Government Referendum Leaflet

Bernard Jenkin Excerpts

Monday 11th April 2016 Commons Chamber

[Mr Speaker]

Order. Patience rewarded. I was rather worried about the hon. Member for Harwich and North Essex (Mr Jenkin) and I would not want him to be perturbed in any way.

[Mr Bernard Jenkin (Harwich and North Essex) (Con)]

Thank you, Mr Speaker; I sometimes get worried about myself.

May I inform my right hon. Friend that the Public Administration Committee is receiving evidence to suggest that this is going to be a less fair referendum even than the one held in 1975 before there were any proper rules on referendums? At least in that referendum, the grants given out to the two campaigns were worth twice the amount of the present grants. Also, when the then Government distributed their own leaflet in 1975, they provided information on a no vote as well as on a yes vote. We are not getting that now. It has been suggested that today’s leaflet simply has facts in it, but who believes that we now live in a “reformed EU” except for the fantasists in the Foreign Office? Who believes that

“we will keep our own border controls”

when we have to admit almost any person who says that they are an EU citizen? Who believes that

“the UK will not be part of further political integration”?

Does not this compare to the claim in Harold Wilson’s leaflet that

“decisions can be taken only if all the members of the Council agree”?

Remember that one? Does it not also compare to John Major’s claim that Maastricht “addressed and corrected” the “centralising tendency” that many were so worried about? We have heard all the stories before, but they are not facts.

[Mr Lidington]

I do not think anything that I say or that the Government might publish could persuade my hon. Friend on this matter, given his track record in this debate. He has been absolutely consistent in his views and I respect that, even though I disagree vehemently with him. He made a serious point about the timing of the distribution and the fact that the Government’s leaflet was not going out at the same time as the leaflets from the remain and leave campaigns. We would have preferred to circulate the Government’s leaflet later in the campaign. The statutory rules under the Political Parties, Elections and Referendums Act 2000, which prohibit us from making such communications in the final 28 days of the campaign, did not apply during the 1975 referendum period. We accepted the advice of the Electoral Commission that it would be wrong for us to distribute the Government leaflet in a way that interfered with the national elections in Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland. That is why we have aimed to have the distribution earlier than we might have chosen to do in an ideal world.