European Union Bill

Lord Pearson of Rannoch Excerpts

Wednesday 8th June 2011 Lords Chamber

[Lord Deben]

I am always worried when my noble friend intervenes upon me but I am very pleased on this occasion to say that I agree with him entirely. This is an issue for Parliament and Parliament should make up its own mind—I have no doubt about that at all. He need not worry. I am a great defender of Parliament. But I ask this House not to allow itself to get into the situation which the Swiss got into. After all, Switzerland was the last country in Europe to allow women to vote. Why was that? Every time they passed it in Parliament, it was the referenda which defeated it. I ask noble Lords to be very careful about this.

Let us look at this amendment. I have great sympathy for the view which the noble Lord, Lord Richard, expressed. It seems to me that this is a very simple concept. We who are arguing for it have accepted that in our view, for bad reasons, we are going to have referenda. We are unlikely to have a referendum on something trivial—I do not really agree with the noble Lord, Lord Williamson; I think it will be likely to be on something of note. It will be on something which the Government have decided not to veto. It is going to be quite a rare occasion. It is going to be something which the Government have presented to Parliament, Parliament is going to vote for it, and it will then be placed before the public. All we are saying is that if less than 40 per cent of the public think it worth while voting, Parliament can reconsider the matter. It can take into account what the public have said and then ask itself what should it do.

I finish by saying that I would say this about a proposal for a referendum on something that I believed my side would win in all circumstances. This is not a matter about the subject; it is about the mechanism. It is that which we should face. May I suggest to noble Lords that this House has got to do its duty in ensuring that when there is a major change, as the noble Lord, Lord Kerr, said, we ensure that it is not one with unforeseen circumstances? All we are saying is that if enough people vote, then it is mandatory; if not enough people vote, it is advisory. That seems to me to be a sensible compromise, so I ask the Minister to help those of us who find this Bill very difficult indeed and at least allow us to have this compromise, which is in the best tradition of British parliamentary democracy.

[Lord Pearson of Rannoch]

My Lords, seldom have I been made glummer than I have been made by the speech of the noble Lord, Lord Deben, and indeed, by the noble and learned Lord, Lord Howe, and those who tabled this amendment. They have encapsulated perfectly the disdain of the political class for the people of this country.

[A noble Lord]

That includes you.

[Lord Pearson of Rannoch]

I am indeed a member of the political class, but I think I see it perhaps with more objectivity than those who tabled this amendment. If your Lordships' House has a vote and less than 40 per cent turn out for it, the result is still valid. If 10 per cent of your Lordships' House votes, perhaps rather late at night, the result is still valid.

I say that those who tabled this amendment really do not understand the disdain of the people of this country for the political class, and that disdain is justified. Look at the position into which our political class has led this country over the past 50 years—since Suez, perhaps, and we got that wrong. Our children cannot learn to read; our prisons are overflowing with the illiterate; our hospitals are dirty; we are failing the old, most of whom end their lives in misery and loneliness; our streets are dangerous; our transport is creaky; our police are overburdened and overbureaucratised; even our Armed Forces are being asked to do too much with too little, and their morale is beginning to crack; immigration is out of control; Islamism is on the march; and our economy is in terrible trouble, the pain of which will, of course, be visited upon the people. I think the British people are justified in thinking very ill of their political class.

Noble Lords may remember that for about two minutes last year I was the leader of the UK Independence Party and, rather against my will, we consulted focus groups, which I always think should be completely unnecessary. Even I was surprised by the answer to the question about what people thought about the political class. Every class of the British people in every area of this country said that they regarded the political class not with dislike, not with disdain, not with distrust, not even with anger, but with hatred. I believe that our system of representative parliamentary democracy, which those who tabled this amendment and the leaders of our political class like so much, is no longer supported by the people, and therefore has broken down.

Do not let us forget that up to the 19th century and the early 20th century most people in this country could not read, so it was reasonable to send representatives to Westminster to take decisions for them. But now people can read. On the whole, they are very much more sensible than the people who represent them and they want referendums. They want referendums not only on the European Union but perhaps across the board, which might be the only way to reconnect the people with their democracy. I believe that their decisions—even if only 15 per cent of them turn out to vote—will be very much wiser than those of our failed political class. Therefore, I oppose these amendments.

--- Later in debate ---

[Lord Hamilton of Epsom]

That was not the story that I was told. If I had realised the massive implications for the transfer of sovereignty as a result of signing, I would not have supported the referendum on the question of our membership of the European Union.

There has been a tremendous amount of deception. Not only is it an understatement of what we have signed up to, but it is a process of grandmother’s footsteps—a little bit at a time, always understating the implications. Therefore, with reference to the amendment, if we leave it with Parliament to make the decisions about whether the implications of the business are worthy of a referendum, we are right back in the position of deceiving the people of this country and will merely sow more mistrust and undermine the whole purpose of the Bill, which is to reassure the British people that if there is any question of us being drawn further into the European Union we will put it to them to decide whether it should happen.

[Lord Pearson of Rannoch]

My Lords, there is another reason to disagree with the amendment. Any Joint Committee composed of Members of your Lordships' House and the other place is bound to be stacked in favour of the Europhiles. In your Lordships' House, we now number some 800 Members, of whom I think only eight are prepared to say, more or less in public, that we should leave the European Union. That compares with some 84 per cent of the British public who want a referendum on whether we stay in the European Union at all—which has nothing to do with the Bill—and more than 50 per cent who believe that we should leave outright. In recent years, I have often pointed out that the composition of your Lordships' Select Committees is skewed in favour of Europhilia, even by the standards of your Lordships' House. I have not made a recent examination of the members of the main European Select Committee or its sub-committees, but I am prepared to bet that not a single member of those committees agrees with at least half the British people, and perhaps only two or three of them could be regarded as vaguely Eurosceptic.

In the House of Commons, some 26 Members have joined the joint Better Off Out group and have voted in a refreshingly Eurosceptic direction on the Bill and other matters. The Joint Committee of both Houses of Parliament of course will be stacked by the Whips and will, in the recent tradition of both Houses of Parliament, get wildly out of tune with the British people—something that the Bill is supposed to do something to correct. The amendment goes in entirely the opposite direction and I hope that it will be resisted.