European Union Bill

Lord Lamont of Lerwick Excerpts

Wednesday 8th June 2011 Lords Chamber

[Lord Stoddart of Swindon]

My Lords, I wish that the noble Lord, Lord Dykes, would not describe people who oppose his points of view in such terms as “nerds”. It does not enhance debate and it is quite unnecessary to lampoon one’s opponents.

The amendment has a certain superficial attraction, but we need to be extremely careful what we do. If you say that a decision on an item on which a referendum is to be held can take effect only if 40 per cent of the electorate vote, you could say that about almost every election we have. People are elected to the House of Commons—certainly in by-elections—on a turnout of less than 40 per cent of those entitled to vote. Why on earth should that be legitimate and a referendum on a matter which is to be transferred to European governance not be accepted? We have to be very careful not to create a precedent here which might be used in other circumstances that may be inconvenient to Parliament and certainly to local authorities, where the turnout is very often far below the 40 per cent of those entitled to vote.

The noble Lord, Lord Tomlinson, talked about the various alternatives that might be put on the ballot paper. If you pass this amendment, there is another alternative which is that you can campaign for people not to vote. That is good democracy, is it not? Or is it? If you encourage people not to vote to get the decision you want, that is extremely bad democracy. I do not want to delay the House any further, but I believe that before we vote we should be very careful about what we are doing.

[Lord Lamont of Lerwick]

My Lords, the noble Lord, Lord Williamson, as always, made a very careful and thoughtful speech which places me in a slightly awkward position. I find it surprising that there is so much enthusiasm for this amendment from those who accuse the Government of obstructing the process towards greater European integration. They have said that the Government have been putting locks on moves towards further European integration. Here they are putting a padlock on the lock; they are putting another obstacle in the way of European integration. Let us not forget that one will get a referendum only when the Government are proposing to acquiesce in a step towards European integration. Therefore, I find it a little strange that those who are enthusiastic about more integration and think that the Government are being obstructionist about this want to put up another obstacle.

I do not accept the argument of the noble Lord, Lord Williamson, that there is a danger that we will have lots of referendums on trivial subjects such as the number of advocates-general or the voting system for having advocates-general. There are several reasons, which we went through in Committee, why we will not get a whole series of trivial referendums. First, these sorts of changes tend to come along in packages after major treaty revisions and we have been assured there will not be major treaty revisions. It seems unlikely that any one country is going to invest a huge amount of political capital pressing for a change in the voting system for choosing advocates-general. If some power has not been given to Brussels even after the Lisbon treaty and the Maastricht treaty—the series of constitutional treaties we have had—if powers are left to individual countries, there is a very good reason for that. Obviously in previous negotiations countries have not wanted to cede those powers. The idea that we are going to get a lot of referendums on trivial matters is unrealistic and is a chimera. If that was the basis of the noble Lord’s argument I would not accept it. There are many subjects that are by no means trivial, such as our borders and our criminal justice system, where it would be wholly appropriate to have a referendum. That is why I am broadly a supporter of the Bill.

I said at the beginning that the noble Lord, Lord Williamson, places me in a slightly awkward position because I was, as some of my noble friends will remember, a very strong supporter of the 40 per cent threshold for the referendum on AV. Indeed, I voted twice against my party on it. I do not like to make personal comments but I got to my feet largely because of my noble friend Lord Dykes, who I have known for many years. On the AV question, my noble friend was a very firm opponent of the 40 per cent threshold to which he has put his name on this occasion. As I am placed in an awkward position and he is also exposed in an awkward position, I am prepared to do him a deal. If he will not support this amendment, I will vote for it.