European Union (Referendum) Bill

Lord Soley Excerpts

Friday 24th January 2014 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Falkner of Margravine (LD)]

My Lords, I apologise on behalf of my noble friend Lord Lester of Herne Hill, whose name is added to Amendment 1 and the other amendments in this group, spoken to by the noble Lord, Lord Armstrong. My noble friend is unable to be in the House this morning because he has a medical appointment.

I agree with Amendments 1, 28 and 31, in the name of the noble Lord, Lord Armstrong, and with Amendment 32, and I want to speak briefly to them—but, before doing so, I want to take on what the noble Lord, Lord Forsyth of Drumlean, said. I tend not to tangle with the noble Lord—normally he is far too ferocious for me to lift my head above the parapet— but I remind him that it was Mr David Cameron, the Prime Minister, who undertook in a speech in January 2013, famously known as the Bloomberg speech, to negotiate a new settlement with our European partners. He said that once the settlement had been negotiated, there would be an “in or out” referendum in which the British people would choose to stay in the EU on these new terms or come out altogether. He undertook that this would be done in the first half of the next Parliament. He said:

“Legislation will be drafted before the next election. And if a Conservative Government is elected we will introduce the enabling legislation immediately and pass it by the end of that year”.

In fact, what has happened is that the Bill before us is the enabling legislation. It should not be before us in this Parliament; it should come as enabling legislation after the next general election.

I will now speak to the amendment. I note that I am the first member of this House’s Constitution Committee to so do and I regret that our chairman, the noble Baroness, Lady Jay, is unable to be here now. However, I draw the House’s attention to the Constitution Committee’s report on the Bill. The report is brief but clear. It clearly sets out that the Electoral Commission has, in Section 104, a duty,

“to ‘consider the wording’ of a referendum question and to report on its ‘intelligibility’. In doing so the Electoral Commission considers whether the question presents the options to voters ‘clearly, simply and neutrally’”.

It recommends that the question be amended from the question in the Bill, which is:

“Do you think that the United Kingdom should be a member of the European Union?”,

to one of two alternatives. One is:

“Should the United Kingdom remain a member of the European Union?”,

and several noble Lords have spoken to that, and the other is:

“Should the United Kingdom remain a member of the European Union or leave the European Union?”,

with the possible answers to the second option being, instead of yes or no, remain or leave. We should discuss both options.

My personal preference is not, as this group of amendments recommends, that the question should require a yes or no answer but that it should ask whether the UK should remain a member of the EU or leave the EU, with a “remain or leave” option clearly put to the electorate. The reason I say that is that when the Electoral Commission conducted its research—in the way that the noble Lord, Lipsey, might have found flawed, although I will not address his concerns at this point—it discovered that significant numbers of the public were confused as to whether we were members of the EU or members of the eurozone, and indeed there were people who did not know that we were members of the European Union. In the light of that, the committee certainly suggests that the House should carefully consider whether it is satisfied with the question and that it should do so in the spirit of its obligation to carry out scrutiny and revision.

[Lord Soley (Lab)]

My Lords, I want to make two or three short points. They will be short because, at least in large part, the noble Lord, Lord Kerr, has made one of the most important points—that when the SNP drew up the question, we all, rightly, said no. We have the Electoral Commission to do this and it must set the question. Notwithstanding some of the points made by the noble Lord, Lord Forsyth, and others about views within and between political parties, the principle of having an independent body to draw up the question is an important one. Personally, I am not fond of referendums at the best of times. They are usually invented in order to help political parties get out of difficult situations. However, if we are to have them—and I accept that they are now part of the furniture of politics—it is very important that the question should be drawn up independently. That is why, whichever question is acceptable, it must be agreed or approved by the Electoral Commission.

My second point concerns the wording. That is particularly important, as was pointed out in an earlier intervention. The question in the Bill is:

“Do you think that the United Kingdom should be a member of the European Union?”.

I liked the use made by the noble Lord, Lord Quirk, of the “To be or not to be” approach. My knowledge of English grammar is terrible. I seem to be able to use it all right, but I have never understood it. However, what I can say with some conviction is that in another part of “Hamlet” it is said that he ought to be sent to England because we are all mad here—so perhaps there was more logic to it than I realised.

My point is that, if you put it in those terms, you must also look at the context, which I think my noble friend Lord Lipsey put his finger on—that is, the importance of the question to the whole population. As has just been said, the reality is that a minority—it is a significant, although not huge, minority—do not know whether we are a member of the European Union. They are uncertain about that, and they often confuse membership of the EU with membership of the eurozone.

If a question is put to them in the format that appears in the Bill, the tendency is, as the Liberal party discovered when it proposed the amendment on voting systems, that people will tend to vote no if they think that by doing so they will preserve the status quo. In other words, a no vote is saying, “I don’t want change”. However, by voting no to this—I am sure that the noble Lord, Lord Dobbs, knows this, having written “House of Cards” so well; knowledge of the Whips’ Office is always a useful experience, not to mention knowledge of No. 10—you will change things, but a significant minority, although by no means the majority, of people will believe that they are maintaining the status quo.

I like the wording in the amendment of the noble Lord, Lord Armstrong, because it clearly presents the issue, which we have never resolved in this country. It says quite clearly:

“Should the United Kingdom remain a member of the European Union or leave the European Union?”.

It is a statement of a factual situation and it gives a choice. Given that one of the arguments about a referendum has always been that the people must choose but must be informed by the discussion that runs up to the referendum, it is very important that that discussion takes place in the context of a question that says, “Your two alternatives are either to leave, which has big implications, or to stay in, which also has big implications, and you must make the choice”. If we do that, at least we will be open and honest with the electorate and challenge them to think about it.

If we surrender to the people as a whole our right to be the representatives in a democracy who decide these issues and then put ourselves before the electorate—this is one of the reasons why I do not like referendums —we must ensure that the people as a whole are presented with the arguments. The wording of the amendment of the noble Lord, Lord Armstrong, does that and enables the debate to take place.

My other big concern about referendums of course is that, as with the one in 1975, they do not solve the matter; people are still uncertain. I suspect that in 25 years’ time you might find people arguing for another referendum. I can think of at least one person in this House who will be happy to come back next year with a referendum if necessary.

Even if noble Lords do not accept this amendment, they should accept one that will enable the Electoral Commission to deliver the referendum question in a way that enables the British people to make a proper choice.