European Union (Referendum) Bill

John Hemming Excerpts

Friday 17th October 2014 Commons Chamber

[Robert Neill]

I will give way in a moment, but let me make this point first. I actually agree with that last proposition. It is time that the British people had a say, and—I say this in response to the point made by the right hon. Member for East Ham (Stephen Timms)—my Bill is about giving the British people the mechanism that will enable them to have that say. It is not about the detail of what should or should not be in a negotiation; it is about providing a mechanism whereby the British people are guaranteed, in primary legislation, an opportunity to have their say.

[John Hemming (Birmingham, Yardley) (LD)]

Will my hon. Friend give way, on that point?

[Robert Neill]

Out of courtesy, I will give way to the hon. Gentleman.

[John Hemming]

Although, as my hon. Friend will recognise, I did back the earlier Bill—[Interruption]—I must admit that I have not been present on every single occasion, and my hon. Friend should not necessarily read into my colleagues’ absence the nature of their views.

Does my hon. Friend agree that, given that the 1688 Bill of Rights, our fundamental constitutional law, was established by popular consent and not by being imposed on people, a substantial change to that, which is implied by the use of regulation rather than directive, is something that also requires popular consent?

[Robert Neill]

I entirely agree with the hon. Gentleman. I would be the first to recognise his consistency on his point, and I am delighted to see him here.

At the end of the day—

--- Later in debate ---

[Kate Hoey]

I, too, think it is a question of trust. We know how all the parties have let the public down on promises made in the past about referendums on Europe. I always feel confident that when I am in a minority among my Labour colleagues on this referendum Bill, although some are here supporting it, I am not in a minority among Labour voters in the country. I am very confident that my party will have a change of mind on this issue, even between now and the general election. I think that the Liberal Democrats, who usually change back and forward—[Interruption.] I have the greatest respect for the Liberal Democrat Member who is here, the hon. Member for Birmingham, Yardley (John Hemming), although I do not think he is formally representing them. If he is, I am sure he will have a different view on this. It is important that the public feel we are really listening to them.

[John Hemming]

rose—

[Kate Hoey]

I will give way to the hon. Gentleman, as I have referred to him.

[John Hemming]

I just make the point that I have been very consistent on this issue.

[Kate Hoey]

I was about to say that I do not want my party to be the only one going into a general election not supporting a referendum, and I feel that the Liberal Democrats will definitely have this measure in their manifesto, too. I am not a friend of the right hon. Member for Sheffield, Hallam (Mr Clegg) as such, but I imagine that it will be in their manifesto. The Labour party could be the only party going into the election not supporting it, and that would be very wrong indeed.

I wish briefly to discuss some of the issues that will arise if the negotiation happens. I am a bit of a cynic about these negotiations, because I do not feel we will be able to negotiate very much, as the establishment within the European Union does not want the changes that we wish to see. If we end up still part of the agricultural policy and the fisheries policy, and if we still pay billions of pounds into the European Union and get a small amount back, I cannot see that the negotiations will have succeeded in doing anything other than tinker around in a few places, so that somebody can come back from Europe and say that this has been a success.

--- Later in debate ---

[John Hemming (Birmingham, Yardley) (LD)]

Article 9 of the Bill of Rights states:

“That the freedom of speech and debates or proceedings in Parliament ought not be impeached or questioned in any court or place out of Parliament.”

Believe it or not, Brussels is a place. If we have a regulation rather than a directive, the regulation automatically overrides domestic law. Because the Bill of Rights was established as part of the Glorious Revolution, which was a popular revolution, certain changes to our constitution should inherently warrant a referendum. Hence I was pleased to support the previous version of this Bill, which is the same as this version, and having a referendum on our continued membership of the EU.

A particular strength is that the Bill puts a timetable on changes. Some changes need to happen. For instance, when this was all initially brought together, nobody would have thought that we would be encouraging people to come here to sell The Big Issue, yet by selling that paper or running a nonsensical or otherwise unprofitable scrap metal deal, people qualify for tax credits and get a lot more money from them than they do from The Big Issue or whatever it may be. People migrate here to be officially poor. Nobody would ever have thought that was sensible, and that sort of thing needs to change.

Having seen the difficulties caused by the previous Labour Government’s not maintaining interim rules on migration from eastern Europe, I doubt whether anyone here would accept that if we added Turkey and Ukraine to the EU, we should add them with the same rules on freedom of movement that apply elsewhere. I do not think anyone argues for that, so changes are obviously needed in the operation of the EU.

My personal view is that if we are going to have a Common Market that is really a common market, we need systems for determining the rules. When Margaret Thatcher introduced a federal Europe by introducing qualified majority voting as a result of the Single European Act, it was in many ways a rational process because we needed a system for working out the rules. I personally support having a more democratic process through the European Parliament, but I do not support an ever-closer union, because I do not believe that is what we want. We do not want to homogenise the European area.

There are debates and problems that arise from the way in which structures have been set up. One relates to human rights, for instance. I am a supporter of civil liberties and human rights, but I think the judicial activism in the Council of Europe—a different body, of course, from the EU—has been quite problematic. The solution, however, is democracy: using the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe to control the interpretation of the European Court of Human Rights. It is not just to try to find some way out of a system that, apart from in some limited circumstances—prisoner votes, for instance—worked reasonably well. There are cases where it clearly does not work, but there are ways of dealing with them.

A referendum is definitely a very good way forward because it will enable us to have that debate. UKIP has recommended being in the European economic area, but the difficulty with that is that control on membership of the EU is completely lost because members of the EU have the right to veto additional members, but members of the EEA have to live with whatever comes out of the EU. At the end of the day, if we were not in the EU, we would be part of some other structure. It is unlikely to be invented as a new exercise; it is more likely that it would be based on the EEA. I do not necessarily believe that we always have to remain within the EU, but I am inclined to support the EU and its structures, while wanting definite changes to their operation.

[Mr Bone]

The hon. Gentleman makes a powerful point, but if the fifth largest economy in the world pulls out of something, surely a different structure would need to be created to accommodate it.

[John Hemming]

It is a question of buyers and sellers. Normally, selling something is a bit harder than buying it. People will sell things quite happily, but it is one thing to sell to Germans in German and another to buy them in English. There is some difficulty with the idea that our exports would simply be taken as read. I do not accept that people so want to purchase our exports that they would do exactly what we wanted. If we look at the EEA, we find that Norway contributes a lot of money to the EU through its EEA membership. The argument that not being in the EU would save us money is not necessarily a valid one. I do not take the view that suddenly everybody would bend over backwards to do exactly what we want, but that does not necessarily mean that we should go into the negotiations saying that we will swallow whatever comes out of this. The Opposition’s view that we should never stand up for anything because we might lose is not mine.

I was very pleased when the Government pulled us out of supporting the eurozone financial arrangements beyond supporting the International Monetary Fund. That was a sensible decision. In the dying days of the last Government, when Labour lost the election, they underwrote things, but doing so is actually taking on a big risk.

[Kelvin Hopkins]

The hon. Gentleman mentions Norway. People make a lot of the fact that Norway collaborates substantially with the EU, but is it not more that its political classes are trying to get round the fact that they are not members of the EU by going along as far as they can with it? They have three very good reasons for not being in the EU: fishing, because they have their own fishing rights; oil, which they understandably want to keep and sell themselves; and agriculture, which they still protect for their own benefit.

[John Hemming]

Norway, Liechtenstein and Iceland are members of the EEA but not of the EU. If we look at the pattern of different memberships, we find that some countries are members of the Council of Europe, but others are not. It is quite complex. The Vatican, for example, is a member of nothing, yet it can print euros. [Interruption.] Strange, isn’t it? But for whatever reason, Norway happens to be a member of the EEA, and we need to think about what the alternative would be if we had a choice about being or not being in the EU. That would be an important decision, but if we want to remain in it, it does not mean that no changes to how it works should be made.

Perhaps the error among some in my party has been not to drive for change. As I said, we cannot have a situation whereby people are encouraged to migrate here to be poor. That just cannot be rational; we cannot have that. When people started work on the treaty of Rome and other arrangements, nobody thought that that would be a sensible outcome. It involves using taxpayers’ resources to achieve a negative rather than a positive. Rather than rescuing people who have been marginalised, we create more marginalised people.

The Opposition raised concerns about the wording of the question. I am very supportive of it. I campaigned against having a directly elected dictator in Birmingham when such a role was proposed. About 5,000 people found that their votes had been disqualified because they wrote the word “No” on their ballot papers. I think that it is quite a good idea for there to be questions that allow the answers “Yes” and “No”, because these campaigns are always fought on a “yes or no” basis. I have not looked into how many ballot papers were spoiled at the time of the Scottish referendum, but there was a big problem in Birmingham. People were writing “No” on their ballot papers because they understood how they wanted to answer the question, but there were two boxes to be ticked, and it was not entirely clear which box they should tick in order to express their view. I think that the Electoral Commission got things wrong in that regard.

We are where we are today. We are exerting some pressure for the adoption of a time scale, and we are moving towards change and towards trusting the British people.

[Mr Nuttall]

The hon. Gentleman says that we are where we are today. I seem to recall that when, three years ago, standing probably on this very spot, I moved a motion that there be a national referendum on whether we should stay in the European Union, his hon. Friend the Member for Torbay (Mr Sanders) voted for the motion, but he voted against it. Perhaps he will enlighten the House on what has caused him to change his mind.

[John Hemming]

This is my record of voting on the issue of referendums concerning the European Union. I rebelled in the vote on the Lisbon treaty: I voted for a referendum on that. I voted against the hon. Gentleman’s motion. I voted for the amendment to the Queen’s Speech calling for a referendum. I voted for the private Member’s Bill that was presented during the last Session, and I shall be voting for this Bill. That is because I think we need to secure some changes and then vote on them. I do not think that we should just vote today; I think that we should negotiate some changes and see what we can get, because I think that change is needed. If we have a vote today, we shall have to have another vote later, and I do not think that we need to have too many votes.

[Mr Nuttall]

Does the hon. Gentleman agree that if, after we have tried to negotiate, it turns out that no one will agree to any changes, there should still be a referendum?

[John Hemming]

Yes. That is the whole point. The Bill—which I am going to support, just as I supported the last Bill—says that there should be a referendum by a certain date, which puts pressure on the system to deliver change. The reason I voted against the hon. Gentleman’s motion is that I think we need to negotiate for change, because the system needs to change. I do not take the view of the hon. Member for Clacton (Douglas Carswell), who believes that the structures are so appalling that they could never be modified or improved; I take the view that the structures need modification and improvement, but that we shall then need the authority of the British people. I shall not commit myself as to exactly what my view would be in that process, but I have already explained that I am sympathetic to the adoption of a democratic structure for the handling of trade agreements, which is essentially what we are talking about.

There are questions to be asked about, for instance, how the transatlantic trade and investment partnership should be managed. All trade agreements involve the same difficulties in relation to management. If we are talking about how straight a banana is, that is a trade issue. If we are talking about what names should be used for Cornish pasties, or about how types of food can be localised, that is a trade issue as well. There needs to be a democratic structure of some kind, and there must be an accountable system for management purposes, but what we need to do is secure change, and then have a vote.