European Union (Referendum) Bill

Lord Tomlinson Excerpts

Friday 10th January 2014 Lords Chamber

[Lord Tomlinson (Lab)]

My Lords, this is an inadequate Bill. However, it is worse than that because it is a grossly premature Bill and a shabby political manoeuvre to appease UKIP and Tory Back-Benchers in another place. It has nothing to do with the quality of governance but everything to do with appeasement. I hope that we treat this exactly as we would treat any other Private Member’s Bill. That means that we have 45 minutes.

[A noble Lord]

Then sit down.

[Lord Tomlinson]

I will sit down sooner than most of the people who have spoken. Everybody who has taken part in this debate favours reforms but we have not had any statement about what those reforms are, how we are intending to progress them and how we do these things. We have often been told by people coming back from Brussels that they have achieved reform. For example, we have had a vast expansion of qualified majority voting, which in many ways I regard as a reform. Is that what Members in the Conservative Party view as a reform? It involves losing our veto, which they seem very much to want to keep.

I know what I have asked for. I have asked this question of the noble Baroness on several occasions, and I ask it of her again today because she is speaking for the Government. Is she prepared, as a fundamental and much-needed reform—one pursued previously by my noble friend Lord Kinnock and by me when I was in the European Parliament—to get a system of zero-based budgeting? It is the only method by which we will be able to get a proper evaluation of the quality of expenditure and its value for money and direct resources as they are needed, rather than in this across-the-board way that happens at the moment.

I want to reply to two people who have spoken in this debate. One is the noble Lord, Lord Crickhowell, who, having given of his wisdom, has now departed, although I shall make sure on Monday that he reads the bit that I am going to say about him. He implied that we have no right whatever to challenge in any way any piece of legislation that comes from the other place. In fact, that is saying that we might as well pack our bags and go home. It is always our job to challenge views if we believe that they are wrong, and nowhere does that responsibility lie heavier than when we are challenging a major constitutional reform, fully backed by the Government but wrapped up under the illusion and pretence of it being private Members’ business. We have to examine this Bill in Committee thoroughly and fully and, if necessary, pass amendments to it, irrespective of the significance of any date, such as 28 February.

This Government still have more than a year to run. If they do not get their way in this Session, they should have the courage to bring forward their own Bill in the next Session of Parliament, when we will subject it to full scrutiny, including the tabling of amendments. Of course, ultimately the Government must get their way on a government Bill, but that is not the same as saying that we will always bow our knee to whatever Motion, in whatever form, comes from the other House. This is a means of trying to cheat the people of this country and it is a cheating process that we will not go along with. I hope that, having properly given the Bill a Second Reading, on Report we will take every opportunity to challenge it in every way necessary.