European Union (Referendum) Bill

Debate between Lord Turnbull and Lord Radice

Friday 24th January 2014 Lords Chamber

[Lord Turnbull (CB)]

My Lords, in the event of a no vote, there will not be a clean break with the rest of the European Union because Europe will still begin 21 miles away. We will be enmeshed in it in hundreds of ways. Just as there is a relationship between Canada and the US, we will have to find a new relationship. In order for someone to carry out this impact study, people will want to know what the Government will try to retain of the existing relationship, to modify and to drop. Where a change is made, the Government will need to set out their ideas for whatever they think should be the successor regime. Without that information, an impact study cannot be made and people will not be able to assess how it will apply to them.

Amendment 72, tabled in my name, comes right at the end of the Marshalled List. It asks the Government to do what only the Government can do, and that is to set out how they think these various regimes will be modified, and from that the impact assessment can be made. The two really go together, but because of the groupings, they will be considered separately. I support this amendment and I hope that in due course noble Lords will support Amendment 72, which is a partner to it.

[Lord Radice]

I rise very briefly to support the amendment in the name of the noble Lord, Lord Roper, and other noble friends. I think that we have moved on now. A very large majority have voted not just in favour of the question, but in favour of the principle of amendment. That is because, of course, the only argument put by the other side was not against the last amendment—or only a very weak argument was made against it—but that we must not amend the Bill. The fact is that it has been amended, so now we can look seriously at it and try to improve it. This is one area in which we can make a useful contribution, and I congratulate the noble Lord, Lord Roper.

I remember very well that before the 1975 referendum complaints were made by both sides, particularly by the no side, that all the information had been supplied by the Government and that that was unfair. There is a case to be made for some kind of hard-headed and objective assessment on which we can make our choice about whether to stay in or come out. I rather agreed with the noble Lord, Lord Roper, when he said that the assessment should not necessarily be done by the Government themselves because that was precisely the argument in 1975: the information was not to be trusted because the Government were pro-European and therefore it should have been provided by someone else. The suggestion that the Office for Budget Responsibility might be the body to do the work is a good one. I therefore support the noble Lord, Lord Roper, who I hope I can call my noble friend, which he certainly is because I have known him for 50 years, and I hope that in doing so I have done my duty to him and, indeed, to the argument for improving this Bill.