European Union (Referendum) Bill

Baroness Laing of Elderslie Excerpts

Friday 22nd November 2013 Commons Chamber

[James Wharton]

claimed to move the closure (Standing Order No. 36).

Question put forthwith, That the Question be now put.

The House proceeded to a Division.

[Madam Deputy Speaker (Mrs Eleanor Laing)]

I ask the Serjeant at Arms to investigate the delay in the No Lobby.

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The House proceeded to a Division.

[Madam Deputy Speaker (Mrs Eleanor Laing)]

I ask the Serjeant at Arms to investigate the delay in the Aye Lobby.

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The House proceeded to a Division.

[Madam Deputy Speaker (Mrs Eleanor Laing)]

I ask the Serjeant at Arms to investigate the delay in the Aye Lobby.

--- Later in debate ---

The House proceeded to a Division.

[Madam Deputy Speaker (Mrs Eleanor Laing)]

I ask the Serjeant at Arms to investigate the delay in both the Aye and No Lobbies.

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[Mr Kevan Jones]

On a point of order, Madam Deputy Speaker. I wonder whether you could ask the House authorities to investigate the Division bell. Before amendment 3 was moved, the Division bell outside the Chamber started ringing at least 10 or 20 seconds before you put the Question. There is clearly a disconnect between the people observing the House and those setting off the bell. Could that be investigated?

[Madam Deputy Speaker (Mrs Eleanor Laing)]

I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman for drawing the matter to my attention. I will immediately ask for an investigation into the workings of the Division bell.

[Mr Thomas]

I beg to move amendment 72, page 1, line 7, leave out subsection (4) and insert—

‘(4) Before making an order under subsection (3) the Secretary of State shall conduct a consultation lasting not less than six months on what question should appear on the ballot paper, and shall by order set out the question to be asked.’.

[Madam Deputy Speaker]

With this it will be convenient to discuss the following:

Amendment 35, page 1, leave out lines 8 and 9 and insert

‘Should the United Kingdom remain a member of the European Union?’.

Amendment 36, page 1, leave out lines 8 and 9 and insert

‘Should the United Kingdom remain a member of the European Union or leave the European Union?’.

Amendment 37, page 1, line 10 , leave out ‘version’ and insert ‘translation’.

Amendment 38, page 1, line 11, after ‘order’, insert

‘after consultation with the National Assembly for Wales and the Welsh Assembly Government.’.

Amendment 39, page 1, line 11, at end insert—

‘(5A) In Scotland, a Gaelic translation of the question is also to appear on the ballot papers, as provided by order, after consultation with the Scottish Parliament and the Scottish Government.’.

Amendment 40, page 1, line 11, at end insert—

‘( ) In Northern Ireland, a Gaelic translation of the question is also to appear on the ballot papers, as provided by order, after consultation with the Northern Ireland Assembly and the Northern Ireland Executive.’.

Amendment 71, page 1, line 12, leave out subsection (6) and insert—

‘(6) An order under this section shall be made by statutory instrument.

(7) An order under subsection (3) may not be made unless each House of Parliament has passed a resolution that the referendum shall take place on a day specified in the resolution and the day specified in the resolution is the same as in the order.

(8) An order under subsection (5) may not be made unless a draft of the order has been laid before, and approved by, a resolution of each House of Parliament.’.

[Mr Thomas]

I am grateful to the Speaker and to you, Madam Deputy Speaker, for selecting amendment 72, which concerns the crucial issue of the wording of the proposed referendum question, as do amendments 35 to 40, tabled by my hon. Friend the Member for Ilford South (Mike Gapes). I also hope to speak to amendment 71, tabled by my hon. Friend the Member for Glasgow North East (Mr Bain). My amendment 72 seeks to ensure there is a consultation about what the question appearing on the ballot paper will actually say.

If there were any doubt about whether this Bill was anything other than a party political stunt, we had the spectacle of the Conservative party chairman attacking the Electoral Commission when its statement about the question came out. He attacked it for raising concerns about the wording of the question to be put in any referendum. As I understand it, the Conservative party backed the establishment of the Electoral Commission as an independent force in British politics to help to enforce proper standards in the way that elections and, crucially, referendums take place. Now, because the Electoral Commission’s work produces some inconvenient truths, the Conservatives seek to rubbish it.

One would have thought that the whole House would recognise that if we are to have a referendum, we need to present a clear, impartial question that favours neither one side of an argument nor the other, in order to allow the British people a genuine choice. The great deficiency of this Bill is the lack of consultation with anybody before it emerged from Lynton Crosby’s office. The problems that the Electoral Commission has identified could have been ironed out before now if there had been a proper consultation. It is clear from the Electoral Commission’s work so far that we do not have clarity about what, in its view, the question should be, that the wording in the Bill as it stands is not appropriate and that further work by the commission to test the most appropriate options is necessary.

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[Mr Kevan Jones]

On a point of order, Madam Deputy Speaker. May I ask for your guidance? Is it in order for a Government Whip to be standing up having a long, detailed conversation with the Minister while my hon. Friend is moving his amendment?

[Madam Deputy Speaker (Mrs Eleanor Laing)]

As the hon. Gentleman knows, that is not a point of order. I expect that the hon. Gentleman in question meant to be sitting and will do so from now on.

[Mr Thomas]

For the avoidance of doubt, I should say that I took no offence. Anything that can be done to enlighten the Minister for Europe about what the Prime Minister’s question might be on the crucial issue of the powers and competences that he wants to repatriate to the UK can only be helpful.

I was focusing on the work of the Electoral Commission, which was established by the 2000 Act. It has the crucial statutory responsibility to report on the intelligibility of a question included in a referendum Bill, as soon as is practicable, once it has been laid before Parliament. What we are discussing is the Electoral Commission’s ninth such referendum question assessment report; it has done sterling work on a series of other referendums. It is worth our reflecting on those.

The Electoral Commission was asked to assess the intelligibility of questions for the 2011 referendum on the powers of the National Assembly for Wales; for the 2011 UK-wide referendum on the parliamentary voting system, on which I would rather not dwell; for a range of local government referendums that have been held in England since 2008; and, of course, for the forthcoming referendum on independence for Scotland. This is the first time the Electoral Commission has undertaken an assessment exercise for a question included in a private Member’s Bill. However, there can be no doubting the experience of the commission in judging accurately what the referendum question should be, given its extensive previous involvement in eight other referendums.

The provisions for the holding of a referendum to be included in a private Member’s Bill are extremely unusual.

The Electoral Commission is probably not the only organisation looking on in confusion at the strange road down which the Prime Minister and the hon. Member for Stockton South (James Wharton) have decided to travel.

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[Chris Williamson]

On a point of order, Madam Deputy Speaker. In relation to the Electoral Commission’s advice to Parliament, can you clarify whether the Bill’s sponsors have made any late attempt to amend the question contained in the Bill, in view of the clear recommendation from the commission that they should do so?

[Madam Deputy Speaker (Mrs Eleanor Laing)]

They have not, but I am sure the promoter of the Bill will have heard the point made by the hon. Member for Derby North (Chris Williamson), and he will have plenty of time to deal with it in the usual course of the debate.

[Mr Lidington]

The amendments in the second group fall into four broad categories. First, there is the amendment that would provide for an additional consultation process on the referendum question, going beyond what is set out and what has already been undertaken. The key point that I want to make is that it has been normal practice under successive Governments for a referendum question to be spelled out very clearly on the face of the Bill that authorises that referendum, and the Bill introduced by my hon. Friend the Member for Stockton South (James Wharton) therefore follows that established practice.

Secondly, amendment 71 in the name of the hon. Member for Glasgow North East (Mr Bain) seeks to add to the requirements for when the power to set the date of the referendum is used. The amendment specifies that the Secretary of State could appoint only the day for the referendum that was specified in a resolution of each House. I draw the attention of the House to the fact that under clause 1(6) the Bill already requires the order to be approved in draft by a resolution of each House, and that draft would include the date of the referendum.

The third category of amendments deals with the languages in which the question should be posed. We have amendments before us dealing with both the Welsh language and Scots Gaelic. Amendment 37, which seeks to substitute the phrase “Welsh translation” for the phrase “Welsh version”, would have no substantive legal effect. It would not serve any particular purpose. It would not change anything. I draw the attention of the hon. Member for Ilford South (Mike Gapes) to the fact that the Parliamentary Voting System and Constituencies Act 2011, which authorised the referendum on the alternative vote system for the House of Commons, used the term “Welsh version” rather than “Welsh translation”. Again, we are going by established precedent.