European Union (Referendum) Bill

Lord Roper Excerpts

Friday 31st January 2014 Lords Chamber

[Lord Dobbs]

My Lords, first, I take the point about Gibraltar. The drafters of the Bill had not chosen to distinguish between Gibraltar and the Channel Islands. The drafters of the Bill did not include Gibraltar; that was included at the express request and instruction of the other place. The situation of the Channel Islands was of course discussed in the other place. There are of course constitutional differences between the two but I will, of course, take that away and we will be in touch.

I apologise to the noble Lord, Lord Kerr, if he thinks that I have been in any way deficient or impolite in dealing with the points that he made in the previous Committee sitting. He raised the point then that he would be bringing the issue of timing, for instance, up on Report, and I was hoping to get a sensible time between Committee and Report to discuss exactly those matters with him. That was my intention; if I have not been prompt enough in dealing with that, then I apologise. It is certainly not my intention to turn my back on sensible points so responsibly made.

I hope that those noble Lords with their names to the amendments in this group will forgive me if, once again, I say that they are unnecessary. The rules of conduct for most polls, including general elections, are set out in secondary legislation rather than in an Act; that is the custom. The appropriate, nuanced arrangements—I hope that they will be nuanced, the term that the noble Lord, Lord Triesman, so sensibly used, because one has to be sensitive to the differing circumstances of the time—are taken care of in Clause 3. Clause 3 stipulates that the arrangements will be based in due course on the published recommendations of the Electoral Commission, which will come back to the House at an appropriate time.

[Lord Roper (LD)]

My Lords, in many cases, they have been in schedules to proposals for referendums. This time, they will merely come back as a statutory instrument, which this House will have no chance of amending unless a subsequent amendment to the Bill is accepted.

[Lord Dobbs]

The noble Lord is entirely right—they will come back to this House, which is the point I was making, although they may not come back in the form that he would like. However, nobody is trying to avoid ensuring that the arrangements for counting these votes are satisfactory. This should not be a divisive matter. Why do we need to specify at this stage how the votes should be counted? The point I make time and again—perhaps in response to the position of the noble Lord, Lord Kerr—is on the cost of accepting these amendments. If this debate were entirely among rational, reasonable men and women who simply wanted to come to an agreed conclusion, then of course there would be very little cost. However, let us be real. We know what is going on in this House, in the corners and dusty corridors of this place. Some noble Lords will not accept the Bill under any circumstances. We read about that in the press all the time, particularly in the Guardian, which appears to be particularly well informed of what goes on in those corners. Therefore, I cannot simply say that of course I can accept any reasonable amendment if the consequence of adding those amendments to the Bill—which has to go back to another place, which has already spoken so clearly about the Bill—will be not a new way of counting the votes but no votes being counted at all. That would be a tragedy, and I am trying to avoid it.

The noble Lord, Lord Foulkes, has always been a great tribune of the people, if I can put it that way—of the Scottish people. Most recent opinion polls in Scotland show very strong support for a referendum: 3:1. Those same people had the common sense, time after time, to send him back to Westminster as the representative of his constituency of Carrick, Cumnock and Doon Valley. They were persuaded by him then, and I see no reason why they should not continue to listen to his entreaties and be persuaded by them in a referendum. All I am trying to do, above all, is to make sure that the Bill does not founder because so many baubles are added to the Christmas tree that the entire tree collapses. The noble Lord, Lord Foulkes, is no timorous wee beastie who runs from the sound of gunfire. He is a man who has always shown confidence in his cause, and I want him to be able to put his cause out there in public on the matter of the EU. It is in that spirit that I say that this amendment is unnecessary and I beg him to withdraw it.