European Union (Referendum) Bill

Keith Vaz Excerpts

Friday 5th July 2013 Commons Chamber

[Mr Hague]

My hon. Friend must remember that had our Liberal Democrat colleagues voted with us for a referendum on the Lisbon treaty, there would have been a referendum in 2008. Some Labour Members support a referendum. We have heard from some of them already, and this Bill is their chance; it is the best chance currently available to make it happen. Not only would it be a badge of honour for them, but it would help to show their weak leadership some real leadership that is sorely needed.

This is not the first time that the question of whether to consult the people has caused unmitigated dither, muddle and confusion in the Labour leadership. When the previous Prime Minister, the right hon. Member for Kirkcaldy and Cowdenbeath (Mr Brown), was trying to decide whether to call a general election in 2007, he asked the current Leader of the Opposition, the current shadow Foreign Secretary and the current shadow Chancellor, resulting in the decision taking so long that they never made a decision at all and never held a general election. The impulse to trust the people is not exactly their hallmark.

Now we wonder: what is Labour’s policy? The shadow Defence Secretary, the right hon. Member for East Renfrewshire (Mr Murphy), who is not here, said in October:

“I think at some point there will have to be a referendum on the EU. I don’t think it’s for today or for the next year, but I think it should happen…My preference would be an in-or-out referendum when the time comes.”

In January, the Leader of the Opposition told the House,

“we do not want an in/out referendum”—[Official Report, 23 January 2013; Vol. 557, c. 305.]

The shadow Foreign Secretary said that Labour will not commit to an in/out referendum now, but might do later—apparently that is the way to avoid uncertainty.

The shadow Chancellor said:

“I don’t think we should set our face against a referendum and I certainly don’t think we can ever afford to give the impression that we know better than the voting public”—

although that was never a problem for him when squandering tens of billions of pounds of taxpayers’ money. Will Labour make up its mind or not? Its chief strategist, the noble Lord Wood, said the week before last on whether Labour would offer a referendum:

“It’s conceivable because we are going to make up our minds before the next election.”

Last week, the shadow Chief Secretary to the Treasury said, “No, no, no. There’s no change of policy and there’s no prospect of a change of policy”.

With some in favour, some against, some adamantly in favour of not having a referendum, some adamantly for deciding later, at some point, perhaps before the general election but who knows?—with such a shambles of confusion and weak leadership, no wonder Labour Members are wondering what they are here for and where their leader is today. One day Unite will give them their orders on how to vote on these matters.

The Leader of the Opposition and his closest friends are being asked to make a decision—to vote one way or another and be held accountable for it. The position of the Labour party on this vital national and international issue is that Labour Members would rather not be asked and they would rather not be here.

[Keith Vaz (Leicester East) (Lab)]

As the Foreign Secretary knows, I am with him on the idea of a referendum, but would he help me with this? As someone who has attended many, many summits over the 24 years that he has been in Parliament—as a Minister, of course, he has attended many summits—does he think the Prime Minister will have the time and space between 2015, if he is re-elected as Prime Minister, and 2017 to go around the whole of Europe to get the concessions he needs in order to secure reform of the EU?

[Mr Hague]

My right hon. Friend the Prime Minister is tirelessly—now, in this Parliament, never mind in the next Parliament—going around Europe making sure this country gets what it needs. The Opposition do not have a policy to reform the EU, but we do and he is pursuing it. Labour never cut the EU budget, but he already has. Labour signed Britain up to eurozone bail-outs and he has got us out of them. Labour surrendered part of the rebate and he has never surrendered part of the rebate, so the right hon. Gentleman can rest assured that my right hon. Friend will be well equipped to go round Europe preserving our national interest.

--- Later in debate ---

[Mr Denham]

There is no doubt that this whole exercise is driven by the Conservative party’s terror of UKIP.

In answer to the hon. Member for Winchester (Steve Brine)—I will come on to the specific point on a referendum in a moment—I want our future to be as a confident part of a reformed European Union. There are people who say that we could be like Switzerland or Norway. They are fine countries, but I do not want to be like them. Clearly, the days of empire and global military might are long gone and rightly so, but I am still sufficiently confident in this country and sufficiently patriotic to believe that we can be a country of influence and leadership in the world. I am not going to join those who just want to scuttle away from the challenges of the world, as Eurosceptics do.

Yes, there is a case for a referendum in principle, and I see that. It is a long time since we had one, and to an extent the demand for it has taken on a life of its own beyond the issue of Europe. However, those of us who can see that case also have a responsibility to be clear about the conditions in which a referendum would serve the national interest. If we are to ask people to vote, the choice has to be clear. We need to know what the effect of saying yes will be, and we need to know what the effect of saying no will be.

The hon. Member for Stockton South and the Foreign Secretary both let the cat out of the bag. The hon. Member for Stockton South said that no one knows what the European Union will be like in 10 years’ time, and the Foreign Secretary said that it may be very different from the way it is today. Both those judgments are true, so how can we have a referendum when the consequences of leaving might be clear enough, but it is not clear what the consequences of staying will be. Clearly, we need to pursue reform and to reshape the EU so there can be a clear and settled choice. I am not one of those—not all of those in my party agree with this, but I do not mind there being a discussion in our party—who rule out a referendum on Europe. However, a referendum should only happen if it is in the national interest and if we can put to the people a clear and settled choice. That has not yet been delivered.

[Keith Vaz]

My right hon. Friend is making an important and thoughtful speech, and he is right to embrace the reform agenda. Does he agree that that reform agenda can start now, and that we can only conduct the reform agenda if we are at the top table of Europe? There is nothing to stop Ministers beginning that process immediately.

[Mr Denham]

My right hon. Friend is right. What worries me is that the Prime Minister represents a party in which that generation of confident patriots, who believed that this country could shape Europe to the benefit of Europe and in the interests of our country, has gone. The Conservative party is split. There are those who simply want to leave come what may. They are the people Lewis Carroll satirised 150 years ago when he had the Queen of Hearts say, “Sentence first, evidence later”. They have made up their minds. The other faction of the Conservative party simply believes in repatriation and repeal: returning to the country those rights that give working people decent protections—maternity pay, the right not to be maimed and killed at work, and paid holidays—in order to repeal them. Those are the only two positions that exist in today’s Conservative party. So when my right hon. Friend says that these negotiations should start now, the problem is this: yes, but you must have people who are going to be credible in those negotiations.

We send a Prime Minister who has been forced. He goes to meetings and everyone is laughing behind their hands, because they know that he does not control his own party, and that his strength to negotiate on our behalf is being shot away by the antics of the people behind him, who know that 2017 is an arbitrary date that bears no relationship to any decision-making processes in the EU, but is entirely about trying to head off—unsuccessfully, it has to be said—the threat from UKIP. That is not a way to approach the national interest.

I am not one of those who says, “These are only matters for general elections and that there must never be a point where people have a choice.” But to return to what the hon. Member for Winchester said, if I say, “Let’s have a choice”, my constituents have a right for the choice to be clear—clear about the nature of the European Union they could vote for or the nature of the European Union that they would leave. There is no clarity to that choice today. There is no reason to believe that there will be clarity to that choice on the arbitrary date of 2017.

--- Later in debate ---

[Keith Vaz (Leicester East) (Lab)]

May I begin by joining other right hon. and hon. Members in congratulating the hon. Member for Stockton South (James Wharton) on the terrific achievement of being first in the ballot to propose a private Member’s Bill on the Floor of the House and on filling the Chamber? This has been a remarkable week for him. Not only has he introduced the Bill, but his local restaurant, Raj Bari, came third in the Tiffin cup final. That is a terrific achievement, one that I am sure he will celebrate with them tonight when he gets back to Stockton.

This has been a remarkable debate in which we have heard some interesting facts. The hon. Member for Cheltenham (Martin Horwood) was outed as a member of Unite by my hon. Friend the Member for Glasgow South West (Mr Davidson), and then managed to resign within moments of being outed. The hon. Member for Congleton (Fiona Bruce) told us that she is old enough to be the mother of the hon. Member for Stockton South. I am surprised that she did not offer to be his mother, bearing in mind his current popularity.

I hope to make a short contribution. Many right hon. and hon. Members wish to speak, and some of us would like to get back to our constituencies some time today. Friday mornings will never be the same again for me. I want to say how much I support the idea, and have supported the idea for some time, of the British people being allowed to have their say on membership of the European Union. I agree with the many hon. Members who have said that this is an issue of trust. I do not think that political parties should feel they cannot trust the British people on this important issue, which has been the dominant issue of the past 30 to 40 years. The constant debates in the House and in the country, and the fact that the issue has seized the consciousness of the British people, mean that at some stage we have to put it to the British people. I believe that this should be done sooner rather than later. We should do it now, if we can; if not now, then certainly at the time of the next general election.

[Neil Parish]

Is the right hon. Gentleman convinced that he will be able to persuade his colleagues on the Opposition Front Bench, and the Leader of the Opposition, to support a referendum?

[Keith Vaz]

Absolutely not. I am merely a humble Back Bencher. We need to do our best to persuade those on the Front Bench that this is in the interests not only of the Labour party but, primarily, of the country. The shadow Foreign Secretary, my right hon. Friend the Member for Paisley and Renfrewshire South (Mr Alexander), spoke very well this morning, but we still need to convince him that we need to go one step further. After all, progress has been made. Labour voted for a reduction in the EU budget and against the amendment to the Queen’s Speech, and we are going to abstain today, so we are on the way; we are moving in the direction that the hon. Gentleman wants us to move in, and I hope that we will get there in the end.

[Andrew Bingham (High Peak) (Con)]

Does the right hon. Gentleman not agree that this goes to the heart of democracy, when so many people are crying out for a referendum and there is a great disconnect between politics and the electorate that needs healing? Giving the electorate a referendum, as we want to do, will help that process.

[Keith Vaz]

I agree with the hon. Gentleman. The fact is that we need to reconnect by allowing people to have their say.

I am very surprised that the Liberal Democrats have changed their view—[Hon. Members: “Why?”] Well, I am. I learned most of my community politics from the Liberal Democrats when I stood in Richmond many years ago, and I know that they are committed to allowing people to have their say in places like Richmond and Kingston. I am therefore surprised that they have changed their mind on this matter.

[Zac Goldsmith]

I thank the right hon. Gentleman for giving way. We have a great deal in common, as he has just said. Does he agree that this is not just a matter of this House trusting the people with a decision on this issue, and that it is even more a case of providing the people with a reason to trust the House? It works both ways, and there could not be a more important time to demonstrate both aspects of that than now.

[Keith Vaz]

I absolutely agree with the hon. Gentleman. We must give the whole debate over from this House. We all have an important role to play in discussing and scrutinising the European Union, but at the end of the day, the matter must go to the British people.

My second point is on the need for reform. I hope that the hon. Member for Stockton South will be willing to consider any amendments that I hope Labour will table in Committee, and that he will look at the whole issue of reform. I do not believe that the timetable the Prime Minister has set out is achievable. I agree with what my right hon. Friend the Member for Dulwich and West Norwood (Dame Tessa Jowell) said about this. The reform process will take a long time. Should the Prime Minister get re-elected and become Prime Minister again, his timetable of two years between 2015 and 2017 will, frankly, not be long enough.

The issues in the European Union exist at the moment, and there is a need for reform of a whole range of policies. We could start that process now. There is no reason why British Ministers going to summit meetings and having discussions with their European Union counterparts—the Minister for Europe goes to General Affairs Council meetings every month to discuss these matters with his counterpart Ministers for Europe, for example—should not start the reform agenda immediately, rather than waiting until after the next general election.

[Glyn Davies (Montgomeryshire) (Con)]

The right hon. Gentleman is making an interesting point. I knew that those were his opinions because I have read them on many occasions. Does he agree that, if we have a referendum and if we are going to engage properly with the people, we must know what the position is? There must be a reformed European Union, or we withdraw. If we had the referendum much earlier, people would simply be in the dark.

[Keith Vaz]

I thank the hon. Gentleman for that intervention. Actually, I think the British people know the issues now. They understand the issues that confront Europe, and I am not sure that a public education campaign is what they need, as long as we are committed to reform, and to changing the way in which the European Union operates. There is much that we need to change on the justice and home affairs agenda, for example, including measures on the European arrest warrant and on the way in which countries such as Greece have to deal with illegal migration. There are so many other areas that we need to look at. We can be part of that process as we go along within the European Union; we do not need to have a separate set of negotiations. The only way, in my view, that we can do this is to put the matter to the EU now.

[Tim Loughton (East Worthing and Shoreham) (Con)]

Will the right hon. Gentleman give way?

[Keith Vaz]

Yes, but many Members want to speak, so I give way for the last time.

[Tim Loughton]

I am grateful to the right hon. Gentleman and I praise him for the candour of his approach to this debate. We all agree that reform is needed, but the British public need to be sure that sufficient reform is going to take place if we are to stay within the EU. Does he agree that having a referendum after the renegotiation has happened will absolutely crystallise in the minds of the rest of the EU member states the fact that we are absolutely serious that the current position is just unsustainable?

[Keith Vaz]

I think the member states know that the current situation is unsustainable and that they understand that we want change. The Prime Minister has made that clear every time he goes to a summit meeting of the European Union. I do not know whether the Minister for Europe has a row with his colleagues every time he goes to the General Affairs meetings, but the fact is that the Prime Minister always comes back to this House to make his statement after a European summit and says that he has confronted colleagues so that they know where Britain stands.

I think that the major political parties should be publishing their manifestos for reform. Frankly, we do not know what they are. I think we should be very clear about what we want to change about the European Union—and we can put that into operation now rather than having to wait.

My final point is that I hope nobody votes against this private Member’s Bill. I hope that it will go through unanimously and that nobody will seek to divide the House. That would send a powerful message that all parties believe that there is a case for the British people to make a decision. If we do that, it will mean that people will trust us even more than they do at the moment.