European Union Referendum Bill

Lord Pearson of Rannoch Excerpts

Wednesday 18th November 2015 Lords Chamber

[Lord Pearson of Rannoch (UKIP)]

My Lords, I wonder if I could set out on a very brief quest which I fear most of your Lordships will regard as hopeless. That quest is to prick the conscience of Liberal Democrat Members of your Lordships’ House if they are thinking of supporting this amendment and thus voting it through. I do so by reminding them of their policy before the last election of appointing Peers to your Lordships’ House in accordance with the votes cast in the previous general election. I take the opportunity of reminding the noble Lord, Lord Tyler, and his colleagues that the percentage of their votes in the last general election was 7.9% of the votes cast. That would give them 43 Peers in this House whereas at the moment they have 112—69 more Peers than they ought to.

We have heard much from the noble Lord, Lord Tyler, and Liberal Democrat Peers about democratic legitimacy and all the rest of it, but I recall our debate on 15 September about the future of your Lordships’ House. I have to say to the Liberal Democrat Peers that if they are thinking of using their hugely unconstitutional and undemocratic position in this House to vote the amendment through, I remind them that the Bill has already been through the House of Commons and has the approval of that House.

I agree with the noble Lord, Lord Tyler, with Labour and with others that we need a constitutional convention to restore our democracy because not only is the position of the Liberal Democrat party in your Lordships’ House absurd but so is that of the Labour Party—and indeed that of the Government in the House of Commons, where the Government of the day, the Conservative Party, got a mere 24% of the electorate, 37% of the votes cast, yet that gave them 330 seats and an outright majority. I am sure that your Lordships would be disappointed if I did not compare that performance to the UKIP result in the House of Commons, where we got a big percentage of the electorate—one-third of the electorate of the Government of the day, 12.6% of the votes cast—but that gave us just one Member of Parliament. Still, I do not want to labour that point now. I simply say to the Liberal Democrats: are they wise if they are going to use this position to vote through the amendment? Otherwise, I agree with the noble Lords, Lord Hamilton and Lord Forsyth, who say that this is a transparent attempt to rig the referendum in favour of those who may wish to stay in the EU. As for the amendment itself, I oppose it and I hope it fails.

[Lord Lansley (Con)]

My Lords—