European Union (Referendum) Bill

Debate between Baroness Falkner of Margravine and Lord Dobbs

Friday 31st January 2014 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Falkner of Margravine]

My Lords, I rise briefly to point out to the House that the House of Lords Constitution Committee published a comprehensive report on referendums in its session of 2009-10. Its conclusion on thresholds—the noble Lord, Lord Hannay, has commented on 40%—was that:

“We recommend that there should be a general presumption against the use of voter turnout thresholds and supermajorities. We recognise however that there may be exceptional circumstances in which they may be deemed appropriate”.

One of those exceptional circumstances that the committee, of which I was not a member at the time although I am now, had in mind was major constitutional change. I think that there is a general view around the House that the issue we are debating today is one of major constitutional change, and the House may therefore wish to reflect on the advice given by the Constitution Committee at that time.

[Lord Dobbs]

My Lords, another hour, another group of amendments. We have 15 groups of amendments to get through today if we are to reach the end of Committee stage. That is my ambition, so noble Lords will understand if I attempt to be reasonably brief in responding to them.

These amendments go to the very heart of the differences between us. I believe in the Bill because I believe that we politicians have failed the people—it is as simple as that. We have flipped and flopped like a hooked fish dragged out on to the riverbank. I am also in favour of the Bill because I believe that ultimately it is the right of the people to decide their own future. Noble Lords pressing this amendment have an opposite view from me: they believe that Parliament should decide, not the people. In a representative democracy that is an entirely reasonable point of view, except—

European Union (Referendum) Bill

Debate between Baroness Falkner of Margravine and Lord Dobbs

Friday 24th January 2014 Lords Chamber

[Lord Dobbs]

My Lords, this has been a very serious and significant debate. It is the sort of debate that we should have had on this Bill. I thank the noble Lord, Lord Kerr, for the dignified and detailed way in which he introduced his amendment. If I may be forgiven, because it is a very significant amendment, I will take a little time in dealing with it.

I see the logic of so much of what the noble Lord, Lord Kerr, and others have said. I take a different logic, and I need to explain that. This amendment goes right to the heart of why I got involved with this Bill in the first place. I do not want to destroy—far from it, I want to build, and I want to build trust. I do not want to fan any flames; I want to put them out once and for all. I have heard a lot during this debate about our relationship with our European partners, but I think that we should show at least as much if not more concern for the feelings of our own people.

Why do we need a date, or at least a timeframe, because that is what it is? The noble Lord, Lord Kerr, explained with great eloquence and experience how complicated these things are, and he is right. That is why, despite all the promises that have been made, all the forests that have been felled in order to print political manifestos, nothing has been done. That is the cause of the distrust. People have been promised a referendum and have been denied it, time and again. Those are the flames of discontent that I wish to put out. We need a timeframe in order to stop that further decay of trust. Less than 10% of this House would have been too young to vote in the referendum in 1975, but more than 70% of the population of our country fall into that category. We are not representative of the country, least of all in its desire for a referendum.

Let us suppose that the referendum is held in October 2017. Of course, there will be shopping lists of what we have got right, what we have got wrong, where we have failed, where we will gain and where we will lose. But the job will not be finished then. These relationships are never once-and-for-all matters, whether we are in or out of the EU. We will have to deal with it and our relationship will carry on developing. Of course, there will be more to be done. It will not all be finished by October 2017. There is always more to be done. We will not be saying that the job is over once and for all but we will be asking the people if they are willing to support a future in the European Union or outside it.

Why 2017? It is because we as politicians have consistently failed. We have talked the talk but never walked the walk. We have never provided the referendum that we all have talked about at various times. The people want something more solid than yet more broken promises. The question I asked at Second Reading, which the noble Lord, Lord Triesman, was kind enough to acknowledge, was: if not 2017, when? Answer comes there none.

Let us go back eight years. During the past eight years, when would we have said that it was a good time for a referendum? I cannot think of one. There are always reasons not to do something.

[Baroness Falkner of Margravine]

The noble Lord will surely recall that in 2008, on the Lisbon treaty, the Liberal Democrats proposed a referendum on this very question of “in or out”.

[Lord Dobbs]

The noble Baroness will understand that I could spend a great deal of time with a great deal of joy talking about the Liberal Democrat position on referendums and I would happily do that in public, but, if I may, I will pass over that and get on with the points that I want to make. There is always a reason for not doing something. We must be wary in this House of falling into the trap of implying, as several noble Lords have done, that there will never be a good time for such a vote. That is how many people will interpret much of what has been said here today: that too many people feel that there is a never a time to trust them.

This process of negotiation has effectively already begun, with changes to the budget, the common fisheries policy and other things, but I shall not go into the detail of that—now is not the time. Those negotiations will make more progress between now and the referendum, and I believe that we will make more progress after a referendum—that is what a relationship is all about. That brings me to the one hugely significant point that has been mentioned here time and again: that we are binding a future Parliament.

We are no more binding a future Parliament than we did when we passed the Fixed-term Parliaments Act, which said that the election of the next Parliament but one will be held in May 2020. Exactly the same point applies for the date that is in this Bill. Let me pursue that analogy a little further.

If the next Parliament were to decide that the circumstances of the date of that election, in May 2020, were unacceptable for whatever reason, it would change it. If that next Parliament were to decide that the circumstances of the date of this referendum were not acceptable—that it had become fatally flawed perhaps by change in circumstance—it would change that, too. It would need a darned good reason to change it, one that people would find acceptable—not another game that we politicians keep playing with them over this. The people would have to be taken into their confidence, persuaded of any need for a change. However, if we keep putting off the date of this referendum, we will find that that distrust, the poison that Sir John Major said had entered the system—

[Lord Dobbs]

My Lords, the noble Lord makes a good point: if it had any sense. I must remind the noble Lord that the Liberal Democrats had in their previous election manifesto a commitment to an “in or out” referendum, and where are they today? I mentioned at Second Reading that I do not want to make a party-political—

[Baroness Falkner of Margravine]

My Lords—

[Noble Lords]

Order!

[Lord Dobbs]

May I just finish the point? I do not particularly want to make a party-political point of this, because, as I said at Second Reading, all parties are guilty of having changed their stance on this. That is why the people no longer trust us.

[Baroness Falkner of Margravine]

My Lords, would the noble Lord like to tell me on which page of our 2010 manifesto he believes it states we do not have a commitment to a referendum should there be any treaty change or transfer of competencies? Let me update him on Liberal Democrat policy if he wants further assurance—he clearly does. Our commitment is, as passed in September at the Liberal Democrats’ party conference, to have an “in or out” referendum, not just on the basis of treaty change but should there be any transfer or powers or further treaty in future. That is slightly further than the noble Lord’s own party has gone in terms of its last conference.