European Union (Referendum) Bill

Lord Wakeham Excerpts

Friday 10th January 2014 Lords Chamber

[Lord Wakeham (Con)]

My Lords, I will be brief, because I think that the issue before us is important but simple, and also because my noble friend Lord Selsdon has told me that I have made more than 6,000 speeches in Parliament since the date of the previous referendum Bill in 1975, so a short speech is probably to be recommended.

This is an important Bill for me, not so much because of its substance as because of the position that the House of Lords should take on a Bill of this sort. The previous referendum Bill was passed in the Commons by a majority of 64. At that time, many noble Lords, particularly on the Labour Benches, took the view that although they were totally opposed to referenda, it was not the role of the House of Lords to seek to overturn or delay the will of a democratically elected House of Commons if it wanted to consult the people. In 1975, I voted against the referendum Bill, but then I was a Member of another place. I am no great fan of referenda, but then I was a democratically elected representative.

The Bill we are considering today was passed in the Commons by a majority of more than 300, and I find it very hard indeed to think of a proper justification for opposing or delaying it here today. We know that, in practice, any amendment—I would vote for some of the suggested amendments if we could—would almost certainly be detrimental to the Bill’s progress and so it would be lost. An amended Bill would go to the bottom of the list in the House of Commons and never be reached.

I do not think that it is proper or right for us to seek to reject the Bill, or to alter it in such a way as to achieve its rejection. If I remember correctly, in 1975, your Lordships gave Second Reading to the Bill on 6 May, Committee on 7 May, Report and Third Reading on 8 May, without a Division, and shortly after it received Royal Assent. That seems to me to set an example that your Lordships would be well advised to follow.

[Lord Anderson of Swansea (Lab)]

My Lords, the substance of what the noble Lord, Lord Wakeham, said, is surely that this House has no serious role in the debate; we should pack up now and go home. The normal position of this House as an advising House, looking coolly at what comes from another place, would be thrown out of the window. We should simply say. “They have decided, full stop. We should go home, because any amendment might scupper the Bill”. Is the noble Lord really saying that we should not pass any amendment because of that danger?

[Lord Wakeham]

I did not say that at all. If noble Lords want to vote against it, they can vote against it, but they should not pretend that there is any alternative.

[Lord Anderson of Swansea]

I am not pretending at all; any amendment may well have certain consequences.

I am reminded of the noble Metternich, the great leader who, when news was brought to him of the death of his opposite number, the Russian ambassador, was alleged to have said, “What was his motive?”. We are quite entitled to ask of the Bill: what is the motive? What has changed the view of the Prime Minister and the Foreign Secretary over the past two years? Can it be anything other than the rise of UKIP? I congratulate the UKIP representative on the influence that the party has had on the Government.

Is it just the result of looking at opinion polls or the taking of soundings by a well padded Lord? Is it the fact that the Conservative Party has no confidence in the word of its leader, who has said that he would certainly have a referendum, and wants to tie him down? Equally, surely the Conservative Party has no confidence that it will win the next election. As many Members of your Lordships’ House have said, no Parliament can bind its successor, so this is a total charade. It may be a signal, but it is a signal only of the divisions within the Conservative Party. This is a partisan Bill and should be treated as such.

I could linger on the details of the Bill, but they are matters for Committee: the Electoral Commission, the wording of the question, whether there should be a threshold and the precise electorate. I just want to make three brief reflections at this stage.

First, there is the problem of the alternative. The Prime Minister put it well when he said that,

“the problem with an in/out referendum is it … only gives people those two choices: you can either stay in with all the status quo, or you can get out”.

Surely, if we seriously wanted to ascertain the views of the great electorate—Rousseau’s “popular will”—we should ask them, “What is the alternative?”, and therefore have questions on that. Is it the fact that you, the people, would want to be wholly alone? Is it the fact, as the noble Marquess, Lord Lothian, said, that you would wish to evolve some sort of new, free-trade relationship with the Commonwealth? It is not clear that any members of the Commonwealth seriously want to do that. Certainly India would not. Perhaps Canada would, but you really need two to tango and there is no traction in that.

What about the Norwegian example? There is a continuing debate in Norway—I am part-Norwegian—and the Norwegians certainly know that with the single market, they are told without any serious input what they should accept. That is hardly democratic, but it is the current reality of the Norwegian relationship with the European Union. What about the Swiss? No—surely, rather than going into the emptiness of a void, there should be some way of ascertaining, if that be the case, what it is that the people want. What are the so-called alternatives?

I shall not linger on my second reflection, because the point has been made often, but the date of 2017 is wholly arbitrary and unrealistic. Since the Prime Minister has said that any negotiations will not start until after the 2015 general election, can the position be such that we will know clearly what is on offer from our European partners and that all the various ratification processes will have been gone through? The only question that can be put is: do you, the people, believe that the Government should continue along the course they have set? What are the prospects of a radical new deal and of it being done and dusted and ratified by 2017? The Prime Minister is not going about it very well. He must have read over Christmas the book, How to Lose Friends & Alienate People, because he has already put off a potential ally in Mr Sikorski of Poland and harmed his relationship with Monsieur Mitterrand.