Parliamentary Sovereignty and EU Renegotiations

Debate between Bernard Jenkin and Peter Grant

Thursday 4th February 2016 Commons Chamber

[Peter Grant]

I have a lot of sympathy with the hon. Gentleman’s comment, but I have to draw his attention to the wording of the motion. It does not mention the sovereignty of the people; it talks about the “importance of parliamentary sovereignty”—[Hon. Members: “They are the same thing.”] The two are most definitely not the same thing. If Parliament is sovereign, does it have the legal and constitutional right to pass any legislation, however morally repugnant it might be, with the people’s only recourse being to wait five years and then vote for different Members of Parliament? That is not a version of parliamentary sovereignty that I recognise, and it is not a version of parliamentary sovereignty that the people of Scotland recognise or will ever be prepared to accept.

[Mr Jenkin]

Will the hon. Gentleman give way?

[Peter Grant]

No, I need to make some progress and the hon. Gentleman made a lot of interventions earlier this afternoon.

I want to look at the second part of the motion, which goes to the nub of the EU membership debate. We have heard the term “ever closer union” being repeated as though it was some kind of threat and we were going to be swallowed up by a big two-headed monster, probably in Germany but possibly in Brussels. I urge Members to look at the wording of the preamble to the European treaties to see what the term was originally intended to mean. The exact wording varies from time to time, but we are talking about ever closer union between the peoples of Europe so that decisions can be taken as close as possible to the people.

I want to ask those Conservative Members, and some on the Opposition Benches, who are determined to argue against the concept of ever closer union: are we really saying that we want to drive the peoples of Europe further apart at a time when we are facing the greatest humanitarian crisis in our history, which nobody believes can be addressed by individual nations acting on their own? Are we really saying that we are against the concept of ever closer union between the peoples of Europe? I also draw Members’ attention to the fact that my use of the word “peoples”—plural—is not some kind of mistake written by Alexander the Meerkat. I am using it deliberately to recognise the diversity of cultures, faiths and beliefs among the peoples of Europe.

Are Members against the idea that decisions should be taken as close to the people as possible? I believe that the term “ever closer union” can still be turned into one of the greatest assertions of the rights of the peoples of Europe that we have ever seen. However, I willingly accept that it is a vision that has not been followed by the institutions of the European Union. Those institutions have failed, and continue to fail, to fulfil the vision that was set out in the original treaties. I would much rather we continued to be part of the European Union so that that vision can be delivered, because I find it not only welcoming but exciting. Just imagine living in a Europe in which monolithic power-mad Eurocrats, whether in Brussels or closer to home, were no longer able to ride roughshod over the will of the people. I remind the House that there was a Prime Minister not long ago who chose to ride roughshod over the will of the people, when the immovable object that was the late Margaret Thatcher met the irresistible force that was the will of the people of Scotland over the imposition of the poll tax. Within two years, that immovable object had been moved. The irresistible force that is the sovereign will of the people of Scotland is still there and will be there forever.

European Union Referendum Bill

Debate between Bernard Jenkin and Peter Grant

Tuesday 8th December 2015 Commons Chamber

[Peter Grant]

I welcome the fact that the hon. Member for Stone (Sir William Cash) is inclined not to press at least one of his amendments. It seems to me that there is, and will be, a need for information about the likely consequences of an in vote and of an out vote. I do not think it is right that that should be left entirely to individual campaigns, because we already know that there are arguments about who runs the campaigns and how they are going to be funded, and by definition they will tell at best one half of the story. It is perfectly in order for the UK Government to publish appropriate information that sets out the background to the referendum. A survey done about a month ago indicated that the EU member state whose citizens are worst informed about what the EU actually means is the EU member state whose citizens are going to have a vote as to whether or not they are going to leave. We cannot allow that to continue; we cannot allow the referendum to come upon us with a significant number of our citizens not really understanding what they are voting for, not because they cannot predict what the future might be if we leave, and not because they cannot predict what the future might be if we stay, but because they do not actually know what the present is. Too many people do not understand what the EU does for good or for bad right now. If we simply leave this to partisan partial campaigns, people are going to end up confused rather than better informed. Incidentally, it is one reason why this might be the time to extend the franchise, because we think that 16 and 17-year-olds do not understand it, but that their lack of understanding probably puts them less far behind adults than in most other election campaigns. That vote has been and gone, however, so we will leave it at that.

I do find it a bit surprising and ironic—I will not go as far as to say hypocritical—that, as we saw when the Bill went through its earlier stages, so many Conservatives express the concern that during a referendum campaign a Government might publish information that was a wee bit one-sided. Most Members would not have received what a number of SNP Members received shortly before the referendum last year, which was a glossy full-colour booklet published by Her Majesty’s Government making sure that we understood the wonderful benefits that accrued to us from membership of the United Kingdom. The UK Government recently advertised for a post, in the Department for International Development of all places, whose main job would be to persuade the Scots how lucky we were to be part of the Union. As long as that kind of stuff goes on, I do not think that we need to take any lessons from anybody on the Government Benches about the dangers of letting Governments get involved in a partial way in a referendum campaign.

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

The Committee I chaired in the last Parliament, the Public Administration Committee, conducted an inquiry into civil service impartiality in referendums in respect of the Scottish referendum. It is one thing if there is a Government in Edinburgh on one side of the argument and a Government in London on the other, each publishing arguments for and against a particular proposition, but where will the balance be in this referendum, given that there is only one United Kingdom Government who will only be on one side of the argument?

[Peter Grant]

It is perfectly in order for the UK Government to take an impartial, neutral stance once we get closer to the referendum. We do not know what stance they will take. There is a question as to whether it was appropriate for somebody else’s Government to interfere in our referendum, but I know that that is not an argument we will win just now. However, that degree of interference probably contributed to the fact that on most days these Benches are significantly more crowded than they were before. If the Government do not produce information, as opposed to campaigning opinion, about how the EU works now, who will produce it? If we are happy for the two opposing camps to produce the information, then they can go ahead and do it, but we know before we start that all that will happen is that people will be drawn to believing statements of fact because of their opinion of the politician or TV personality who has associated their name with them, rather than being presented with a factual, well-researched document that sets out how things are just now.

--- Later in debate ---

[Peter Grant]

My own personal views about how political campaigns and parties are funded probably would not get a huge amount of support here, but that might be something for a ten-minute rule Bill some time over the next four and a half years. The hon. Gentleman makes a valid point. It is important that nobody has the opportunity to buy a referendum any more than anyone should be given the right to buy electoral success. I certainly would not want to see us going the way of America where people need billions of dollars behind them before they can even stand for election.

We are still not addressing the fundamental problem that, no matter how well or badly funded the individual campaigns are, if we are starting from the position of having the least well-informed electorate in Europe on this important issue, someone is going to have to provide the necessary information to bring people up to a better level of understanding of, for example, what “ever closer union” means and does not mean—because it does not mean what it keeps being presented as meaning, even by the Prime Minister.

People need to understand which aspects of immigration to the UK the European Union is involved in and which aspects it is not involved in. They need to understand which aspects of our welcoming of refugees, or our failure to welcome them, involve a European Union decision, and which aspects come under the auspices of the United Nations, for example. These are massively important issues, and the debate in this Chamber over the last months has not always helped to increase public understanding and appreciation of what the European Union does and does not do.

If there are concerns that the Government might not be impartial, or that they might be over-enthusiastic towards one side or the other, I would be quite happy for the Electoral Commission to publish guidance and to require the Government and everyone else to comply with it. It would be inappropriate to ask the Electoral Commission to scrutinise, veto or censor Government documents in the first place, but it would be perfectly in order for it to issue guidance on the conduct of the referendum, including on the kind of information that could and should be funded and published by the Government.

I find myself in the strange position of almost telling Government Back Benchers that they are wrong because the amendment seems to be based on an unwillingness to trust Her Majesty’s Government. I am not the biggest fan of this Government, and I am not the biggest believer that we can trust them, but if they cannot be trusted to present a fair case to the public in this matter, we are in trouble. The media will not present such a case; the print media absolutely will not do so. The political campaigns will not do so because it is not their job to be impartial. It is their job to be partisan, although perhaps not in a party political sense, on the issues that they are campaigning on.

I welcome the fact, if it is confirmed, that the hon. Member for Stone is to withdraw his amendment (a) to Lords amendment 5. I hope that he will not press his amendment to Lords amendment 6 as well. There is a crying need for reliable, well-researched information to be put into the public domain. Let us not forget that, a few yards from here, we have one of the most highly regarded research facilities anywhere in the world. It is highly regarded not only for the quality of its research and the speed with which it is done but, most importantly, for its impartiality. If we cannot rely on the research facilities within this House to provide reliable, well-documented information, who can we rely on?

[Mr Jenkin]

I point out to the hon. Member for Glenrothes (Peter Grant) that, whether he thinks it an irony, an accident or something more sinister, it is the people who are in favour of Britain remaining in the European Union who are championing Lords amendment 6, while those who support the leave campaign regard it as a bit of a Trojan horse that would enable the publication of a lot of subjective judgments loaded in favour of one side and not the other.

I referred to the report published at the end of the last Parliament by the Public Administration Committee entitled “Lessons for Civil Service impartiality from the Scottish independence referendum.” The reason that we produced the report was to look at the question of impartiality. There is a rather modern, corrosive view that the concept of impartiality, when applied to civil servants, means simply that they should be prepared to work for whichever party happens to be in office, that by so doing they are therefore impartial and that their conduct can then be quite partial and loaded under the Armstrong doctrine, which states that they have to support the Government of the day. Actually, I think most people in this country regard impartiality as a rather more imprecise quality, with a higher moral tone. They see it as having something to do with objectivity, with balance and with not being compromised into becoming a mere cheerleader for one point of view or another.