European Union Bill

Debate between Lord Risby and Lord Lea of Crondall

Monday 13th June 2011 Lords Chamber

[Lord Risby]

I discussed this episode with Mr Keith Vaz and I am not sure that he felt it was one of the high points of his political career, but we can leave it at that.

The amendment implicitly reflects our concern about the EU’s lack of popularity, but I fail to see the point of it. It is completely unnecessary. To have a referendum the Government need to have agreed the relevant treaty in Brussels in the first place, and Parliament will have enacted an Act of Parliament, having debated and scrutinised it. I entirely agree that a referendum campaign should educate the public in the fullest sense of the word. Presumably, having decided on a referendum, the Government would like to win it. The notion that they would somehow be against the EU, implicitly or explicitly, makes a nonsense of the whole situation. Why waste money on such an exercise? The case for membership is explicit in the whole referendum process. The way to change the view of the desirability—

[Lord Lea of Crondall]

I am most grateful to the noble Lord for giving way, but I am rather intrigued by his clear statement that the Government will want to win a referendum. Is he absolutely sure that they will not do a Pontius Pilate in some cases in a referendum?

[Lord Risby]

If a Government have got that far and want to test public opinion, it is very unlikely that they would behave as the noble Lord suggests. It is not likely that a Government would embark on a referendum if they thought that they were going to lose it. That is not the natural course of political events, but perhaps the noble Lord—