European Union Referendum Bill

Debate between Alex Salmond and Philip Davies

Monday 7th September 2015 Commons Chamber

[Alex Salmond]

Yes, indeed it was, but we are discussing the 28-day purdah period at the moment. It has been suggested to me by a knowledgeable European that President Barroso, as he then was, harboured ambitions to be the Secretary-General of NATO and was hoping for support from Ministers—perhaps not those in the Chamber tonight, but those who are none the less not too far from us. Who knows why President Barroso made those interventions, but they were not made during the 28-day purdah period.

The cautionary aspect of this tale is that that purdah period, enacted in legislation, bound the Scottish Government and their agencies and public bodies in Scotland but it did not bind the United Kingdom Government. The UK Government were bound not by statute but by the Edinburgh agreement of 15 October 2012. That was what we used to call a gentleman’s agreement; it had no statutory basis. Paragraph 29 of that agreement stated:

“The Scottish Government will set out details of restricted behaviour for Scottish Ministers and devolved public bodies in the Referendum Bill to be introduced into the Scottish Parliament. These details will be based on the restrictions set out in PPERA. The UK Government has committed to act according to the same PPERA-based rules during the 28-day period.”

Now, I do not think that they did that. I do not think that most reasonable Members of this House believe that that is what was done. I will give two examples from among the many that I could use.

The first is, I admit, arguable, but it has already been raised on the Conservative Back Benches. It relates to the production of the vow when there were 10 days of campaigning left. The vow was described by the Chancellor of the Exchequer on “The Andrew Marr Show” on 7 September 2014 in this way:

“You will see in the next few days a plan of action to give more powers to Scotland, more tax powers, more spending powers, more powers over the welfare state.”

One of the arguments in favour of purdah is that the arguments should be laid out and set before the campaign period, and that during the campaign the politicians can debate them and the people can participate in the debate—as they did in huge numbers in Scotland—and make up their minds. It is not meant to be a period during which politicians can say, “Here’s a fresh initiative that we forgot to mention earlier.”

A comparison could be made with the European referendum if, for example, what used to be called the no side were to take the lead, unexpectedly perhaps, with 10 days to go and the German Chancellor or the President of the Republic of France were to suspend Question Time in the Bundestag or the National Assembly, get on a plane and rush across to say that the Prime Minister’s renegotiations of our position had suddenly found more favour with them than had previously been the case.

I accept that this point is arguable. Others could argue that the vow was not really a Government announcement from the Chancellor of the Exchequer, and that he was just speaking off his own bat as a politician. I am not sure that that is a good argument, but it is certainly a cautionary tale.

[Philip Davies]

I always enjoy hearing what the right hon. Gentleman has to say, because he speaks so well and is very persuasive. I should like to put on record that I share his view that the vow made during the independence referendum was completely unacceptable. It was a panic measure that was clearly introduced by the Government, and I envisage exactly the same thing happening in an EU referendum, given the same circumstances.

[Alex Salmond]

I welcome the hon. Gentleman’s intervention. I would have welcomed it even more if he had made it exactly a year ago. I could then have publicised his scepticism about his Government’s motives.

The second example that I shall give the House is, in my view, beyond argument. The purdah period is meant to cover not only Government Ministers but civil servants. Their involvement is arguably defensible throughout the run-up to a referendum. I disagree with the Select Committee on this point; I believe that civil servants should be able to act on behalf of the elected Government of the day. However, during the purdah period, they are not meant to take a position on the matter that has been put in front of the people. I want to make a point about the referendum unit in Her Majesty’s Treasury, which was described by the permanent secretary to the Treasury earlier this year as a “Unionist institution”. The clue is in the name: Her Majesty’s Treasury. This ignores the fact that the monarchy in its present state was formed a century before the treaty of Union, which was under debate. The referendum unit in the Treasury continued its activities throughout the referendum campaign.

I have an email here showing the briefing from Treasury sources that was going on a week before the referendum. The email was sent to the BBC by a civil servant in the referendum unit of Her Majesty’s Treasury—that Unionist institution—and it was designed to influence the conduct of the referendum, one week before the vote. That seems to be a glaring example of what would have been a breach of the purdah regulations, had they been placed in statute rather than simply in the terms of the Edinburgh agreement.

That is why I turn to our amendment 11. The Minister told us earlier that he did not want to be in a position where legal challenges were flying here, there and everywhere, as that would be an impossible position for the Government to be in. The way to avoid that is not by dismissing the regulations, but by having a system for enforcing the regulations—one that does not rely on injunctions, interdicts or legal cases, but one within the regulations that is properly respected. The hon. Member for North Down (Lady Hermon) made the point in an earlier intervention about the Electoral Commission. The way to avoid a recurrence of what happened in the Scottish referendum and to dispel the notion that the Government over these past four months have been trying to pull a fast one on purdah, which is the overwhelming view across this Chamber at this moment, is by having an enforcement mechanism within the regulations on purdah. That could be done via the Electoral Commission, as the hon. Lady suggested, or via a committee of Privy Counsellors—ever since I became one I have become much friendlier to the idea of a committee of Privy Counsellors. There needs to be some respected body to which possible breaches of purdah can be reported, and these can be investigated and then enforced.