European Union (Referendum) Bill

Lord Phillips of Sudbury Excerpts

Friday 24th January 2014 Lords Chamber

There is only one way in which to do a piece of research that might answer the question before us, and that is to take two samples—one asking the question put in the Bill of the noble Lord, Lord Dobbs, the other asking the Electoral Commission’s question—and see whether the results are the same. You probably would have to do this at least two or three times because of sampling error and so on. Then you would know whether the wording of the question made a difference. We do not know whether the Electoral Commission’s wording would produce a different result from the question of the noble Lord—it might or it might not. What we do know is that between a question drafted by the Electoral Commission, which deals with these matters very frequently and is used to finding out the nuance of questions, and a question put together by the tyros in Conservative Central Office who drafted the Bill, there should be no choice for this House. The Electoral Commission is the referee, and to begin the passage of the Bill by rejecting the decision of the referee in favour of your personal whim is a disgraceful way to legislate. I support these amendments.

[Lord Phillips of Sudbury (LD)]

My Lords, whatever our views about this potential referendum, I am sure that everyone in the House is united in the view that if there is to be a referendum, we must ensure that a success is made of it. Success does not mean yes or no, it means the number of our fellow countrymen who vote in that referendum. That will depend, first, upon the number who register under the new registration procedures that are coming in shortly and, secondly, upon the number who turn out to vote on the day.

I want to make only one point. I speak in support of Amendments 1, 11 and 32, all of which, in different ways, want the question to be put to be reworded. I should declare an interest as the founder and president of the Citizenship Foundation, which was established nearly 25 years ago when the understanding then, particularly by young citizens, of what was going on in our complicated democracy was patently inadequate for an engaged citizenry. I think that most will agree that things have become worse in the interim. For a variety of reasons, there is today a low adhesion to the political process by so-called ordinary men and women. I desperately hope that everything we say and do in relation to the Bill will be centred on that one residual need, which is to maximise the number of people who turn out on the day, if there is to be a referendum day.

I will not go into the difference between Amendments 1, 11 and 32. I will merely say to the noble Lord, Lord Dobbs, that the question in the Bill does not have the optimum wording. It can and should be clearer. I do not particularly mind which of the amendments we adopt. The question certainly needs to be clearer for the sake of the public.

[Lord Grenfell (Lab)]

My Lords, I support these amendments very strongly indeed. I find it curious that, so far, not one word has been spoken from the Benches opposite in defence of their wording. That is rather curious, until you look at why the Bill is before us. Let me remind noble Lords of what the commission concluded. It said that the question,

“should be amended to make it more direct and to the point, and to improve clarity and understanding”.

Nothing could be clearer and more easily understood than that. However, it appears to all of us on these Benches that we are being asked to forget what it said and to go along, without question, with the wording proposed by Conservative Central Office, if that is where it emanated from.

Why do we have to do that? The noble Lord, Lord Cormack, for whom I have great respect and affection, who knows this House well and, in fact, is a very sane voice on all matters to do with House of Lords reform, astonished me with the attitude he has taken towards the Bill. He said at Second Reading:

“Let us say that this Bill is imperfect and has got here by a most peculiar route”—

that is somewhat at odds with what the Government Chief Whip has said—

“but let us speed it on its way so that those outside this House cannot say that the House of Lords stood between them and having their say on perhaps the most important international issue of modern times”.—[Official Report, 10/1/14; col. 1808.]

We are not saying that they will not have a say. You will not find anywhere in our amendments a clause saying that there will be no referendum on the EU. It is a complete canard to go on suggesting that this is what we on these Benches are saying. I want to make it perfectly clear that the reason why one can support these—