European Union (Referendum) Bill

Baroness Primarolo Excerpts

Friday 8th November 2013 Commons Chamber

[Mr Kevan Jones]

On a point of order, Madam Deputy Speaker. I know that we are considering a private Member’s Bill, but is it in order for its promoter, the hon. Member for Stockton South (James Wharton), to be taking advice from Foreign Office civil servants in the Box?

[Madam Deputy Speaker (Dawn Primarolo)]

I say to the hon. Gentleman that it is normal for Ministers to approach the Box, and only Ministers. I did not see anyone approach the Box.

[Kerry McCarthy (Bristol East) (Lab)]

He’s there!

[Madam Deputy Speaker]

Order. I know where the hon. Gentleman is now thank you, Ms McCarthy, but I am saying that I did not see him approach the Box and I am sure he will not do that. It is supposed to be for Ministers. Having eyes in the back of my head is not a skill I have yet developed, but I am sure the protocol will be observed.

[Mr Jones]

rose—

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[Madam Deputy Speaker]

Order. There cannot be anything further to that point of order. I have said that Ministers may approach the Box and nobody else should. I am sure that from now on nobody else will, apart from Ministers or their Parliamentary Private Secretaries. Where were we?

[Mike Gapes]

I was halfway through giving way, Madam Deputy Speaker. Has my hon. Friend the Member for Glasgow North East (Mr Bain) concluded his intervention?

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[Mr Jones]

On a point of order, Madam Deputy Speaker.

[Madam Deputy Speaker (Dawn Primarolo)]

It had better be a point of order, Mr Jones.

[Mr Jones]

The convention in the House is that if Members seek to intervene, the speaker usually acknowledges them and either says no or yes. I would like some guidance, because the Minister has been completely ignoring those trying to get in.

[Madam Deputy Speaker]

Mr Jones, you know full well that that is not a point of order. It is entirely up to the Minister or the Member who has the Floor to decide to whom they give way, but perhaps the Minister could indicate to the House whether he wishes to make some progress.

[Mr Lidington]

Members from all three main parties have made some serious points about Gibraltar.

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[Huw Irranca-Davies]

On a point of order, Madam Deputy Speaker. From the start of the debate, I have listened intently to every word. I believe that perhaps inadvertently the Government Front-Bench spokesman has misrepresented the position of our Front-Bench team. However, he is refusing to give way. Is there any recourse for our Front-Bench team to clarify a point not only of debate but of accuracy?

[Madam Deputy Speaker (Dawn Primarolo)]

I get the gist. It is not a point of order. The Minister has the Floor and is responsible for what he says to the House. Opposition Front Benchers will get their opportunity to speak in the debate. If the Minister does not wish to give way, that is a matter for him. The normal courtesies are that Members give way at some point, but they do not have to do so repeatedly.

[Mr Lidington]

The hon. Member—

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[Several hon. Members]

rose—

[Madam Deputy Speaker]

Minister, are you giving way?

[Mr Lidington]

indicated dissent.

[Madam Deputy Speaker]

The Minister has concluded his remarks.

[Mr Bain]

I rise to support amendment 69. I would also like to comment on other amendments, including those tabled by my hon. Friend the Member for Ilford South (Mike Gapes).

Some important points have been raised about the franchise. The first I would take up is the one about EU nationals. I have a regular correspondence with a Danish constituent in the Hogganfield part of my constituency who is married to a UK national, and has the right to vote in a Scottish Parliament election, a local government election in Scotland and European elections in this country. He will have the right to vote in the Scottish referendum, but under the Bill as drafted by the hon. Member for Stockton South (James Wharton) he will not have the right to vote in this referendum.

That throws up an interesting anomaly. We know that one of the implications of the Scottish referendum is that Scotland would no longer be an EU member state. Therefore, my constituent is being allowed the opportunity to vote once on whether to stay in the EU, but in the event of Scotland’s voting to stay in the UK he would be denied the opportunity to vote a second time on whether to stay part of the EU as a citizen of the UK. Such anomalies show the mess that the hon. Gentleman and the Government are getting themselves into with the Bill as currently drafted.

My hon. Friend the Member for Ilford South mentioned prisoners’ right to vote. Of course none of us in the House wants prisoners who have been convicted of serious offences or given long sentences to be given the right to vote, but an important point in relation to the franchise of prisoners in referendums came up in the discussion about the Scottish referendum. It is regrettable that we have not been joined by the Attorney-General because we would have benefited from his good counsel on that point. There is case law from the European Court of Human Rights in 2008. That says that article 3 of protocol 1, which deals with the right to vote and participate in democratic votes, says that that right is qualified, is limited to the choice of the legislature and does not apply to the election of a Head of State or indeed to referendums.

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[Mr Sheerman]

On a point of order, Madam Deputy Speaker. I have been in the House quite a long time, but I have never known a debate on a private Member’s Bill in which, after two and a half hours, the promoter still has not said a word. Is that right that he never speaks, and that the Minister dominates the conversation?

[Madam Deputy Speaker (Dawn Primarolo)]

That is not a point of order. It is entirely up to Members to indicate when they want to speak. In fact, I have a long list of Members who have indicated that they want to speak in this debate, and it would be good to make some progress.

[Mr Bain]

Thank you, Madam Deputy Speaker. I hope that the Prime Minister will grace us with his presence later, given his keen interest in the Bill.

[Huw Irranca-Davies]

A crucial point is the cost of compensation resulting from prisoners mounting challenges under the legislation. Would my hon. Friend be willing to give way if the promoter of the Bill—

[Madam Deputy Speaker]

Order. That is quite enough. If the promoter of the Bill wishes to take part in the debate, he will indicate that in the normal way. I do not require Mr Bain to comment on that. I would like him to speak to his amendment and the other amendments that we are discussing.

[Mr Bain]

Thank you, Madam Deputy Speaker.

I fully support the amendment on votes at 16 tabled by my hon. Friend the Member for Ilford South. It is clear that 16 and 17-year-olds will have the right to vote in the Scottish referendum, and I support that right for all elections. It is intolerable that, as Demos showed in 2010, 16 and 17-year-olds contributed £500 million in taxes over the preceding 10 years but are still disfranchised.

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[Meg Hillier]

Yes, I have made that very point. All of us in the Chamber have called the Secretary of State for Education to account, and no doubt even he would be keen to ensure that education about democracy was filtering down to our local schools through the national framework. We ask a lot of our schools, but it is important to develop that area of education, and it is right for us to provide an imperative to develop it. Frankly, if something is good enough for the Scots, it is good enough for Hackney’s 16 and 17-year-olds and those from London, England, Wales and Northern Ireland.

Let me touch on some of the other amendments in the group. We have spent an awful lot of time discussing Gibraltar, so you will be glad to know, Madam Deputy Speaker, that I am not planning to discuss the 20,000 votes of the Gibraltarians, albeit not because that is unimportant. My hon. Friend the Member for Ilford South (Mike Gapes) has tabled significant amendments about British citizens and residents and their right to vote, and I feel strongly about this issue. When I was a Minister, I spent a lot of time dealing with not only issues affecting the UK, but European issues. During my three years as a Minister, I had quite a lot of contact with British citizens in Spain who were interested in and concerned about policies. I was the Minister responsible for identity cards, and those British citizens in Spain were among the greatest cheerleaders for those cards and wanted to be early adopters of the scheme. They have a strong interest in what is going on in their mother country and are keen to have a vote.

If we want to be fair in this referendum, we must unpick the Government's muddle. Why have they chosen the parliamentary boundaries rather than the local government boundaries, which will be used in the referendum in Scotland? There is a confusing message about who is a voter in this country.

My constituency is one of the most multicultural in the country, as well as one of the youngest, so Hackney is certainly up there at the top of what I like to think of as the chart of achievement. I have a large number of European and African constituents, as well as people with leave to remain and naturalised British citizens. Many of those people can vote in different elections, but there is often confusion about in which elections they can vote. Overall, the message from today’s debate is that we must be clearer about who has the right to vote.

Ultimately, in a European election, it is important that those from the wider European arena have the chance to vote. For instance, a French person living in Britain can vote for an MEP either where they live or where they are from—they have that choice. In this case, they would not have that choice. They would not be able to vote in this referendum, despite their links to Europe—this is obviously a European issue as well as a British issue—and to the UK.

I fully support amendment 45, which would enfranchise all those entitled to vote in European elections, including EU citizens. I feel very sore that I cannot vote in the Scottish referendum, as I am a British citizen with strong views about Scotland’s remaining part of the UK so that we stand united as a group of nations in Europe and the world. I do not get a say on that, and I think that that a similar anomaly will occur with this referendum.

On amendment 47, I feel that it is only fair that British citizens living in EU member states should get a say. As I said, I have had contact with those citizens abroad, and they feel that they are British even though they have chosen to live in another part of the EU. They have not gone to Timbuktu; they live in the political and economic union of which we are part. They are EU citizens, but feel that they are British EU citizens wherever they live. We are all EU citizens and we must see the issue in its EU context.

There are good reasons why many of those people would be important voters, and why 16 and 17-year-olds should be voting to support our membership of the EU. Although there is a need for some reform, as I saw at first hand during three years of negotiating on behalf of the British Government in the EU, there are huge benefits to our being part of Europe, especially with regard to justice and home affairs measures. We therefore need to ensure that all people who should have a vote get a vote.

I will not go into those benefits in enormous detail, Madam Deputy Speaker, because I fear your opprobrium if I go too far off the subject, but let us consider some of them. The much-discussed European arrest warrant, for all its faults, still provides major protection across Europe. I commend the Select Committee on Home Affairs for its report that considered all such issues, particularly the European arrest warrant. Without the warrant, we would need 27 separate treaties with EU member states to deal with the problem. It is important that we get the franchise right so that people can vote on such an important issue.

There is also a benefit from the European Union criminal records information system. People repeatedly worry when employing people from an EU member state that does not have our ability to check criminal records, which we do through our vetting and barring scheme, as they are not sure who they are getting. That information system is one way that the situation is being improved through European co-operation. If we cannot opt back into that system, it will be a real concern. I do not want to confuse the debate by going into the opt-ins and opt-outs on justice and home affairs, but those are big issues that affect and benefit Britain. Similarly, the Schengen information system—

[Madam Deputy Speaker (Dawn Primarolo)]

Order. The hon. Lady is drifting considerably away from the subject. Occasionally saying, “That is why it is important to broaden the franchise,” is not keeping her comments in order. I would be grateful if she would refer specifically to the amendments, rather than the wider debate.

[Meg Hillier]

As I hinted, Madam Deputy Speaker, I suspected that I would be tempted to drift away. Thank you for reining me in, as my natural enthusiasm for this subject overtook me.

It is important that young people should have the chance to vote on these vital issues. British citizens living abroad should also have that chance to vote, because they will be affected by Britain’s opt-out, wherever they are living in the EU. EU citizens living in Britain also should have the chance to vote. I hope that I have made my points clear. Notwithstanding my concerns that a vote to remove Britain from the EU would be a great mistake, if we are to go down the route of having a referendum, we must ensure that it is fair and that the franchise is as wide as is reasonable to ensure that nobody feels excluded or cut out from this important decision.

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[Mr Thomas]

My hon. Friend makes a very good point. It is a tragedy that the hon. Member for Stockton South, who is responsible for this Bill, is not in his place to defend his actions.

[Madam Deputy Speaker (Dawn Primarolo)]

Order. Obviously, lots of things are said in this Chamber, but I am duty bound to point out that the hon. Member for Stockton South has been present for most of the time and that he informed the Chair that he needed to pop out for a few minutes. Although speculation is rife, I am sure he will be back very soon.

[Mr Thomas]

If the hon. Gentleman does come back soon, I would certainly be willing to accept an intervention from him so that he can defend his behaviour.

[Chris Williamson]

I note that my hon. Friend does not take The Northern Echo, but does he take the Derby Evening Telegraph? Just down the road from where the paper is based is the Toyota factory, which was the biggest inward investment in western Europe when it was made. It is clear that, were it not for Britain’s membership of the European Union, that investment would not have come to the UK and to Derbyshire. It has benefitted my constituency and the county and created thousands upon thousands of jobs. Would my hon. Friend care to comment on the impact that this Bill and leaving the EU would have on Toyota?

[Madam Deputy Speaker]

Order. We are talking about the specific amendments, which are about the franchise. I cannot quite see how they stretch as far as Toyota, unless the hon. Member for Harrow West (Mr Thomas) is going to enlighten me.

[Mr Thomas]

I hope to come to the amendments on the possibility of giving 16 and 17-year-olds—some of whom may be looking forward to a career in Toyota—the right to vote. Let me clarify that I do not read the Derby Evening Telegraph. I happen to think that the Harrow Observer and the Harrow Times are the better newspapers to read.

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[Mr Kevan Jones]

On a point of order, Madam Deputy Speaker. I know that you follow the rules of the House closely, and clearly the rules on photography in the Chamber are very strict. As you know, this morning I have been keeping a close eye on the Box, and I was aware that a minute ago one of its occupants was holding up his mobile phone. I do not know whether he inadvertently did not know the rules on filming proceedings, and I ask for your guidance on that, Madam Deputy Speaker.

[Madam Deputy Speaker (Dawn Primarolo)]

It is quite simple: photography in the Chamber is not allowed by anybody. I am sure that those on the Treasury Benches are capable of ensuring that that includes civil servants in the Box.

[Mr Jones]

Further to that point of order, Madam Deputy Speaker. I accept that point, but would it be in order for Mr Speaker, or someone else, to check that the individual was not filming in the Chamber?

[Madam Deputy Speaker]

I am advised that we can ask a Doorkeeper to undertake that should it be necessary.

[James Wharton (Stockton South) (Con)]

claimed to move the closure (Standing Order No. 36).

Question put forthwith, That the Question be now put.

The House proceeded to a Division.

[Madam Deputy Speaker (Dawn Primarolo)]

I ask the Serjeant at Arms to investigate the delay in the No Lobby.