European Union Referendum Bill

Lord Lexden Excerpts

Wednesday 18th November 2015 Lords Chamber

[Lord Lexden (Con)]

My Lords, I should like to return briefly to two points from among those I made in Committee. First, if our fellow countrymen and women who have lived overseas for more than 15 years are deprived of the vote in this all-important referendum, it will be because of a preventable accident of timing. As we have heard, the Conservative Party is committed to enfranchising them, but the promised Bill to do so has not appeared. The right thing to do, and this is a Government who pride themselves on doing the right thing, is to make provision for them to take part in the referendum through this Bill.

Secondly, I say again, as I did in Committee, that we should put ourselves in the shoes of our fellow countrymen and women who have been living in other EU countries for more than 15 years. How would we like it if we were deprived of the vote in a momentous referendum which will touch our present livelihoods and future prospects so intimately and directly, when we knew that at the next parliamentary election a vote would be ours? I take the view that the Bill should be returned to the other place incorporating this amendment. The issue was discussed hurriedly and incompletely during the earlier debates on the Bill there. Let the elected Chamber be asked to make a carefully considered decision on this issue. If we do that, we will have discharged our proper constitutional duty in relation to this part of the Bill.

[Lord Lester of Herne Hill (LD)]

My Lords, I regret that I was not able to speak at the Committee stage, but I want to make one brief point. It is extremely important for us, through the Government and Parliament, to recognise the service given by our fellow citizens when they serve in the European institutions. I have made the point in the past so far as judges are concerned. It is vital to get good British judges to serve in Europe. But exactly the same applies elsewhere in the European public service.

The example that comes to my mind is that of an admirable civil servant, now retired, called Simon Palmer. He has lived in France for more than 15 years. He lives there because during the whole of that time he served the Council of Europe as a member of the European civil service. He takes his holidays in England and he is thoroughly British, but he has brought up his family in Europe. I see no good reason why he should suffer the penalty of being disqualified from the referendum simply because he has lived there for the wrong side of 15 years. His connection with this country is no weaker, and it is very important that through this debate and what comes of it, we should recognise the vital public service given by people like him by giving them the ability to vote in this crucial referendum.

--- Later in debate ---

[Baroness Morgan of Ely (Lab)]

My Lords, many noble Lords believe in the principle of votes for life for British citizens, irrespective of where they now live or how long they have lived there for. Others have argued that this is a one-off, exceptional situation relating to the fact that this is an EU referendum— that UK citizens living in the EU will be directly impacted and they should therefore be given the vote. These are different arguments and we disagree with both.

I am clear that if we were to leave the EU there would be an immediate and direct impact on UK citizens living in other EU member states. Their status in the country would at the very least be reviewed. Will their qualifications be recognised? Will their pensions be uprated? Will they be able to access member states’ medical services? There is a deafening silence from the Government on these issues, but it does not mean that they should be given special status in this referendum because of the possible impact on their lives.

In Committee, my noble friend Lord Grocott eloquently inquired why we allow some expats in some countries in Europe, such as Sweden, to vote, while preventing others in countries such as Norway from voting. He also suggested that we would be getting into difficult territory if we allowed only those affected to vote. If we start down that route we will get into difficulty.

Then there is the practical issue of registering these people. Who are they? How do we find them? What if we extend the franchise to 16 to 18 year-olds? The Minister suggested that if all citizens around the world were invited to register there could be about 5 million of them. That is not what the amendment says; it says, “Let’s restrict this to the EU”. That is 1.3 million citizens. We have just heard some very clear statistics, but they actually were not that clear. That is the problem. We have no idea how many there are. It will be very difficult to trace them in a short space of time. This is very different from 16 to 17 year-olds voting. We know exactly where they are: in school. These people are spread throughout the continent. We would not know where to start, not within the nine-month timeframe.

Many UK citizens overseas have been invited to register in the past, but as the noble Lord, Lord Dobbs, pointed out in Committee, fewer than 20,000 British expats in the European Union have taken up that right to vote, despite all the efforts and funding that has been given to advertising by the Government and to get them involved.

[Lord Lexden]

The noble Baroness underestimates the figure. It is not 20,000, but more than 100,000 registered to vote at the last general election.

[Baroness Morgan of Ely]

That is even fewer. That makes my point more eloquently. The point is, there was a huge drive to get these people to sign up and they did not take it up, although I think every one of those 100,000 has emailed me in the past few weeks to ask for this vote in the EU referendum.

The issue of citizenship and the responsibilities of citizens that my noble and learned friend Lord Goldsmith talked about earlier should be taken into account. In this country we have said time and again that we want to encourage people to integrate into their communities, to be a part of this society. It would therefore be inconsistent for us to suggest that, after 15 years in a country, they should not also be encouraged to become part of that society and to establish roots in their adopted lands.

There must be no question about the legitimacy of this referendum. We believe that there should be a cut-off point when people should lose their entitlement to vote if they have made their home abroad. We think that the current cut-off point of 15 years is about right. However, let me make it absolutely clear that there is no inconsistency in Labour’s position on this. The Conservative Government have said clearly that they want to see this extended. It is in their manifesto. They want British citizens who move abroad to be able to vote for ever. We do not believe that. When that Bill comes before this House we will oppose it.

I hope noble Lords will agree that there is, at least, a degree of consistency in the Labour Party’s position on this issue. We do not want to see this franchise extended beyond 15 years.