European Union Bill

Baroness Falkner of Margravine Excerpts

Tuesday 5th April 2011 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Falkner of Margravine]

My Lords, it is tempting in Committee to refer to the several speeches that have been made before your own. I will try to refrain from that and speak to the amendment. Before I do, though, I say to the noble Lord, Lord Richard, and several of the other speakers who said that they had not heard anything from these Benches on Amendment 1 that it was only courtesy that made me hold back. There were several names to that amendment on the Marshalled List, one of them from within Liberal Democrat ranks, and I was holding back to hear from noble Lords whose names were on the Marshalled List. As I was about to get up to impart my pearls of wisdom to the Committee, the noble Lord, Lord Richard, got up and said that he had had enough and he wanted to hear from the Front Benches. It was only out of respect for the noble Lord’s diktat that I sat quietly and said nothing on Amendment 1. It was not that we had nothing to say; the unpredictability of that invigorating debate was what held me back. I will speak for myself.

--- Later in debate ---

[Lord Richard]

The noble Baroness has used the word “deference” perhaps three times. Who on earth has talked about deference? I did not mention the word and I have not heard it mentioned in this Chamber this evening. What on earth is she talking about?

[Baroness Falkner of Margravine]

I think that the noble Lord, Lord Richard, knows exactly what I am talking about, and what I am talking about is trust. I am talking about an attitude. He can read Hansard as well as I will tomorrow, and he will see that I said that there was a tone—I did not suggest that the word “deference” had been used—in proceedings earlier this evening, and the tone is, “We know best”.

[Lord Hannay of Chiswick]

I am most grateful to the noble Baroness for giving way. I really think that she ought not to use this term “deference”. If I understand it rightly, this House is part of the legislature of this country and has a voice to express views on matters and to take decisions. We are not asking for the people of this country to express deference; we are expressing a view about the constitution of this country. That cannot be dismissed by accusing people who say that they are against referendums of camping on deference. I would like, frankly, to abandon that thought, which I do not think fits in our constitutional practice.

[Baroness Falkner of Margravine]

My Lords, again, I have to say that I think that when we say that we are giving up representative democracy in favour of plebiscitary democracy, we are on ground which is difficult to explain out there in the media. In the debate on Amendment 1, the noble Lord, Lord Kerr of Kinlochard, said that it was undoubtedly true that the public did not trust Parliament on EU matters to the extent that they had done in the past, and that there was a disconnect—

[Lord Kerr of Kinlochard]

I did not say that. I said that I shared the view expressed by the noble Lord, Lord Howell, that the public at large have become less convinced of the merits of the European Union. I said nothing about Parliament and its role in relation to the process.

[Baroness Falkner of Margravine]

I thank the noble Lord for reminding us of his exact words. It will be useful to read Hansard when it comes out. I completely accept that his version is probably the appropriate version of what was said. However, I will pursue the point I am making for another second or two. I say this particularly in response to the noble Lord, Lord Hannay. It is pretty difficult to justify the idea that an unelected House of Lords, which is absolutely part of the constitutional framework, should deliberate at length about whether the public are capable of making a judgment on matters of considerable significance—that is how they see them according to opinion polls—but that we should then disregard that, as this amendment would do, by saying, “We will have a referendum, we will come back and we will disregard it”. That is my opinion, which I am sharing with the Committee as other noble Lords have done.

I come back to the other element in this group of amendments, which is the 40 per cent threshold. I think that noble Lords will agree that you could get a very low turnout—perhaps it was the noble Lord, Lord Clinton-Davis, who mentioned something like 20 per cent. However, given that the public are being asked to express a view on the matter, it would be odd subsequently to overturn the Act of Parliament which had determined that the change should go ahead simply because the turnout was low. The need to gain a particular threshold would set another hurdle for the Minister to jump over. I am not completely opposed to the figure, but it is rather curious that it is 40 per cent.

I also think it rather curious that we would be saying, “If it is 39 per cent we will not accept it, but if it is 41 per cent we will”. It is an arbitrary figure. We could select any arbitrary figure, and I do not understand where the 40 per cent figure comes from. If a Minister had signed up to a change and we had an Act of Parliament, it would be incumbent on the Government to sell their viewpoint. That would be set out in the statement and in the reasoning given in the statement. As for the suggestion that the failure to convince 40 per cent of the public to vote in favour might result in the resignation of Ministers, I think that, in that case, that would be the honourable thing for Ministers to do. As the Bill stands, however, there is no threshold. It simply states that if,

“the majority of those voting in the referendum are in favour of the ratification of the treaty”,

that is the way to go.

[Lord Grenfell]

I apologise for not hearing all the introduction of the noble Lord, Lord Williamson. I was searching for Sir Patrick Nairne’s commission’s report on referendums issued 15 years ago. I found what I wanted; it is on the subject of thresholds. He said:

“The main difficulty in specifying a threshold lies in determining what figure is sufficient to confer legitimacy e.g. 60%, 65% or 75%”.

Forty per cent is modest to the point of indulgence. I cannot understand why anyone who is considering Amendment 6 would think that a threshold of 40 per cent of those entitled to vote was more than they could bear. It seems a big concession. Sir Patrick said in a footnote:

“A turnout threshold may make extraneous factors, such as the weather on polling day, more important”.

I have always been very suspicious of people who start talking about the weather in relation to polling, because it can work both ways. If it is pouring with rain, people tend to stay at home; if it is a beautiful, sunny and warm day, they can find external activities more interesting than going to a polling station. That theory does not work well.

My second point is that the Government cannot have it both ways. If you want to resort to a simple plurality in a referendum, you should bear in mind that the general sentiment in Parliament, and perhaps outside, is that major constitutional change should be the result of something more than a simple plurality. The obverse of that is that matters subject to a simple plurality cannot be quite so important. The Government cannot have it both ways. If they resort to a simple plurality, it suggests that they would consider the subject of a mandatory referendum as being of high constitutional importance. If it is not deemed to be of high constitutional importance, why is there the need for a mandatory referendum?

I am against referendums in general, but the idea of having a simple plurality for something that the Government do not consider to be of high constitutional importance is, quite honestly, unacceptable.