European Union (Notification of Withdrawal) Bill

Baroness Wheatcroft Excerpts

Committee: 1st sitting (Hansard): House of Lords
Monday 27th February 2017 Lords Chamber

[Lord Lamont of Lerwick]

We look forward to that clarification. If we wanted to, we could quote many other Liberals, not least Mr Vince Cable, who I am sorry is not in this House. He made it clear that he thought that there should be no second referendum:

“The public have voted and I do think it’s seriously disrespectful and politically utterly counterproductive to say: ‘Sorry guys, you’ve got it wrong, we’re going to try again’, I don’t think we can do that”.


My noble friend Lord Cormack made the point that there is also the assumption that the EU definitely wants us to remain in. There is also the assumption behind the amendment that Article 50 is reversible. As I understand the position, this is legally an open question. The Supreme Court did not opine on it because the two parties to the case, Mrs Miller and the Government, agreed that they would not argue about the issue in front of the court, so it did not take a view. I understand that lawyers are divided on the matter, but it is by no means clear that Article 50, once it has been invoked, is reversible.

Regardless of what the legal argument is, politically it seems difficult to believe that Article 50 could be reversed. Would the EU really want to negotiate with a country that is saying, “Well, we will get some terms from you which we will put back to the people, and then we may come back and ask for a better set of terms if they are not satisfactory”? If my noble friend Lord Cormack and I are wrong about this and the EU definitely and 100% wants us to remain in, it will give us the worst possible bargain, knowing that it has to be endorsed by both Parliament and a referendum. The amendment that has been proposed seems to be opportunistic and it does not have any logic to it at all.

[Baroness Wheatcroft (Con)]

My Lords, “the will of the people” is a phrase much bandied around in the wake of the referendum and it has taken on a totemic significance. Anyone who suggests that the country should not now blindly leap off the cliff into the unknown that is hard Brexit risks being accused of trying to defy the will of the people. When the Supreme Court judges examined the Government’s plans to ride roughshod over the principle of the sovereignty of Parliament, they met with a disgraceful headline labelling them “Enemies of the people”. Their determination to stand up for the rule of law rather than the rule of the mob was seen as defying the will of the people.

I do not wish to defy the will of the people. Amendment 3, introduced so persuasively by the noble Lord, Lord Newby, proposes the opposite of defying the will of the people. It is about upholding democracy, not denying it. It simply proposes that once the terms of our withdrawal from the EU are clear, the public should be given the final say on whether to accept them. As I said at Second Reading, I cannot understand why even the most devoted Brexiteers would not wish to give the public the final say on the terms of such a momentous decision unless they feared that the terms might not be acceptable.

The process would demand simply that Parliament should approve the terms by a resolution of both Houses. In answer to the noble Lord, Lord Grocott, it would be the vote of the Commons that was decisive; we know our place in this Chamber. If there is no deal, however, and the Government simply decide to withdraw from the EU, this too should be the subject of a resolution of both Houses. I will support a later amendment that calls for that procedure. I believe it to be absolutely crucial that, if the Government think that they have secured a good deal for this country, that deal should be put to the public in a referendum.

We are a proudly democratic country. We hold elections and we abide by the results even if the majority is wafer thin. The party with the largest number of MPs gets to govern. But the difference between a general election and the referendum is that a few years down the line the country has a chance to change its mind and to think again. People judge the efforts of those whom they have elected and, if they are not satisfied, they throw them out. A Parliament is not for life. However, when the country is now embarking on one of the most momentous decisions ever, a decision that will affect our children and our children’s children, there seems to be a perverse determination to insist that the people have made their bed and that, no matter how uncomfortable it may be, they are jolly well going to lie in it in perpetuity.

[Lord Forsyth of Drumlean]

While we are on the subject of being uncomfortable, is my noble friend comfortable with the many press reports following the referendum of her saying that she would use her position in the House of Lords to prevent and reverse the decision taken by the people? Is she comfortable with the idea of unelected Members of this House using procedure to try to frustrate the result of the referendum?

[Baroness Wheatcroft]

My Lords, I have just said that I have no intention of defying the will of the people; I am giving the people a chance to exercise their will, which some noble Lords may not wish to do. I do not believe that we should not give the people the final say.

When a majority of those voting voted to leave the EU, they had different visions of what that would entail. In answer to my noble friend Lord Lamont, I do not think that the original referendum was, with the benefit of hindsight, drafted as well as it might have been, because I think that people were voting for different things. Some might have favoured an arrangement that continued to give us strong trading links with Europe while others might have voted with a view that we could remain very close to the single market. Some might have hoped that our students would be able to continue their education throughout Europe while others, particularly those in the financial services sector, would almost certainly have been hoping that what they were voting for was an arrangement that would allow their products to be passported into Europe so that they could continue doing business as they do now. That looks increasingly unlikely to happen, with dire consequences for our Exchequer. The one thing on which most voters would surely have agreed is, as others have suggested in this debate, that they were not voting to get poorer.

The most logical solution is that, once the terms of departure are clear, the public should be able to weigh them up and decide whether they want them. Do those who oppose such a suggestion not believe that the British electorate are capable of examining a deal and judging it on its merits? To take that view certainly would be to show contempt for the electorate and I do not. I am not a fan of government by referenda, but nevertheless once one has embarked on that route, it seems that only a referendum can complete the process. This is about listening to the will of the people, not defying it.

[Lord Grocott]

My Lords, I had not intended to speak but I need to, because so far no one has addressed the specific terms of the amendment that is before the Committee. There is no element of sarcasm in this when I say that that is uncharacteristic of the noble Lord, Lord Newby. I asked him a specific question about his amendment. Also uncharacteristically, the noble Baroness, Lady Wheatcroft, has made a speech that is not based on the terms of the amendment. So let me remind the Committee briefly of what the amendment states. Three conditions are set out:

“No agreement with the European Union … may be ratified unless … it has been laid before and approved by a resolution of each House of Parliament”.


I do not know what meaning that has other than that it has to be approved by a resolution of each House of Parliament, which the noble Baroness, Lady Wheatcroft, said is not a problem because we always defer to the lower House. If that is the case, it needs to be in the amendment.

European Union (Notification of Withdrawal) Bill

Baroness Wheatcroft Excerpts

Report stage (Hansard): House of Lords
Tuesday 7th March 2017 Lords Chamber

[Lord Carlile of Berriew]

My Lords, as I think the noble Lord, Lord Ashdown, knows, I have enormous admiration for his skill and ability. He is at his best when he makes points with simplicity, but that point was not made with simplicity. I am totally confused by what he sought to say and I reject his argument completely. He knows perfectly well, as all the Liberal Democrats know, that what was put to the country was a referendum in the normal constitutional and legal form. No Liberal Democrat, least of all the noble Lord, Lord Ashdown—perhaps he was too busy eating his hat as a result of his comments on television during the general election—suggested for one moment that there was something different about the referendum that we faced last June. However, I am sure that noble Lords will want me to move on.

The truth of the matter is that we are facing this proposal for the second time—now rather better drafted, thanks to the intervention of the noble Lord, Lord Grocott—because unfortunately the Liberal Democrats do not like the result of last June’s referendum. Nor did I, but my advice to your Lordships’ House, for what it is worth, is: be careful what you wish for. The Liberal Democrats’ record on referenda ain’t so good. Noble Lords will recall the alternative vote referendum, as well as what happened in June. Indeed, I would say that Amendment 1 seeks to compress a huge quantity of extremely complicated issues into a simplistic binary question. It just will not work, and the Government do not need this kind of patronising advice in order to get on with the negotiations.

I now turn briefly to the constitutional issue. The noble Lord, Lord Newby, failed to answer the challenge from the noble Lord, Lord Grocott, as to whether it would be a binding or an advisory referendum. He sought to answer it by saying that he thought that, on balance, it would be a binding referendum. If that is the basis of this amendment, it is ridiculous, because there is no provision in the law for a binding referendum.

The whole debate we have been having in your Lordships’ House has been about how much respect we should pay to the referendum that took place last June. My answer is that we should pay a lot of respect to it. I do not want to leave the European Union, but I recognise that the referendum has taken us to Article 50, which we must get on with triggering as soon as possible. The Government know perfectly well what they have to do. They know that, if they produce a completely unsatisfactory result, they will face a Motion of no confidence in the other place and will fall. We can well do without messing around with the arrangements which should now be in action.

[Baroness Wheatcroft (Con)]

My Lords, I have no wish to get involved in Liberal Democrat internecine warfare but I put my name to this amendment and I support many of the speeches that have been made in support of it.

My noble friend the Minister has done a very skilful job in getting the Bill to this stage in this House, but in Committee he told us to be in no doubt that this country was leaving the EU—no ifs, no buts, and with no idea of the terms. I admire determination but not when it is blind to changing circumstances. I cannot see why any Government would be so adamant about a course of action with no knowledge of the circumstances in which they might take that course.

We do not know what the world will look like in two years’ time. Economically and politically it is at some of the most uncertain stages that I have ever seen in my lifetime. In two years’ time, the EU, the world and our economy could look very different—and, I suspect, not for the better. At that stage, we will be able to look at the deal that our Government have negotiated or, as others have pointed out, at the no deal that they have been handed. Although I am not an advocate of government by referenda, in this situation, having started the process with a referendum, as the noble Lord, Lord Hain, pointed out, it seems to me that the only sensible way to bring the process to an end is to put the terms to the public. I have listened to the arguments of the noble Lord, Lord Carlile, and I do not dismiss the patronising advice that he gave the Liberal Democrats or those supporting this amendment, but I believe that the public need to see what is on offer.

During the course of this Bill, we have heard that, whatever people voted for on 23 June last year, it was not to get poorer. I cannot see that in the end the Government will be presenting them with a deal which does not mean that they get poorer. I believe that at that stage they should have a chance to vote on whether, having seen the future, it is the future that they really want.

[Lord Morgan (Lab)]

My Lords, there was a previous referendum on Europe in 1975. On that occasion, it was not taken as holy writ and as something that it was almost obscene to vote against. On the contrary, in 1979 the Labour Party said that it would ignore and vote against the referendum result—there were no difficulties there—and so did a very large number of Conservatives, headed by Mr Enoch Powell. Therefore, I cannot see why the advisory referendum of 1975, where the majority was 33%, should somehow be treated so casually, whereas this referendum, with a majority of, I think, 3.8%, is somehow treated reverentially, with the view that we should all genuflect before the will of the people.

I link this amendment with Amendment 3, which I shall also support. Amendment 3 confirms the view so wisely put by the Supreme Court that sovereignty in this country resides in the two Houses of Parliament. That was the view taken and it is the view that will be proclaimed in Amendment 3. Referendums are always advisory—they are to help Parliament in reaching a view. It is best to have an informed referendum. The last one was not in the least informed; it was a process of serial lying and deception, which added nothing to public understanding. As the facts emerge, I think that public understanding will change substantially.

We need to ask the view of the people again to assist Parliament when the facts are known—when the car workers at Vauxhall, the steel workers at Port Talbot and the car workers at Sunderland will be forming a view on employment, trade and Britain’s economic relationships with a wider world. It would also be when we have had an opportunity to have the views of young people, deprived of voting this time and whose futures are imperilled by this ill-informed, almost non-informed, decision.

Another referendum will not be taken in a one-world universe; it will be taken when the views on Brexit of those other 27 countries, views which are quite important, are also known. As I believe was the Labour Party in 1979 and 1983 in respect of the previous referendum, as well as a growing number of Conservatives, I am in favour of regarding the referendum that we had in June last year as ill-informed, or almost uninformed, guidance. I would prefer informed guidance and that is why I shall vote for this amendment.