European Union Referendum Bill

Debate between Lord Clarke of Nottingham and Jacob Rees-Mogg

Tuesday 16th June 2015 Commons Chamber

[Mr Clarke]

Let me make a little more progress. I hope that my hon. Friend’s constraint will stop him leaping up too frequently; I will give way in due course.

I do not believe that there is any bad faith anywhere. Everyone wants those who campaign and the public to feel that the referendum has been conducted with absolute fairness. I am surprised, therefore, that, in these opening days of the European referendum process, so much passion is being excited by procedural issues. I will not describe them as footnotes, but, although they are important, none of them will make the faintest difference to the result on the day of the referendum. If we asked most of our masters—the public—whether purdah was followed properly during the campaign, they would not have the first idea what we were talking about. So my first plea is for a sense of proportion.

My plea to my right hon. Friend the Minister—I do not think I need to make it because I have seen the letter, which did not get to me either; I have just been shown it—is to live up to his undertakings. It is right to bend over backwards to reassure my right hon. and hon. Friends that there is no conspiracy, that they must not leap into paranoia, and that the intention is to hold a referendum in which the British public will be able to reach a view on balanced presentations. It seems to me that Ministers have started doing this straight away. I got the impression from the Second Reading debate that my right hon. Friends on the Front Bench were as surprised as I was at the sudden excitement about the rules in what should have been a fairly routine Bill paving the way for the referendum.

[Mr Jacob Rees-Mogg (North East Somerset) (Con)]

Will my right hon. and learned Friend give way?

[Mr Clarke]

I will give way in a moment.

The Prime Minister has announced that he will suspend the rules of collective responsibility and that members of the Government will be able to campaign on whichever side they choose. We now have the letter giving an undertaking that the Government will depart from section 129. People seem to think that there is something magic about 5 May 2016, so we will not hold the referendum on that date. I have sympathy with Ministers; they are being derided. The moment they make concessions to all these impassioned pleas, they suffer the fate of all Ministers and are immediately accused of a humiliating U-turn and held up for ridicule.

Some of my right hon. and hon. Friends and perhaps others in the Scottish National party are difficult to calm down and reassure. I ask them to accept, as I accept, that every effort is being and should be made to satisfy fears about the propriety of the campaigning period.