Lord Foulkes of Cumnock
Main Page: Lord Foulkes of Cumnock (Labour - Life peer)European Union Bill
Lord Foulkes of Cumnock Excerpts
Lord Stoddart of Swindon
As I understand it, Amendment 5 would restore parliamentary democracy. I think that that is about right. I understand all those who are completely in favour of parliamentary democracy untrammelled, and it is difficult to argue against it. However, if you have agreed to a referendum and the people say one thing and then Parliament says another, you are back where you started. Quite frankly, I think that that would cause outrage and undermine the authority of Parliament. If Parliament has agreed that there should be a referendum of the people, the people should decide. After all, in the last analysis, one way or another, the people are the ultimate sovereign. So I cannot support Amendment 5.
Amendment 6 is different. As I understand it, it says, “This is a great issue and you should expect people, citizens, to take an interest in it and come out and vote”. The figure of 40 per cent is pretty low. Of course there are precedents, and as the noble Lord, Lord Williamson, mentioned, only a week or two ago this House voted for such an amendment. On AV, it would be very difficult for the House to go back on something on which it decided a few weeks ago. It could apply in this Bill. I well remember the 1977 referendum in Scotland when—
Lord Stoddart of Swindon
Yes, it was in 1979. There, the 40 per cent threshold was introduced by a few people who were not very much in favour of Scottish devolution, and the proposal did not pass because of the 40 per cent. That was accepted by people. Of course, eventually, the campaign for Scottish devolution won on a reasonable and substantial majority. I am afraid that I would be against Amendment 5, but I would be very happy to support Amendment 6.
Lord Kerr of Kinlochard
I have no more to say except to share the hope of the noble Lord, Lord Hurd, that the Minister, if he grumbles at all, will do so in the most mild and polite form.
Lord Foulkes of Cumnock
I am sure that, if the noble Lord, Lord Kerr, put down what he described as a “Thatcher amendment” on Report, he would find a lot of support for it. We will have another opportunity for looking at that. Returning to the intriguing speech of the noble Lord, Lord Hurd, and the almost exciting start when he described what John Major had asked him to do, I thought that we were going to get revelations about when John Major questioned the parental legitimacy of some of his Cabinet over Maastricht. I am sure that that would have been equally interesting.
We should go back to the eloquent speech made by the noble Lord, Lord Deben, in the debate on Amendment 1. He questioned, as have a number of noble Lords in this debate, the whole purpose and legitimacy of referenda in our parliamentary democracy. I thought that he put that well and I share a lot of his concerns, particularly in the context of the two Scottish referenda, which the noble Lord, Lord Stoddart, mentioned. He said that, in 1979, we did not get the required 40 per cent. We had to get 40 per cent of the electorate in favour as well as a majority of those who voted, on the basis of an amendment by George Cunningham that had been agreed by the House of Commons. Then, in the referendum in 1997, we got a substantial vote in favour of Scottish devolution.
We may have had a better campaign in 1997 and people in Scotland had perhaps moved on in their thinking, but one of the main reasons for that change is that people do not always vote in referenda on the question on the paper before them. They vote for a whole range of extraneous reasons. As I am sure everyone remembers, in 1979 the Labour Government were not at their most popular whereas, when we put the question forward in 1997, that immediately followed the great revolutionary result that saw Mr Blair become Prime Minister. It was a very popular Labour Government. People were perhaps influenced by all these other extraneous things. That is the case in referenda in general, which is one of the reasons why I share the suspicions about them. They should be use rarely and sparingly in our constitution, if at all. I have gone along with that.
I was much in favour of our membership of the European Union in the 1975 referendum. That was the first referendum and it was on a major issue. The noble Baroness, Lady Williams, and I campaigned strongly on the same side and, back then, for the same party. We had a huge campaign and it was a major issue—the crucial issue of our continued membership of the European Union—not just some trivial little matter included in this Bill.
Baroness Nicholson of Winterbourne
My Lords, I am one of those who the noble Lord, Lord Foulkes of Cumnock, has not recognised this evening. I support the Bill, and I made that plain in an earlier debate. I wish to stress that again, because it appears that somehow I am Miss Invisible to the noble Lord, despite our long friendship.
Lord Foulkes of Cumnock
The noble Baroness is absolutely the last person who would be Miss Invisible to me. I have the greatest respect and admiration for her. If I went further, I would embarrass both of us. I can only apologise for not recognising her. Unfortunately, on this occasion, I must disagree with her profoundly on her judgment. Otherwise, she is wonderful.
Baroness Nicholson of Winterbourne
The noble Lord is of course a gallant Scot and turns a beautiful compliment. However, I have to disagree with many noble Lords on this batch of amendments, despite the eminence of those who have spoken for them, including the noble Lord, Lord Hurd of Westwell, whose work and leadership in politics I have followed all my life. Indeed, I have to disagree with even the noble Lord, Lord Hannay, because I believe I am correct in saying that the Government have answered the Constitution Committee, but the committee has not yet made the Government’s response open to the rest of us.
I am standing because I oppose the amendments, which seem to display a lamentable lack of confidence in the British public and their capability to make up their own minds and display their views clearly if they so wish. It is absolutely true that there has been a progressive alienation of the British public from the European Union’s activities. Sadly, that is not unique to the United Kingdom. That is perhaps the tragedy of the European Union. I personally perceive it as a great success. It has brought all nations together in a most wonderful way, involving peace and reconciliation, and it grows ever larger in its mission. None the less, in every member state that I know, the turnout in European elections is dismal. Unless people are forced to, they do not come out to vote for Members of the European Parliament, which is the directly elected portion of the European Union over which the general public can have some control, and they can at least have their own choice on who they wish to elect.
However, there is a fundamental reason for that that will not go away, and it is partly why I strongly support the Bill and oppose these amendments. The fundamental reason is that the European Union is by its nature an intergovernmental body and electorates naturally do not relate well to those bodies. It is to the great credit of the European Parliament that consistently it has raised its game. It has gained more authority and more power. However, with an intergovernmental structure, the intergovernmental side also moves ahead as the Parliament goes on, and it can never quite catch up. None the less, the directly elected European Parliament has far greater powers now than it has ever had. Therefore, this is the right moment to try to reconnect the British public with the European Union mission.
Baroness Brinton
My Lords, I wish to speak against the amendments. I am grateful to other colleagues for having mentioned the 1975 and 1979 referendums. The EU referendum in 1975 was my first active campaign as a Liberal. I joined the party the year before, and I lived and worked in Scotland in the run-up to and immediately after 1979. I want to talk about the impact of that threshold in Scotland. I am very grateful to the noble Lord, Lord Foulkes of Cumnock, for the comments that he made earlier. He is right to some extent about there being an influence on where the Labour Government was in the run-up to 1979 and again in 1997, but that was not the only thing.
In 1979, my day job was as a very junior studio manager with BBC Scotland. On a couple of mornings after the election, I was the poor soul who was sent out to find vox populi on the streets of Edinburgh to talk about the election results and about the impact of the referendum. It was apparent that the people completely distrusted their politicians as a result of having spoken but not being listened to. There was certainly some shock among those people—I will not describe them as active politicians—who regularly voted. The fallout in Scottish politics in subsequent years was very evident. I have no doubt that that was why there was such a strength of feeling in 1997 when we saw real distaste in Scotland about what was happening in Westminster. The people felt disfranchised.
When a threshold is ignored there is a disconnection with the ballot box, a disenchantment with the political process and, more worryingly, a distrust of politicians. I respect the view of my noble friend Lord Hurd of Westwell, but we either have to let the people speak—however they may speak—or we can choose to have Parliament speak. There I pick up on the point made by my colleagues, that sometimes we may not have a referendum and then Parliament speaks, but once we choose—
Lord Foulkes of Cumnock
I shall not argue about the vox populi after the referendum—I might have been one of the voxes and I might have been quite populi. We keep hearing about the distrust of politicians and I wonder whether that distrust is greater when a referendum does not achieve 40 per cent compared with when Members of Parliament pledge not to put up student fees and then do the opposite.
Baroness Brinton
It is very interesting how many people think they voted Liberal Democrat in May 2010. Had they done so, we might have been the major partners in the coalition Government and not the junior partners. The key thing is not just about those who may have voted in a certain way, but the impact of the voice of the people being ignored. That is my concern and I am concerned about having a referendum overturned by Parliament. That is why I oppose the amendment.
Lord Wallace of Saltaire
All of it, indeed. I will investigate why it has not yet been published. I assume there is a delay, for which I apologise.
The noble Lord, Lord Kerr, asked to what extent publics are bound by what their plenipotentiaries have agreed. It is a delicate question in all democratic states. In the United States, congressional ratification is required; in other states, it is parliamentary or popular ratification. That is another large issue of sovereignty, democracy, consent and international negotiation. It applies not just to the European Union but to all international treaties, and it is a problem for all democratic states.
Part of the campaign that we need to undertake to rebuild confidence in the European Union is clearly to have a Government who are going to argue the case for more constructive European engagement. I was glad to hear a number of noble Lords say that the practical approach of this coalition Government to the European Union has been positive. We need now to argue the case for constructive engagement in the European Union, both in other countries and within the European Union. I am confident that the coalition Government will do that over the next few months. Had it not been for the Libyan engagement, we would already have started. I promise noble Lords that we shall move in that direction. However, part of regaining trust is also giving the public confidence that competence creep and all those things which they currently mistrust about the European Union will be stemmed for the foreseeable future at the very least.
There are two major issues: one is whether or not referendums should be advisory or mandatory; and the other is the question of a minimum turnout level. We argued the question of minimum turnouts to the point of exhaustion on the Parliamentary Voting System and Constituencies Bill, in the course of which I became much better educated than I had ever wished to be about the integrity of the electoral register. I remember exchanging views with the noble Lord, Lord Rooker, as to how many times he and I were registered in our respective different residences. The Government—and, I think, most of us—have severe doubts about having a minimum turnout level.
Taking my cue from the noble Lord, Lord Kerr, perhaps I may cite a leading constitutional authority on the question of referendums—Margaret Thatcher— and her contribution to the debate on the then European Community referendum. She said:
“I believe that if there is a high poll and a clear majority, the result will in fact be binding on Parliament whatever one may say in law about parliamentary sovereignty. I cannot envisage that a Parliament, whatever individual Members might have thought, if there were a clear vote against … It is not advisory or consultative in the event of a clear result. It would be binding on everyone … It would bind and fetter parliamentary sovereignty in practice. But if there were a low poll, and an indecisive result, the question would arise whether the British people had genuinely given their verdict by their vote. The Government might regard themselves as bound, but the result could not fetter the decision of Parliament”.—[Official Report, Commons, 11/3/1975; col. 315.]
The Government’s position on these referendums is that the result would be binding on the Government, but we also accept that no such decision could bind Parliament as it would not be consistent with parliamentary sovereignty. There would of course be major political costs to Members of Parliament who wished to disregard a clear popular vote, but one might envisage circumstances in which, in an emergency, Parliament wished to bear that cost.
Lord Foulkes of Cumnock
The Minister has made an interesting and important statement. He has obviously thought carefully about this so could he explain to the House the mechanism by which Parliament might disagree with the decision in a low turnout referendum? What would be the mechanism for Parliament to overturn it?
Lord Wallace of Saltaire
I am sure the noble Lord is as expert on parliamentary sovereignty as I am. No Parliament can bind its successors; any Parliament can overturn a decision of a previous Parliament or even a previous decision of that Parliament. That is part of what we understand by the doctrine of parliamentary sovereignty. There is nothing we can do to prevent a future Parliament from undoing what we are doing. That is my limited understanding of all of this.
Perhaps I may quote a greater constitutional expert than myself.
Lord Wallace of Saltaire
The noble Lord is extremely good at interrupting Ministers and others in full flow. I repeat: Parliament can reverse decisions that have already been taken, either by resolution or by parliamentary Act. That is part of our current, unwritten constitution.
I was in the middle of quoting Professor Bogdanor who, together with two noble Lords, is regarded as one of the major constitutional authorities in the country. On referendums, he said in written evidence to the Constitution Committee:
“Voters entrust their power to representatives, but they give them no authority to transfer those powers … Such authority can be obtained only through a specific mandate, that is a referendum”.
The logic of all those referendums is the same: they are decisions on whether to change who holds power and how that power may be used. No decision can be more eminently qualified than one that could move an area of policy from the responsibility of this House to the responsibility of the European Union. That is part of the area in which we now find ourselves—decisions about the transfer of power.
Lord Foulkes of Cumnock
I have an important point and apologise for taking up time, particularly at this hour. The Minister said that this applied to AV in exactly the same way as it would apply to these European referenda. Is he saying that, if the referendum has a pitifully low turnout and only a marginal vote in favour, it is then open to us in this Session of Parliament, so that we are free to repeal the legislation which provided the power to the people in that referendum? If that is the case, it is a very interesting and welcome announcement.
Lord Wallace of Saltaire
I wish to resist getting too far into hypothetical issues about what might happen in a great emergency in a future Parliament. I simply wish to state that Parliament is sovereign. There is nothing in the Bill that would bind this or any future Parliament from legislating, notwithstanding the provisions of the Bill, or from disapplying the provisions of this legislation, or indeed acting contrary to the will of the electorate expressed by them in a referendum. In this sense of fundamental parliamentary sovereignty, any referendum is advisory. All that the Bill says is that a referendum will be mandatory on the Government who receive the result of that referendum. I am conscious, from the unusual quiet, that the heating has just been switched off and that we should not delay the House too much longer.