European Union Bill

Chris Bryant Excerpts

Tuesday 1st February 2011 Commons Chamber

[Mr Lidington]

Clause 19 provides for the financial provisions associated with some of the provisions of the Bill, mainly those in part 2 required for the implementation of the transitional protocol on MEPs. Any costs incurred as a result of our implementation of the protocol will be met from the Consolidated Fund.

[Chris Bryant (Rhondda) (Lab)]

How much will that new MEP cost?

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[Mr Lidington]

The hon. Gentleman invites me to speculate on what the procedure would be were there to be a tie in the event of a very unlikely by-election covering the whole of the west midlands region. I will seek advice in order to be certain of my position and write to him or respond to him later in the debate.

[Chris Bryant]

I am grateful to the Minister for being so generous in giving way, as he always is. He has suggested that Members of this House or the House of Lords are barred from being Members of the European Parliament, but I do not think that that is the law. I would be grateful if he could advance the Act of Parliament in which that is stated. I thought that the Rev. Dr Ian Paisley was simultaneously a Member of this House and the European Parliament for a considerable time.

[Mr Lidington]

That was possible for a long time, but the rules were changed and the right hon. and noble Lord Bannside, as he now is, decided to leave the European Parliament at the appropriate election because he wished to remain a Member of the House of Commons.

The other costs covered by clause 19 arise by virtue of clause 13, which provides that the Electoral Commission shall

“take whatever steps they think appropriate to promote public awareness… and… may take steps they think appropriate to promote public awareness of the subject-matter”

in connection with any referendums held, pursuant to part 1 of the Bill. Clause 19 provides for any additional costs incurred as a result of that activity.

It is also worth underlining the fact that since 14 July 2009 the salaries of Members of the European Parliament are paid from the European Parliament’s budget. The United Kingdom will make no direct payments as a result of the implementation of the transitional protocol on MEPs, so clause 19 makes no provision for any such payments.

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[Mr Lidington]

No. The matter will be decided at the time. We will not operate on a hypothetical basis—that there might or might not be a referendum in any particular year. We would make provision for it as and when required.

[Chris Bryant]

I am not sure whether the Minister therefore means that the Foreign Office would make provision, whether the Ministry of Justice would do so under the referendums provision or whether it would come out of the contingency, but my anxiety is that one might end up with the same situation as we have in Wales for the next referendum on 3 March. Nobody has been identified as the official no side of the argument, so there will be no public money for either no or yes, because if there is not an official no campaign there cannot be an official yes campaign.

[Mr Lidington]

The regulations for the referendum will be those set out in the Political Parties, Elections and Referendums Act 2000. I suggest not that any changes are planned, but that, in accordance with any amendments made to that legislation between now and the date of any future referendum on a European issue under the Bill, the rules for its conduct would change. Today, we propose, however, that, as long as the 2000 Act remains in force in its current form, the rules that apply to it should apply to any referendum held under the auspices of the Bill.

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[Mr Lidington]

It is very important that we legislate on the basis that we want to give people the assurance that they have this protection against any future Government choosing to railroad through the transfer of new competences to the European Union institutions without the people being given the right to have their say. Any future Government of any political colour will be taking a pretty massive political risk if they try to rob people of the right to have the final say about the transfer of competences and powers from this country to Brussels. That will be a very powerful deterrent against any future Government being tempted down such a course.

[Chris Bryant]

The Minister said that this Government have no intention of having a referendum because they do not intend to trigger one under their own Bill, thereby proving that the whole Bill, like Z, is an unnecessary letter. Will he now get on to the point made by my hon. Friend the Member for Wolverhampton North East (Emma Reynolds) about how much a referendum is going to cost?

[Mr Lidington]

On current prices, a referendum, if held on its own, could cost between £80 million and £100 million. If it were combined with other elections on the same day, the figure might well be considerably less. However, these things would have to be calculated in detail at the time. It depends on factors such as whether another election is being held on the same day, so all the apparatus of paying for staff to set up polling stations and to count ballot papers is already being provided for, or it is being done as a one-off solely as a referendum on a European subject.

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[Mr Lidington]

I will leave it to the hon. Lady to try to explain that distinction on the doorstep.

The hon. Member for Caerphilly (Mr David) asked about expenditure authorised by clause 13. We have to understand the distinction between an authority to spend, which is what we are debating, and what the level of any expenditure should be. If we did not have the authorising power, as set out in clause 19, the Electoral Commission would simply not be able, without going ultra vires, to promote public awareness of a referendum or the subject matter of a referendum. The Electoral Commission, like any other Department or organisation funded by the taxpayer, has a budget that is set through negotiation with the relevant Departments and the Treasury, and it will have to make provision from within that budget. If it really feels that it needs more, it will have to come back to the Government to seek agreement for a supplementary authorisation for additional spending, in the way that such things are usually provided for. We are debating a power under the clause for the Electoral Commission lawfully to spend money on a particular set of objectives, and nothing more.

[Chris Bryant]

Rather unfortunately, the Minister unpicked my support for the clause in the speech that he just made. He is right that this is the only point at which Members will decide how much should be spent on referendums, should they come into play. As he said, the rules on elections and referendums are set out in the Political Parties, Elections and Referendums Act. The Government may wish to change some of those elements in the future, but Members will never consider this element of funding again. The moment that the Government want to have a referendum, they will have one and we will not have an opportunity to decide the cost of it.

The Deputy Prime Minister said that a major reason for holding a referendum on the same day as the local elections in England, the Assembly elections in Wales and Northern Ireland, and the Scottish Parliament election is the saving of some £30 million. I am not quite sure how that matches with the figures that the Minister gave for the cost of a stand-alone referendum. I wonder whether the Foreign Office is operating on slightly different figures from those of the Cabinet Office, which are being advanced by the Deputy Prime Minister.

I say to the Minister that to propose a Bill that provides no assurance that the financial sense of holding a referendum will be considered, and that provides only for the ideological sense of having a referendum to be considered, is a failing. As an example, I will give a failing of the previous Labour Government. There will be a referendum on new powers for the Welsh Assembly on 3 March. I have knocked on a lot of doors in the Rhondda recently, and I have been hard-pressed to find a single person who knows that the referendum is taking place. I suspect that very few people will take part in it. I know what machinations led to the provision in the Government of Wales Act 2006 that has put us in that situation, but I am unsure whether it is a good use of public money constantly to go to voters in referendums. I would have thought that a Government who wanted to get the best value for money, especially in a time of austerity, would want to have a value-for-money test as part of the decision about whether there should be a referendum. My anxiety is that there will be referendums on piddling matters, because lawyers will force them to happen. That will cause significant cost to the Government and no actual benefit to voters, who will effectively vote by not voting.

[Mr David]

I take my hon. Friend’s point about the comparison with the referendum in Wales on 3 March, but at the same time it could be said that that referendum is on an important constitutional issue—whether the Welsh Assembly is to have primary legislative powers. My concern is that the current Bill could lead us to have a multiplicity of referendums on very small, technical issues. A lot of public money might be spent on that basis.

[Chris Bryant]

My hon. Friend has essentially made my point for me again. As you are looking quizzical, Mr Hoyle, there is no need for me to detain the House longer. [Interruption.] No, it is quizzical, honestly. Well, it certainly is now, even if it was not a few seconds ago. I look forward to hearing the Minister explain why there is no provision in the Bill for a value-for-money test before there is a referendum.

[Mr Lidington]

First, to make the record absolutely clear, I say to the hon. Members for Wolverhampton North East (Emma Reynolds) and for Blackley and Broughton (Graham Stringer) that the former was right to correct me about the way in which votes would be counted in the somewhat unlikely event of a by-election. In effect, it would be an alternative vote election but with just one candidate from each party. The candidates would be numbered, so the question of a tie, to which the hon. Gentleman drew my attention, would not arise. I am grateful to both hon. Members for their interventions, which have made it certain that we have got the correct facts on the record. I am sure that in the hypothetical case of a by-election being called, they will find the Hansard record of these exchanges very helpful.

To respond to the point that the hon. Member for Rhondda (Chris Bryant) made about finance, the detailed financial provision for any referendum would be made in the Bill authorising that referendum. When we debated earlier clauses, I explained that there would need to be primary legislation for that purpose—I think it would almost certainly be part of the Act of Parliament to ratify a treaty change.

I believe that there is simply disagreement between the hon. Gentleman and me about that matter. I take the view that we should have a referendum when the question to be determined is significant enough in principle to require it. We have laid out in detail in the Bill the changes to European treaties, and the transfers of decisions from unanimity to qualified majority voting, that we think are of such constitutional or political importance that a referendum of the British people should be required before any Government could decide to accept them not just for their own term of office but permanently and, in the eyes of many in the EU, irrevocably.

The problem with introducing a measure such as a value-for-money test is that it opens up a wide area of discretion for the Government of the day, who could say, “Well, this decision might be of legal and constitutional importance, but frankly, the costs involved do not justify all the trouble of asking people to come out and vote and they aren’t really interested anyway.” That way of thinking is part of what got Europe into the democratic deficit in which it is now trapped. There is a gulf of mistrust between voters and the political elites who govern them in far too many European countries, each of which has proud democratic traditions. We see that in this country in how Parliament is regarded—it is not just down to the EU; it is down to all sorts of other things as well. Such a measure would be another element in that deficit.

Allowing people to have the final say over decisions that are important to the future of their country is one way to remedy that deficit. I think it better to define the circumstances in which that will happen in legislation, as we have done with the Bill, than to leave it to the discretion and judgment of Ministers, who might decide on the ground of public interest or of value for money. For that reason, I prefer our approach.

[Chris Bryant]

The fact that the Minister and I disagree on this matter or on the Bill is no great revelation. Even his private office might have worked that out. He gave the game away a bit when he said that the matter of principle is that one must give the people the right to decide when the transfer of power is sufficiently significant, but significance is not an absolute but a comparator. That is my problem.

The Bill provides for the addition of a new MEP. Will he assure the House that there is no need to provide for a situation in which that MEP, having been appointed, decides to leave or unfortunately dies? Will that seat simply be gathered up in the normal process of by-elections?

[Mr Lidington]

The answer to the hon. Gentleman’s question is yes. The normal processes for filling a vacancy in the European Parliament would apply in those circumstances too.

Question put and agreed to.

Clause 19 accordingly ordered to stand part of the Bill.

Clause 20

Extent

Question proposed, That the clause stand part of the Bill.

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[Mr Lidington]

Yes, we consulted the devolved Administrations in 2010, at the same time as final policy approval was sought from Departments. The text of the Bill was circulated to the devolved Administrations as soon as it had been drafted and was available for circulation in Whitehall. We have tried to keep them as much in the picture as possible and as soon as was practical. As the hon. Gentleman will understand, the Government took office in May last year, and arranging policy clearance and then the drafting of the Bill has been an intensive piece of work. However, I do not think that the devolved Administrations have been treated in any way unfairly. I have assured them that the Government remain completely committed to what the Prime Minister has termed the “respect agenda”, and that we are committed to honouring in full the various memorandums of understanding between the Government of the United Kingdom and the devolved Administrations. I am happy to make clear that commitment once again.

[Chris Bryant]

I am afraid that it was the words “the respect agenda” that turned my stomach and made me get to my feet suddenly. My experience of the Government thus far, in relation to other constitutional developments, has been that the respect agenda has been more honoured in its breach. To be fair, however, the Foreign Office has discussed the matter openly and fairly with the Governments in Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland to ensure that the legislation might suit their needs. However, there might be some areas—particularly in relation to the different legal system in Scotland—where, although it might not feel like the UK Government have surrendered a power in negotiations in Brussels, it might feel more like they have in Scotland. At those moments, the people of Scotland might say, “We want a referendum, because we do not like what you are doing”, while the Government and Parliament might not think that there is any need to do so.

I want to make a second point about Gibraltar. We have all referred, Mr Hoyle, to your personal interest in Gibraltar, and I bow at that altar as well. The Minister used a particular phrase that seemed like it had been crafted very carefully through the decades by Foreign Office mandarins. Having used such phrases before myself, I wonder whether it might not help were the Minister to unpack it. I think he said that the people of Gibraltar would be allowed to vote in a referendum where they are affected by a measure. I do not know how one would determine whether Gibraltar has been affected. I am not sure whether the Minister is being too clever by half, or whether I am being too foolish by half, but I am sure that he will enlighten us.

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[Chris Bryant]

I can feel a peroration coming on, so I just want to check something to do with Gibraltar. Notwithstanding the remarks that the Minister has made, clause 11(1)(c) refers to who gets to vote

“if the referendum is also held in Gibraltar,”

but who decides whether the referendum is held there? Would that have to be laid out in the Bill that was implementing the individual referendum in question?

[Mr Lidington]

No, it would be a matter of treaty and law. I refer the hon. Gentleman to clauses 2(2)(a) and 3(2)(a). They provide for the circumstances relating to whether a referendum on whether a treaty should be ratified should be held throughout the UK—“or”, and this is the important provision,

“where the treaty affects Gibraltar, throughout the United Kingdom and Gibraltar”.

The referendum will extend to Gibraltar where the treaty matter that is subject to the referendum is a matter that includes Gibraltar. If it is a treaty matter from which Gibraltar is excepted, the referendum will not include the people of Gibraltar.

[Chris Bryant]

So why does clause 20 not say that the Act extends to the whole of the United Kingdom and Gibraltar?

[Mr Lidington]

Because the provisions for Gibraltar are laid out in clauses 2 and 3, as I have explained.

Question put and agreed to.

Clause 20 accordingly ordered to stand part of the Bill.

Clause 21

Commencement