that the vote should be based purely on citizenship, whether the voter is resident in this country or elsewhere. What is his view about citizens of the Irish republic who are resident here and are on the electoral roll?

[Lord Teverson]

My Lords, I should state that I have dual Irish and British nationality. I am putting forward an argument. I do not think there is a perfect answer to this, but I would exclude purely Irish citizens under this definition. In fact, you could argue very strongly that the Republic of Ireland would be by far the most affected other EU member state and therefore perhaps you should include all Irish citizens. I do not think one could sustain that. I just want to make the point that as Britain we need to make up our mind on this area, and we need to be responsible for our decision. I do not think the argument is total, so I put forward a potential opposite view. I take a great interest in this small debate, but I do not think it is quite as straightforward as noble Lords who have spoken so far have said.

[Lord Triesman]

My Lords, I have been very concerned to understand how the conduct of the debate in the course of a referendum could be most useful. Noble Lords will recall that we debated parliamentary constituency boundaries at great length; it was argued that they work for parliamentary elections despite the fact that the homogeneity of almost any of the constituencies was significantly disrupted. Some of them were essentially very artificial; they were no longer built around any kind of core principle but were to meet a numerical target, which I did not agree with but I fully understood.

I make that point because, by and large, local authorities are not constructed that way. Some of the very large ones may be, but a very significant number are constructed around entities where you can see the degree of homogeneity of the economic system that applies in that part of the country. That seems to me to be very important, because I believe that one of the telling debates during any referendum would be on the balance of economic interests for us as a community. Do we see a future? Will our kids continue to want to live here? Will the economic community be capable of sustaining the sorts of schools and kinds of medical provision that we want? All those will be live issues. It is no accident that chambers of commerce and a great many other economic entities in all those communities are organised with that kind of boundary in mind. That is where many of these most telling debates will take place—they will not take place on the grounds of constituencies.