European Union (Referendum) Bill

Lord Richard Excerpts

Friday 10th January 2014 Lords Chamber

[Lord Richard]

My Lords, your Lordships may have noticed that on the list of speakers this slot is down for the noble Lord, Lord Bichard. Your Lordships will also note that I am not the noble Lord, Lord Bichard. Apparently, what has happened is that, when I registered my name to speak in the debate in the government Chief Whips’ Office, they succeeded in confusing “Bichard” and “Richard”, so that is why I am in this slot.

Your Lordships may have gathered from my earlier intervention that I believe this Bill should be treated in exactly the same way as any other Private Member’s Bill. I want to deal, although in not too much detail, with the argument that somehow or other this Bill is so special that this House should resile from its normal position as a revising Chamber. That argument was accurately recounted by the noble Lord, Lord Finkelstein, in his rather refreshing speech. This House is a revising Chamber and should remain so. I think that there is a clear division in this House and in the other place as to the desirability, or otherwise, of this legislation. The only way in which we can proceed sensibly is to ensure that our consideration of the Bill is strictly in accordance with the rules and conventions of this House. That includes the timing of sessions and the intervals between the different stages of the Bill.

I say at the outset that I do not oppose the Bill getting a Second Reading. It has passed the House of Commons and deserves full consideration in this House. However, I do not accept that the Bill somehow or other deserves to be treated differently from any other Private Member’s Bill. It should have its Second Reading and proceed to a Committee stage, at which no doubt amendments will be put down and debated. It may even be thought appropriate for some amendments to be passed by this House. The Bill should then go to Report and Third Reading in exactly the same way as any other Private Member’s Bill. The idea that somehow or other the Bill should be given an accelerated and easier passage is to my mind constitutional nonsense. It should receive proper scrutiny and proper consideration. The timetabling of legislation in the other place is not something that we up here should have to take into account. It is a matter for the House of Commons and is not a matter for this House.

If, after the Bill has completed its passage here, it has been amended, the Commons will have to consider those amendments. Perhaps we will be into ping-pong—I know not. At the end of the day, the House of Commons must be entitled to have its way. Of course it must. That is a view that I have held and expressed on many occasions in the past few years, particularly when this House was actively considering the issue of House of Lords reform. However, to say that at the end of the day the House of Commons must be entitled to have its way is not quite sufficient. This Bill is not at the end of the day but at the beginning, and I do not approve, frankly, of the Bill having a dawning in this House and suddenly going back to the House of Commons unconsidered and possibly unamended.

I regard the Bill, I am bound to say, as grotesquely premature. I do not want to say too much about its merits or demerits, particularly as I have spoken for four minutes already. I regard the Bill as ill advised and ill intentioned. It is ill advised because how on earth can we say now what the issues will be in 2017? How do we know what sort of negotiations will be carried out? How do we know what the result of those negotiations will be? How can we now, today, say that we believe that the result of those negotiations should be put to a referendum in four years’ time? It is absurd. One could not do it. The only reason that we are beings asked to do it is because of the ill intention behind the Bill. It is nothing to do with the merits or demerits of a referendum.

The problem with the Bill is that it is patently inspired not by the issue but by the politics of the issue. Relations with Europe have proved toxic to the Conservative Party over the past 30 years, and the Bill is an attempt to do two things—first, to try and recoup some of the party’s losses to UKIP and, secondly, to try and wrong-foot the Liberal Democrats and the Labour Party.

This is not a government Bill. It is a Private Member’s Bill supported by the Conservative Party. The noble Baroness, Lady Warsi, who is to wind up the debate, speaks not for the Government but for the Conservative Party. No. 10 has been briefing not for the Government but for the Conservative Party. It is a partisan Bill and deserves to be treated accordingly—strictly in accordance with the rules and conventions of this House, no more and no less.

--- Later in debate ---

[Lord Cormack (Con)]

My Lords, this has been quite a debate. We have seen Mitterrand reincarnated and the noble Lord, Lord Butler of Brockwell, buried. I am bound to say that, like the proverbial Irishman, I would not have started from here, but there is a very serious issue to address and I will seek to do so in a moment. Let me just make it plain that I am one of those who have for many years—indeed, since the Maastricht treaty ground its way through another place when my noble friend Lord Spicer and I were in opposite corners—advocated an “in or out” referendum to lance the boil and have made it quite plain at the same time that in any such referendum I would campaign, as I did alongside Labour parliamentarians in 1975, for this country to remain within the European Union. That is my position.

I am somewhat tempted by the noble Lord, Lord Armstrong of Ilminster, to recount a story. I was standing outside this House, before I entered it, talking in Prince’s Chamber to the late Lord Carter, the Labour Chief Whip, much loved by many people in both Houses. One of his colleagues came up to him and said, “They’re going on in there. It’s all been said”. “Yes”, said Lord Carter, “but not by everybody”. One is reminded of that in this debate.

I want to address the most serious subject to arise: the position of this House as a revising Chamber. I do not think that anyone in this House could reasonably accuse me of not being devoted to it or of not being prepared—as indeed I did on Wednesday this week—to vote against the Government of the day if I felt that the legislation before us could be improved, but we are dealing with something rather special here. We are dealing with a Bill that had a fair amount of time in the other place and was never seriously opposed by either the Official Opposition or our partners in the coalition. If noble Lords need to be reminded of that, all they need to do is look at the figures and the Division lists. In other words, this Bill has come to us with the other place having had the time to revise and amend it but having decided, for a variety of reasons, not to do so.

In a sense, what the Labour Party and the Liberal Democrats have said to us is, “Let the House of Lords do our dirty work for us. Let them be the ones to defeat this Bill by making it run out of time”. I believe that any constitutional arguments have to be measured against that. The noble Lord, Lord Richard, may be shaking his head, but he cannot deny the figures or the fact that this Bill was not properly scrutinised, even though there was an opportunity for it to be scrutinised, in the other place.

[Lord Richard]

The noble Lord said it was not scrutinised in another place. It may be so. Is that not an additional argument for it being scrutinised properly here?

[Lord Cormack]

No, because it came to us—and the noble Lord, Lord Richard, ought to know this as a former distinguished Member of another place—with massive majorities. In other words, they said, by their votes, “We don’t want to do anything about this. Your Lordships’ House should have it”. Your Lordships’ House having been given the Bill, it now has a duty to allow the people of this country to have the referendum. I would not have tackled it in this way but, in those famous words, we are where we are. We are confronted with a particular situation and we have to respond to it.

I hope that it may be possible for the Government to devote a little more time. I would not be against having amendments debated, but for this House, by whatever means, to kill this Bill would not be acting in the best interests of our parliamentary system or of this House. I believe that I am entitled to say that, having played a reasonable part in ensuring that the malevolent schemes of the Deputy Prime Minister were seen off, as they rightly should have been.

I find the position of the Liberal Democrats, our beloved partners in the coalition, for many of whom I have individual affection and regard, a little queer. If your Lordships’ House found itself the butt of criticism, the Liberal Democrats would quite welcome it, because it would advance their case for abolishing this House and replacing it with an elected second Chamber. Therefore, do not let us be deceived by those who sit by our side and let us not be seduced by those who sit opposite. Let us say that this Bill is imperfect and has got here by a most peculiar route, 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.