European Union Referendum Bill

Debate between Lord Lamont of Lerwick and Lord Wallace of Saltaire

Monday 23rd November 2015 Lords Chamber

[Lord Lamont of Lerwick]

Yes, Parliament has voted for it—but if we are having a referendum, everything is up for argument. The public have been given the right to dispute and to vote. Equally, paragraph (f) of the noble Lord’s amendment refers to,

“those regions of the United Kingdom that qualify for structural funds”.

I imagine that that would have a big impact in certain regions of the north of England, but other people in the south might attach equal importance to the fact that we did not have to make a budget contribution across the exchanges any longer.

The point that I am trying to make is that these things cannot all be reduced to black and white. The truth is grey: there is no such thing as complete impartiality in all these arguments. That comes back to a very important point made by the noble Lord, Lord Owen, who quite rightly and with tremendous force reminded the House that we may be in danger of overstepping the mark. As I think he was hinting—although he had the graciousness not to say so—I suspect that a lot of these amendments are being put forward for rather self-interested motives from the side that people find themselves on in this argument.

So rather than seeking after some elusive impartiality that does not exist, let both sides slog it out in argument. Let the Government, as they have said, publish a White Paper saying what they think is the result of the negotiations and why they think we should stay in, if that is what they think—and they probably will—but let us not go beyond that into an area that is highly disputable. Each side can put its case best, rather than the Government trying to argue a case that they are fundamentally opposed to.

[Lord Wallace of Saltaire]

My Lords, let me simply add to what the noble Lord said. The last Government produced 32 reports on the EU balance of competences; I have painful memories of it. We covered the European arrest warrant. It was a process where we asked the opinions of experts and stakeholders throughout the country. We were as impartial as possible in that respect: civil servants reviewed the results and made an assessment of the balance of comments that had come back. So it is possible to be relatively impartial on all this. If we are to have a referendum, it is important that the people are as well informed as possible on the evidence that is provided.

European Union Referendum Bill

Debate between Lord Lamont of Lerwick and Lord Wallace of Saltaire

Wednesday 4th November 2015 Lords Chamber

[Lord Wallace of Saltaire]

I am simply remarking that principles should apply across the field. I am strongly in favour of greater control over political parties’ spending, which the Conservative Party has resisted extremely strongly. I just remarked that we need to be a little more consistent than we were being.

I will make one other point relating to this group of amendments and to the next.

[Lord Lamont of Lerwick]

Will the noble Lord give way?

[Lord Wallace of Saltaire]

May I continue? I will give way to the noble Lord in a minute or two.

There is a principle that we have a Government. We are not like the United States, where Congress can stop the Government taking everything through if it wants As we were told with reference to the House of Lords’ vote last week, the principle is that the Government must be allowed to get their business through and must be able to say what they think is in the national interest. At the end of this negotiation, the Prime Minister has to be able to say, on behalf of the Government, what he now considers to be in the national interest. I note that a number of noble Lords think that the Prime Minister should not be able to make that case. That seems to me to be moving towards the sort of deadlock between Congress and the presidency seen in the United States, where what the President says has no impact at all. This is a renegotiation. At the end of the renegotiation, the Government are entitled, under our constitutional arrangements, to say what they think is in the national interest. I trust that they will do so.

[Lord Lamont of Lerwick]

My Lords, I am most grateful to the noble Lord for giving way. I actually said that I would be perfectly happy with no cap: I was not talking about caps and supporting them in the way that he suggested. However, would the noble Lord be quite content if there were caps in the general election and the Liberal party were capped at less than half the spending allowed to the Conservative and Labour parties because it got less than half the votes of those parties at the previous election?

[Lord Wallace of Saltaire]

My Lords, I have some familiarity with the previous negotiations on political funding and whether there should be a state contribution. The discussions on whether there should be public support for political parties had indeed taken on board the issue of how many votes each party got in the previous election, so the principle might well be taken, but the issue of caps on expenditure is not really one for a referendum which, I think, the out camp fears it may lose. It is a wider issue.

European Union Referendum Bill

Debate between Lord Lamont of Lerwick and Lord Wallace of Saltaire

Tuesday 13th October 2015 Lords Chamber

[Lord Lamont of Lerwick (Con)]

My Lords, I wholeheartedly support this Bill. It fills a democratic deficit. As the Minister said, people have not had a direct say on a European issue for more than 40 years. No one under the age of 58 has been able to have such a direct say on our relationship with the European Union. I am pleased that the Opposition are not opposing this Bill, although in the Commons they opposed the previous Private Member’s Bill by Mr James Wharton. Nevertheless, I welcome their support for the Bill today.

However, some, like the noble Lord, Lord Liddle—he and I have often debated this—are quite unhappy. Even if they do not oppose the Bill, they think, as the noble Lord made quite explicit, that it is wrong to gamble with something as big and significant as our membership of the EU, since so much time and capital have been invested in it. To my mind, such an attitude reveals a distrust of democracy. That is and has been one of the weaknesses of the European Union. If there is any blame to be attached to why we are having a referendum, I suggest that it lies with those who promised a referendum on the Lisbon treaty and then went along with converting the constitution into a constitutional treaty, for the obvious reason that they wanted to avoid a referendum. That created enormous cynicism. It was a blatant manoeuvre to avoid democratic accountability and it confirmed the suspicion that Europe is about building a political project regardless of political opinion in the member states. Of course, Europe today is very different from the Europe that was put to the British people when we last had a referendum—and, indeed, when we joined the EU in the first place.

No doubt we will have intensive discussions in Committee. It has already been clearly signalled from the Benches opposite that there will be amendments about the franchise. I wholly support what the Minister said. If we are going to alter the qualification for voting, we should decide to do that for general elections first; that is when we should consider it. If we want to encourage more participation of young people in politics, let us concentrate on getting the 18 to 24 year-olds involved in the first place before we lower the voting age.

I do think that Clause 6 needs looking at. It is not at all clear why the Government have to disapply any part of Section 125 of the Political Parties, Elections and Referendums Act 2000. I read what Mr David Lidington said in the House of Commons and it is not at all clear what he was worried about and why we cannot have a full purdah during the period of the referendum. Perhaps my noble friend the Minister could give an example of exactly what the Minister and the Government are so worried about that they have to have this only partial application of Section 125. I remind the House that Section 125 is about material that is put out to the whole public. It is not about circulating documents to people who may be affected by some negotiation.

My position on the referendum is that I will wait to see the results of the renegotiation before I finally make up my mind. A renegotiated settlement for Britain that changed our relationship significantly would have much to commend it. I know this will offend some enthusiasts on the other side but, because of our opt-outs from Schengen and the single currency, we are already semi-detached, country club members—associate members. Sometimes I wonder whether Europe, as it goes forward, is not going to leave us rather than us leaving it—in many ways I think that would be a preferable way to proceed. But Europe goes on.

I am somewhat underwhelmed by what appeared in the Sunday Telegraph about the Government’s apparent negotiating objectives. I know you must not show your hand in negotiations and that an element of bluff is involved, but I thought that you had to bluff your opponents rather than your supporters. That is what worries me a little. I do not think that removing the phrase “ever closer union” will be of great legal significance. It is largely symbolic. I believe strongly that the red card system for national parliaments is not coming out of the negotiations at all. As the committee chaired by the noble Lord, Lord Boswell, has demonstrated, it has been on the table for a very long time already. It is just qualified majority voting by a different route. I do not think that it is enough just to buttress the wall between the eurozone and ourselves. I believe that Britain could survive perfectly well outside the European Union.

[Lord Wallace of Saltaire (LD)]

Does the noble Lord consider that we should opt out of, for example, foreign policy and security policy discussions in the European Union? That is a very important issue.