European Union Bill

David Nuttall Excerpts

Tuesday 25th January 2011 Commons Chamber

[Mr Lidington]

My right hon. Friend makes his point firmly, as I expect him to, but as I said earlier we will have the opportunity to debate justice and home affairs opt-ins in more detail during debates on the clauses that are set down for tomorrow. I look forward to hearing the concerns that he and other Members express on that occasion.

A number of amendments in the name of my hon. Friend the Member for Daventry seek to add a limited number of further JHA articles to either clause 6 or schedule 1, and I say to him and my right hon. Friend the Member for Wokingham (Mr Redwood) that I am well aware of and understand the Committee’s concerns about justice and home affairs matters. I share their view that they are matters of political, often of legal and sometimes of constitutional, significance, so I look forward with interest to the arguments that my hon. Friend might put forward later today.

On those amendments, which will be the subject of debate later today, I signal now that I am confident that I can make a compelling case why those particular articles should not be listed in clause 6 but be left, where they are appropriately dealt with, in clause 9. I shall explain briefly today and, I expect, at greater length tomorrow how that fits into wider JHA issues, as I set out in my written ministerial statement last week.

[Mr David Nuttall (Bury North) (Con)]

I thank the Minister for the courteous and generous way he is piloting the Bill through the House and through its long period in Committee. He will be well aware that I warmly welcome the general principle of the Bill and, indeed, supported it on Second Reading. He will also be aware, however, that I have to be honest and say that it is not the Bill I would have preferred to discuss today. I make no secret of the fact that I think we should be discussing a Bill to give the people of the United Kingdom a referendum on our continued membership of the European Union, but we are where we are.

I supported the Bill on Second Reading on the basis that I would use every opportunity to try to strengthen and improve it as it progressed through its remaining stages, and I am heartened by the announcements that the Minister has already made this afternoon. He has demonstrated that he feels the Bill is capable of improvement by virtue of his bringing forward the Government’s own amendments to it.

My amendment 54 and consequential amendment 55, as with so many amendments tabled for discussion in Committee, seek to strengthen the Bill by improving the scrutiny that would have to take place should any future transfer of competence occur.

Under clause 7(2)(a), a Minister may not confirm the approval by the United Kingdom of

“a decision under the provision of Article 25 of TFEU that permits the adoption of provisions to strengthen or add to the rights listed in Article 20(2) of that Treaty”

unless

“the decision is approved by Act of Parliament.”

Amendment 54 would require such a decision to be approved not only by an Act of Parliament, but by the people of the United Kingdom in a referendum. It proposes a new subsection (2A) to clause 6, rather than including the decision in the list of decisions in clause 6(4), because the procedure for the ratification of decisions under article 25 of the treaty on the functioning of the European Union is essentially the same as that for decisions under article 42 of the treaty on the European Union, which relates to a common European Union defence policy.

Under the European Union treaties, all citizens of member states are also citizens of the European Union. As the Committee will be aware, the list in article 20(2) of the treaty on the functioning of the European Union is separate from and additional to the list of rights in the European Union’s charter of fundamental rights, which was given the status of treaty law by the Lisbon treaty. I will list briefly the European Union citizenship rights set out in article 20(2). The first is the freedom of movement and residence within the European Union. The second is

“the right to vote and to stand as candidates in elections to the European Parliament”

and in local government elections in the member state of residence

“under the same conditions as nationals of that State”.

The third is the right to

“the protection of the diplomatic and consular authorities of any Member State on the same conditions as the nationals of that State”

when the EU citizen’s member state is not represented in a non-EU country. The fourth is

“the right to petition the European Parliament, to apply to the European Ombudsman, and to address the institutions and advisory bodies of the Union in any of the Treaty languages and to obtain a reply in the same language.”

A decision to strengthen or add to the rights set out in article 20(2) could be of great importance, and could be wide-ranging. Article 25 of the same treaty appears to place no limit on the sort of rights that may be added. For example, there appears to be nothing to prevent the adoption of provisions that give European Union citizens the right to vote in national elections in member states other than the state of which they are a citizen. Such a new basic right would constitute such a major transfer of power that such moves should be approved by all the people of the United Kingdom in a referendum. By definition, new or extended rights for European Union citizens transfer power from the United Kingdom—the power over whether it accords such rights to the citizens of other European Union member states. The UK would be required to respect those rights for all EU citizens as a matter of treaty obligation, and they would ultimately be enforced by the European Court of Justice, whose rulings are binding and are backed by its power to levy unlimited fines on member states. The new or augmented rights would be enshrined in the EU treaties and could be reversed only by a new, full-blown amending treaty. That would be, for all practical purposes, an irreversible transfer of power of constitutional magnitude, as it would deal with our citizens’ rights.

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[Chris Bryant (Rhondda) (Lab)]

The hon. Gentleman referred earlier to consular protection, which, as he knows, has been enjoyed by all citizens of each EU member state for some considerable time. If we have no representation in a particular country, British citizens can go to a French, German or Spanish embassy and receive the same consular protection that they would expect from the UK. Does he really think that that should require a referendum?

[Mr Nuttall]

As I understand it, that is already provided for in article 20(2), so there is no need to introduce it again. Amendment 54 would apply only to future extensions of that article.

[Chris Bryant]

But following the creation of the European External Action Service, there is provision for some extension of that right. That is for obvious reasons, namely that many of the smaller countries in the EU have no diplomatic service or representation in quite a lot of countries. Just as we use the services of the Australians in some cases, for instances in Laos, and the French diplomatic services in other cases, surely it would be wrong to put the need to have a referendum in the way of an extension of that provision for British citizens or any other EU citizens.

[Mr Nuttall]

I hear the hon. Gentleman’s point, but the difficulty is that article 20(2) covers much more than just that matter. As I said, it covers the likelihood of citizens of other EU states being allowed to vote in our national elections. There is real concern about that, and there would be a drive and desire for citizens of the UK to have their say if the EU ever sought to allow it.

[Chris Bryant]

When I was Minister for Europe, I probably had more correspondence with British people living in Spain than with those living in any other country in Europe. The best part of 1 million British people now live in Spain, and many of them feel that they need greater protection by the EU—for instance, if their houses are being pulled down because of the changes to housing and coastal laws. They would like to be able to vote in Spanish general elections, so that they can have a voice in Spanish society. Does the hon. Gentleman think it is wrong that they should be allowed that?

[Mr Nuttall]

I believe it should be up to the Spanish to decide who should vote in Spanish elections, not the EU, just as I do not want the EU telling our country whether citizens of another EU country should have the right to vote in our national elections.

I might be reading too much into this, but I wonder whether the reason the current article refers only to European parliamentary elections and local elections is that people in the world of the EU would like national elections done away with. In their world, there would be only regions within the great European Union. Is that why no mention of national elections was made in that article?

[Emma Reynolds]

Is the hon. Gentleman really suggesting that hard-headed, pragmatic pro-Europeans say that we should do away with general elections in member states?

[Mr Nuttall]

I have no idea what each individual thinks—that is up to them. All I am saying is that those who promote the EU project, which states the need for ever-closer union—[Interruption.] Those who promote the EU project would very much like there to be simply EU elections and local, regional elections, effectively bypassing Members of Parliament. The thrust of the legislation means that that is where we are headed, and it is one of many reasons why I tabled amendments 54 and 55, and I commend them to the Committee.

[Mr Denis MacShane (Rotherham) (Lab)]

My treat, which I can never find the resources or time to put into effect, is to send the comments that hon. Members on both sides of the House make to our fellow European politicians. I should like President Sarkozy, Chancellor Merkel, Prime Minister Tusk or the representatives of any one of the nine Nordic and Baltic states that were hosted by the Prime Minister at Downing street last week, to read that someone stood up in the Chamber of the House of Commons and said that we are about to abolish national elections. They would realise what a wonderful world the House of Commons can become. To paraphrase Karl Marx on history in the famous opening lines of “The Eighteenth Brumaire of Louis Bonaparte”, the House of Commons, when it debates the EU, starts as muddle and descends quickly into farce. We are already firmly into those two categories today.

Clause 6 refers—

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[Chris Bryant]

I do. It is unfortunate that the Leader of the House has adopted the approach of insisting that pre-Council debates have to be provided for by the Backbench Business Committee from its allocation. Those debates are about the Government’s mandate, and they should be in Government time. I hope that at some point the Leader of the House will change his position on that. We may well not need a full day’s debate—two and a half hours might be sufficient. Having participated in nearly every one of them since 2001, along with my hon. Friend and neighbour from the south Wales valleys, I can fairly safely predict who will take part in them. I can pretty much guess exactly what they will say, as quite a few of us have single transferrable speeches.

I wish to refer specifically to some of the amendments in this group, and my points will be made against the background of my belief that the whole of clause 6 is nonsense. It will harm the power of the British Government to negotiate on behalf of the British people and advance the British interest. It will make Parliament look like a body that is not genuinely interested in significant economic or trade advances. To Indian, Chinese, Russian, Brazilian and Mexican potential counterparts, we will look like the country that is standing in the way of the means of enhancing trade with their economies. I believe that that is a mistake.

The hon. Member for Bury North (Mr Nuttall) tabled amendment 54 and referred to it earlier. As he knows, it would ensure that there could be no extension of the rights afforded to members of the EU by virtue of article 25 of the TFEU, which is related to article 20(2). I say to him that in the middle of the general election campaign earlier this year, as Europe Minister, I had to go to a meeting—I cannot remember whether it was in Brussels or Luxembourg—to agree to the paper on the founding of the European External Action Service that Baroness Ashton had brought forward as High Representative. Many member states were keen for the paper to contain specific provision for consular services, because as I said earlier, many of the smaller countries in the EU have no representation in many of the 190 or so countries in the world. They frequently use the consular services of other EU member states, and most of the larger member states, such as France, Germany, Italy, Spain and ourselves, are perfectly happy to extend the hand of friendship in that way. Sometimes it is paid for by the country concerned and sometimes it is not, but there is give and take between different member states, so we are perfectly happy for that arrangement to exist.

[Mr Nuttall]

Does the hon. Gentleman agree that such a give-and-take arrangement would be perfectly possible even without the existence of the EU? It would also be possible for countries outside the EU to make such an arrangement.

[Chris Bryant]

The hon. Gentleman is absolutely right, of course. I referred earlier to the fact that we have no representation in Laos. The Australians use our old embassy and residence—I am not sure whether they have bought them now—and provide consular support to Brits who get into trouble in Laos. Indeed, last year I had to visit Vientiane to try to sign a prisoner transfer agreement with Laos. We were eventually successful, and a couple of people have come back to the UK and are now serving their sentences in British jails.

The hon. Gentleman is absolutely right that we would not have to invent the EU for that, but there are different expectations of consular services in each member state. When we had the ash cloud during the general election campaign, British newspapers were just about the only ones in the world to campaign for the Government to intervene. They wanted the Government to bring British nationals back to the UK, but French newspapers, for example, thought that getting French nationals back was entirely the responsibility of the French people and their airlines, travel agents and insurers. As more people across the EU exercise their right to the freedom of travel within it, citizens’ expectation of their consular rights will change.

I remember talking to my German counterpart. He said that he expected to close possibly half of all German embassies and consular services around the world over the next five years. Other member states may well do the same. There might come a point when there is an enhanced desire for a shared EU consular service around the world, but I was keen in the negotiations with him to ensure that Britain did not sign up to something that had not gone through a full process of consultation in each member state.

I was also keen to say that the main actions of the EAS should be far more concerned with extending our influence with the Brazil, Russia, India and China economies, ensuring that we had a shared attitude to the middle east and Russia, and ensuring that we enhanced our action in the Balkans to protect our security, rather than with matters such as consular services, which could involve significant additional costs. Obviously, if the EU acts to introduce its own consular services, the danger is that a significant amount of the cost will be borne by the UK.

I think the Minister would be happy with the agreement that I eventually signed at that time. He is studiously ignoring me and not listening, but I think he, too, would have been happy to sign up to that agreement, notwithstanding the fact that the Conservatives did not originally want the EAS to come into existence because they were opposed to the Lisbon treaty—[Interruption.] I think the Minister is nodding—certainly with his eyes if not his whole head—but without being contradicted, I will assume that he would have been happy.

Under amendment 54 tabled by the hon. Member for Bury North, that agreement would have required a referendum, but that would have been a mistake. It was perfectly possible to achieve the outcome that the UK wanted—namely, that the EU should not be extended to provide consular services, except in the way that is already laid down in unanimously endorsed treaties—and consequently, amendment 54 would have limited the Government’s power to negotiate.

King Canute was trying to prove to his consiliare that he could not hold back the waters, but the Bill is like the King Canute of myth—the one who actually tried to hold back the waters. However, in seeking to create a bulwark, there is a danger that the Government have so limited Ministers in what they can give away that they will be unable to achieve anything on behalf of the British interest in other matters. In the long term, and indeed quite possibly in the short term, that will lead to significant dangers for us.

In particular, amendment 13 is misguided because it applies to the whole of enhanced co-operation, which would mean that Britain would never be able to sign up to an existing area of enhanced co-operation or initiate a new area of enhanced co-operation. Enhanced co-operation is an entirely voluntary process, so I cannot see how it could possibly be in the British interest to put such a dramatic brake on the power of the British Government to enhance their co-operation in a particular area.

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[Stephen Gilbert]

I share the approach that the hon. Gentleman outlines. It is the fishing communities who understand sustainability and the importance of ensuring that we have viable stocks for the future, and they will respond to those needs. It is right that responsibility for fishing policy should be reduced to the region, if not further to local areas.

Amendment 54, in the name of my hon. Friend the Member for Bury North (Mr Nuttall), is a little bizarre, because it promotes the notion that being given extra rights would require a referendum. The rights of EU citizens come under article 20 of the treaty on the functioning of the European Union and, as far as I can tell, they number four at the moment. They are the right to move and reside freely within the territory of the member states; the right to vote and stand as candidates in elections to the European Parliament and in municipal elections in the state of residence, under the same conditions as nationals of that state; the right to petition the European Parliament, to apply to the European ombudsman, and to address the institutions and advisory bodies of the European Union; and the right to enjoy, in the territory of a third country in which the member state of which they are nationals is not represented, the protection of diplomatic and consular authorities—a point about which the hon. Member for Rhondda (Chris Bryant) spoke at some length. My contention is that adding to the rights of citizens cannot be seen as a transfer of power or competence from the EU to the UK.

[Mr Nuttall]

Does my hon. Friend agree that, by definition, if citizens of another European Union member state are given rights by the European Union to do things in this country, the rights of our own citizens are diluted and power is therefore transferred to the rest of the European Union?

[Stephen Gilbert]

I simply do not agree. If rights are transferred to the EU level, every European citizen will benefit from those rights, including the many hundreds of thousands of British citizens who live and work in the other European Union member states.

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[Stephen Gilbert]

I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman for his contribution. The European Human Rights Act gave rights to people in this country that they did not enjoy previously. Those rights are now in statute. Of course, hon. Members can make the argument that the House could have conferred those rights—but then this House is exactly the body that did confer them, first through the 1972 treaty, and secondly under the previous Government through bringing the European human rights treaty into British statute, as I understand it.

[Mr Nuttall]

My hon. Friend is touching on one of the fundamental differences between how the European Union sees rights, and how this sovereign Parliament sees them. Parliament does not think that citizens need to be given any human rights because they are free to do anything under the law, whereas the European Union thinks that it has those rights to hand out to citizens of its European superstate as part of some great, grandiose gesture. That is the difference.

[Stephen Gilbert]

I am grateful to my hon. Friend. As a loyal subject of the Crown, I am equally pleased to be a citizen of the EU.

I will finish with some brief comments on amendments 8 and 79, which deal with the notion of a referendum lock on giving further financial aid to countries other than Ireland—an issue on which the hon. Member for Great Grimsby (Austin Mitchell) and I have just engaged. If the amendments are passed, they would damage diplomatic relations, delay the EU in helping struggling economies and potentially deny to the UK the same kind of benefits that Ireland has had in the past.

I want to make it clear that the Liberal Democrats support the Bill: it is about reconnecting the British people with the European issue; about saying that over the next five years, there will be no further transfer of powers and competences; about putting that commitment in law; and about raising the benchmark significantly higher than it has been to date.

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Overseas territories other than Gibraltar are not members of the European Union, but all apart from Bermuda and the sovereign base areas have a special relationship or association with the European Union. That association is enshrined in European legislation, most recently in the Council’s 2001 overseas association decision, under which qualifying territories are eligible for European development fund finance. Neither the Crown dependencies nor the overseas territories are looking for closer political integration with the EU, and through official-level engagement with colleagues in the Crown dependencies, we have not received any representations to consider their inclusion in the franchise for any referendum conducted in accordance with this legislation.

[Mr Nuttall]

The explanatory notes on clause 11—perhaps we ought to refer to them as the first edition of the explanatory notes—state:

“A person who is entitled to vote in a parliamentary election in the UK must be a British citizen, Commonwealth citizen, a citizen of the Republic of Ireland or a British citizen who qualifies as an overseas elector.”

Does my right hon. Friend agree that it is rather strange that all those classes of people will be entitled to vote under the Bill, but not necessarily, from what he has said, people from British overseas territories?

[Mr Lidington]

Our position is that people who are resident in the United Kingdom and who are enfranchised for general elections will count legally as UK nationals for European purposes. That is the electorate, with the addition of peers, that we envisage for any referendum that is required under the terms of the Bill. The distinction that I tried to make earlier—I apologise to my hon. Friend if I did not explain myself with sufficient clarity—was between Gibraltarians living in Gibraltar, who would be entitled to vote if the subject matter of the referendum affected Gibraltar, and citizens of Crown dependencies or British overseas territories living in those places. An analogy might be made between those people and citizens of Gibraltar, but as I have tried to explain, the relationship of the Crown dependencies and other British overseas territories with the EU is very different from that enjoyed by Gibraltar.

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[Mr Nuttall]

I can quite easily see how it would be a significant saving to the public purse to have more than one referendum held on the same day, and I have no doubt that our fellow citizens are more than capable of determining two complex questions at the same time and on the same day. Does my hon. Friend agree that, for ease of counting if for nothing else, it would be preferable if the two questions put before the electorate were on separate ballot papers, possibly even of differently coloured paper? That would make it far easier for the returning officers to sort the ballot papers and determine the outcome of the ballot.

[Mr Lidington]

My hon. Friend makes a sensible suggestion, and I am sure that the Government of the day and the Electoral Commission would wish to take it into account in framing the rules for any particular referendum or combination of referendums.

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[Mr Lidington]

That is one of the very good reasons for not trying to cover all the ground in this Bill. That kind of detail will be a matter for the application of the 2000 Act or its successor statute, and for the Government of the day to authorise a referendum or combination of referendums. That might depend, for example, on whether one lead campaign organisation could be said fairly to represent the views of the yes or no camp on more than one referendum, or whether separate lead organisations were needed. It is reasonable for my hon. Friend to ask those questions, but answers to them can be provided only when we come to consider a specific case in due course.

[Mr Nuttall]

Does that not lead us to the interesting question of whether there is a practical maximum number of referendums that could be held on the same day? I can understand how we could deal with two, but it gets rather complicated if there are more than two. We could have three different organisations with three separate streams of funding from the Electoral Commission, and soon the whole thing would begin to look rather unwieldy.

[Mr Lidington]

Although one can never guarantee against the utterly implausible happening, the scenario that my hon. Friend describes would require a commitment of political energy on the part of every EU member state, because the decisions subject to a referendum require unanimity among member state Governments. Furthermore, he assumes that the UK Government of the time would be prepared to accept and recommend to the people three different treaty changes, or the implementation of three different passerelle clauses, or some combination of those on a single occasion. That is unlikely in the extreme.

A more plausible scenario—although I do not think, from talking to my colleagues on the Council of Ministers, that people have any appetite for this at the moment—if European countries wanted an ambitious treaty change covering a number of different competences, would be to seek treaty amendment through the ordinary revision procedure. That is the instrument available to the EU for an ambitious, wide-ranging treaty change along the pattern of Lisbon, Nice, Amsterdam and Maastricht. In those circumstances, the total proposal for a treaty amendment—regardless of which city it was named after—would be the subject of a single referendum question. It is most unlikely, therefore, that there would be a multiplicity of narrowly focused referendum questions, given the availability of that instrument.

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[Mr Lidington]

If my hon. Friend will allow me, I want to make a bit of progress. In particular, I want to deliver a bit of good news to the right hon. Member for Belfast North (Mr Dodds), to whom I am always pleased to give good news. Advice has reached me that confirms the point that I made to him somewhat tentatively when I responded to his intervention. The law does indeed make it clear that when it comes to the interpretation of statutes, the singular can be interpreted to mean the plural. Under the language that we have used in the clause, it will be possible to have either one ballot paper with multiple questions or several different ballot papers, depending on the circumstances at the time. That would obviously be a detailed decision that the Government of the day would have to make, taking, I would very much hope, the advice of the Electoral Commission into account.

It should be noted that neither clause 12 nor any other clause in the Bill sets any other explicit parameters on the framing of the question. However, it is a condition separately in clauses 2, 3 and 6 that, for a proposal in a referendum to be passed, the majority of those voting should be in favour of the ratification of the treaty or approval of the decision, whichever it may be. That condition would logically require that the question be framed as a simple choice between two options, rather than a menu of options to which the responses would be much more difficult to interpret. In other words, it is implicit in the Bill that the question would be a binary one. It is the Government’s clear view that this should be the case for all and any referendums held under the provisions of the Bill.

[Mr Nuttall]

On the binary question, and whether we should have no/yes or yes/no, does the Minister agree that it is rather unusual that whereas individuals standing in an election are listed on the ballot paper in alphabetical order based on their surnames, when it comes to a referendum, for some reason the yes comes before the no? That is rather odd. I think that the no should be first and that the yes should come second.

[Mr Lidington]

I am sure that my hon. Friend means well, but I would urge him to have more confidence in our fellow citizens. In particular, I would point him to the referendum on the proposed assembly for the north-east of England. A yes vote was strongly supported by the then Labour Government, as well as enjoying the support of quite a number of public organisations in the north-east of England, but the proposition was resoundingly rejected by the public when it came to the ballot in that region. It is a good old Tory principle to trust the people, and I think that we should be content with that.

[Mr Nuttall]

I want to make it absolutely clear that I entirely agree with the principle of trusting the people. I have no doubt whatever that the people of this country are more than capable of working out which is which. I just thought it was rather odd that the yes should appear above the no, and I wondered whether there was any reason why that should be so.

[Mr Lidington]

As far as I am aware, there is no particular reason for it. However, the Electoral Commission will have a duty to comment on the question that the Government of the day have chosen, and I am sure that, if the Commission felt that placing yes above no gave an unfair advantage in some way, it would so opine and the Government would take account of that. It is quite difficult to envisage a ballot paper that did not have either yes or no at the top of the paper. At the end of the day, it comes down to a choice by the people: they have two options available to them, and I think that they will know which side they are on when it comes to the vote.

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[Mr Lidington]

What happened in Ireland was that the Irish Government went back to their EU partners and received various assurances, which were incorporated into a protocol to the treaties. We can debate whether the Irish Government were right or wrong to be satisfied by those assurances, but I actually think that it is a matter for the Irish people, not for me, to decide. In such slightly far-fetched, hypothetical circumstances, were a British Government to do as the hon. Gentleman suggests, they would have to bring the protocol back here and go through the entire process again, including the assessment of the ministerial declaration and the Act of Parliament. There would then have to be a new referendum. I just think that any Government who tried to do that would be punished so severely by the people every time they got the opportunity to go to the ballot box that it would be the last thing on any Minister’s mind.

[Mr Nuttall]

Will the Minister give way?

[Mr Lidington]

Before I give way to my hon. Friend, may I just say that I am very conscious that we have another important clause to consider, if we can, before the 10 o’clock deadline?

[Mr Nuttall]

I, too, am conscious of that. The Minister says that the Irish situation was a rare occurrence, but he will be aware that it also occurred in Denmark and France. It is therefore not all that unusual in the European Union for second referendums to be held on the same or a very similar question.

[Mr Lidington]

I go back to what I said earlier: I trust the people. If a Government wanted to ask people to vote again, they would have to go through the entire procedure again—assuming that a new protocol or slightly revised treaty wording were involved—as well as having to persuade a pretty sceptical electorate that they should change their mind. I think that my hon. Friend is at risk of exaggerating the likelihood of those circumstances arising. While I do not think that the loss of a referendum vote on a European treaty amendment should determine whether a Government should fall, it would undoubtedly be a very severe political blow to that Government.

Once this Bill becomes law, I think the pressure will be the reverse of what my hon. Friend fears, as the pressure will be on any British incumbent Government to be very confident that they can carry support among the electorate for a treaty reform transferring new powers or competences to the European Union before they agree to it at the European Council. The arrangements we are putting in place thus provide safeguards against what my hon. Friend fears.

In any event, the Political Parties, Elections and Referendums Act 2000 requires the Electoral Commission to consider the wording of any referendum question when a Bill to provide for the holding of a poll is introduced in Parliament. In the case of a draft instrument, the Secretary of State is required to consult the Electoral Commission on the wording of the referendum question before any such draft is laid before Parliament for approval, and he or she is then required to lay before each House a report stating any views as to the intelligibility of that question which the Commission has expressed in response to the consultation. We have not sought to disapply that requirement, as we think the Electoral Commission plays an important role in ensuring both the neutrality of the question and that it is correctly and easily understood by voters.

Under PPERA, the Electoral Commission is required to consider the wording of the referendum questions for UK, national and regional referendums and for some local government referendums. Having done so, it is required to publish the statement of its views as soon as practicable and in such a manner as it may determine. Helpfully, the commission has developed guidelines to aid the drafting of intelligible referendum questions. In these, it says that a referendum question should present the options clearly, simply and neutrally so that it is easy to understand, to the point and unambiguous; and should avoid—I hope this helps my hon. Friend the Member for Bury North—encouraging voters to consider one response more favourably than another, and avoid misleading voters. In reaching its conclusions, the Electoral Commission adopts a systematic and thorough approach, which now has the advantage of some considerable experience behind it. It is also important that it publishes a report of methodology to enhance transparency and its credibility.

Clause 12 is thus a proportionate and sustainable provision to ensure that the voice of the British people can be heard on each question asked of the people. That, in turn, will help us with our commitment to rebuild the trust between Government, Parliament and the people, and to reconnect our people with decisions taken in their name on our continuing relationship with the European Union. For those reasons, the clause should stand part of the Bill.

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[Mr Lidington]

The Electoral Commission was rightly established as an independent body. I think it important for the Government not to issue instructions to it, and to be seen not to do so. Given that the commission’s value to our political process is by virtue of its being a completely independent statutory body, I consider it right for us to give it these new powers without laying down rules requiring it to use them in a particular way. It is for the commission to make its own judgments. How it chooses to promote awareness is rightly a matter for it, but we are giving it a statutory duty to promote awareness before any referendum held under the provisions of the Bill.

[Mr Nuttall]

Perhaps I can help the Minister. Clause 13(a) says that the commission

“must take whatever steps they think appropriate to promote public awareness”

of the existence of the referendum, but

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

I suggest to the Minister that that may mean giving appropriate amounts of money to the yes campaign and to the no campaign.

[Mr Lidington]

My hon. Friend’s helpful intervention will probably have given some reassurance to the hon. Member for Caerphilly (Mr David).

We are seeking to encourage greater participation, and providing clarity so that the people know what they would be voting for regardless of which way they choose to vote. We are following the practice adopted for the North East assembly referendum in 2004, and the approach taken in the Parliamentary Voting System and Constituencies Bill.

If I may, I refer the hon. Member for Caerphilly to the 2003 enabling Act for the north-east regional assemblies referendum. It included clause 8, supplementary to PPERA, on “encouraging voting”, and that—