European Union (Referendum) Bill

Lord Wigley Excerpts

Friday 31st January 2014 Lords Chamber

[Lord Shipley]

My Lords, I did not say that it did; the point is important because the Electoral Commission made it absolutely clear that information must be provided. That is why this amendment is so important. I made the point that we need to get this right at this stage of the Bill, otherwise we will have a bad Bill.

[Lord Wigley (PC)]

My Lords, I will intervene briefly in this debate. The debate would be that much shorter if the noble Lord, Lord Dobbs, now indicated that he will accept the amendment. It is patently obvious that this sort of provision has to be made. If the wording is not absolutely right we can come back on Report or at a later stage to correct it, but surely the principle has to be accepted.

I come from a background in Wales where the main question will undoubtedly be an economic one: what effect will pulling out of the European Union have on jobs? I will refer briefly to three headings. The first, which was touched on by the noble Lord who moved the amendment, is in regard to agriculture. The Farmers’ Union of Wales came here last year to brief noble Lords on the effect of pulling out of the European Union. It indicated that some 80% of its business would be affected adversely if we pulled out of the European Union. That is a massive consideration, and a shadow that will hang over the industry until this is put to bed.

The second sector that I referred to is the motor sector. Last week I referred to Toyota. There are a number of other important motor companies in various parts of the United Kingdom that will be affected—as will jobs. I started my career working for the Ford Motor Company, and I know very well that companies such as that one do not have a time horizon three years ahead; they plan for a decade ahead, and longer. If there is uncertainty as regards the conditions in which companies that operate in the United Kingdom will trade after 2017, it will affect investment decisions. That has already been flagged up by companies from Japan, and we cannot ignore it. When voters come to vote in a referendum, they need to have the information available on how the Government interpret what the situation will be if we pull out, and on what the alternative is. Companies need to know that so that they can inform their employees and others who will be affected.

The third sector I referred to is an important one in my area: the nuclear power industry. In Anglesey the Wylfa B project is likely to go ahead, but the company from Japan that is involved in it has other interests, wanting possibly to build a nuclear power station in Lithuania or in other locations in mainland Europe. The issue is that if it decides to put more emphasis on mainland Europe because we are not part of the European Union, the likelihood will be that the contracts for manufacturing all the components that go into a nuclear power station would drift to Germany rather than to the United Kingdom. The Government have already indicated that they see the knock-on effect of their programme of building nuclear power stations as important, not just as regards the locations themselves but as regards the industries associated with that. They would be undermined and there would be uncertainty—and, goodness knows, with nuclear power stations the time horizon is even longer.

Therefore, those three sectors, the employees who currently work in them and the communities that depend upon them, need to know. We surely need to pass the Bill back with provision in it to ensure that that happens.

[Lord Tugendhat (Con)]

My Lords, I support the amendment put forward by the noble Lord, Lord Turnbull, for the reasons which he so eloquently set out. However, I will address a few remarks to my noble friend Lord Dobbs. My noble friend seeks to paint those who propose or support amendments as being opponents of the Bill who are seeking to deny the people of this country a referendum. However, that is not true. As I made clear in my speech at Second Reading, and again last week—

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[Lord Anderson of Swansea]

My Lords, my amendment relates to Gibraltar. Many of us in this House have a special concern for Gibraltar and therefore wish to ensure that it has a separate count. We all have a special responsibility for Gibraltar. That is seen, for example, in the fact that Gibraltar is represented by one of the constituencies of the UK in the European Parliament. It has a very proud history, not least in the Second World War.

Coming here today, I was musing how the people of Gibraltar, which is relatively small—perhaps not much larger than a ward in my own former constituency—none the less represent so much of the Mediterranean. The current Chief Minister, Fabian Picardo, has a good Mediterranean name; Sir Joshua Hassan showed that there was a Jewish community in Gibraltar; Peter Caruana, the former Chief Minister, has a good Maltese name; and even Albert Poggio, who is the excellent representative of Gibraltar in this country, has an Italian name. There is currently a total linkage of the people of Gibraltar with many Mediterranean countries.

The relevance to Gibraltar of the European Union is in part because of the dispute with Spain. Most if not all of us would agree that Spain has been extremely unwise in seeking not to build up relations with Gibraltar. There have been the disputes leading to endless delays at the border, which harm Spanish nationals who work in Gibraltar. Equally, there has been the dispute over the territorial waters. These matters are litigated in Brussels. The people of Gibraltar quite properly criticise some of what goes on in the European Union in respect of the Spanish judge who I think recently presided over a judgment to the detriment of Gibraltar. We criticise sometimes the fact that, although Britain should represent the interests of Gibraltar in Brussels, sometimes the UK representative has perhaps failed to notice matters that are relevant to those people.

On one thing, though, the people of Gibraltar are clear: it is in their interest to have the UK there in the EU, fighting the Gibraltar cause and putting up the objections to any particularly nationalist and populist sentiments put forward by the Spanish. It is therefore most important that the Gibraltese, the people of the Rock, are able to show their opinion and to do so clearly, and that Gibraltar is established as a separate electoral unit with a separate result. It could be an interesting point if the people of the Rock were to say yes, because they recognised the importance of their relationship with the European Union through the UK, and yet the UK were to turn its back on the European Union and therefore, in effect, on Gibraltar. However, that is for another day. Both in chairing the Foreign Affairs Committee and in other fora, I have long stood shoulder to shoulder with the people of Gibraltar. I am happy to do so again to ensure that there is a separate count, separately recorded. I beg to move.

[Lord Wigley]

My Lords, I am sorry that I missed the opening remarks of the noble Lord, Lord Foulkes. His brevity in speaking today is no doubt recognised by all across the Chamber. Any accusations that he could be filibustering would be absolute nonsense. However, the question raised about Gibraltar is slightly different. I understand the position that my noble friend Lord Anderson comes from, but the main thrust of my support for the amendment moved by my noble friend Lord Foulkes—and my amendment, Amendment 67 —is the need to ensure that the people of Wales, Scotland, Northern Ireland and England know exactly where they stand on this matter.

As I indicated before in a more general debate, if there is no publication of the results for each nation, there will be speculation—and speculation could be much more damaging than facing up to the reality of whatever the result may be. I believe that, because of the importance of the economic question, to which I referred earlier, there will be a yes vote in Wales—but whatever the outcome, the people of Wales and, indeed, the people of Scotland, Northern Ireland and England, have a right to know where they stand. The overall result will no doubt be taken on a United Kingdom basis and would be the aggregation of those votes, but at least people would know where they stood, and for that reason, I support the amendment.

[Lord Triesman]

My Lords, this is a fair enough amendment. Were we to have been conducting this debate 25 or 30 years ago, I suspect that everybody would have thought it wholly appropriate to take the temperature of the nation as a whole, because we would not have seen the degree of change within the United Kingdom and the extent of devolution. Of course, it will still be useful to have a United Kingdom-wide picture at the end of a referendum, and it is essential that there should be—but on its own, that will not do now.

Twenty-five years on, the home nations of the United Kingdom are sufficiently and significantly distinct. People see themselves as having very distinct interests. Some of them are to do with the individual nations and some are to do with the character of the relationship that those nations have with Europe. There are distinct issues about the development of social policy, economic interests and the trajectories of economic interests. It is not just that those factors have emerged in the overall politics of the United Kingdom, but that the experience has some depth. There is real depth of experience. It is not just a constitutional formality that these things have taken place; it represents very real experience, which people generally treasure.

As with all the issues in front of your Lordships in these debates, it is very helpful to look at this from all angles. Were there to be a vote to leave—and I have said in the House before that I profoundly hope, as many others do, that there will not be—especially if it were a narrow vote, and a strong belief persisted in Scotland and/or Wales that their electorates did not want to leave, that would create stresses within the United Kingdom that unquestionably would push those home nations towards still greater devolution or full independence. If we did it as a single country, it is likely to promote the belief that the results in effect hide the way in which people in Scotland and Wales would prefer to conduct their relationship with Europe, and the fact that they wish to do so in a way that is significantly different from the approach of England. Knowing all that, there is a very good case for believing that it would put energy into further separation.

If there is an overall vote, and if people know what the votes are in each of the home nations, that does not necessarily mean that people will say, “Actually, on our own, we might very well have chosen to leave”—but there would never be an allegation that they were caught by the fact that the vote was hidden or that there was something unreasonable, unfair or deceptive about it. That argument about process is potentially the one that is most damaging, because it can never be properly addressed. It is much better to have the votes clearly and in the open.

Noble Lords will have noted that I have not mentioned Northern Ireland in this debate, not because I do not think that there would be an interest in Northern Ireland but because I do not detect, broadly speaking, among the majority of the population of Northern Ireland, a desire to move to a still greater distance from the rest of the United Kingdom. There are always nuances in the United Kingdom and in Northern Ireland as a whole.

I express my support for the points that my noble friend Lord Anderson made about Gibraltar. It was certainly my experience when in the Foreign Office that the European Union mitigates—though not always successfully, it has to be said—the character and intensity of some of the disagreements that occur with Spain. Even when other members of the EU are supportive of Spain, it none the less damps down the intensity of the discussion. Of course, Gibraltar sometimes criticises the EU, but it is without question that Gibraltar would prefer to have the armoury of the United Kingdom around it in the discussions of those issues than to have to face them on its own. For those reasons, it is particularly helpful that my noble friend made those points.

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Finally, it may be argued that my proposal would put at risk the stability of the United Kingdom. However, the risk involved if my worst-case scenario comes about is infinitely greater. Of course I, like others around me, hope that it does not come about. If an “in or out” referendum is ever launched, I hope that all four countries of the United Kingdom will vote decisively to remain in the European Union and work constructively at all levels of government to reform the EU in a sensible and rational way. I hope for all that. But along with hoping for the best, one must also fear the worst and do whatever is possible to provide a way of mitigating its effects. It is in that spirit that I beg to move my amendment.

[Lord Wigley]

My Lords, after speaking to Amendment 75 in my name, I shall come back to the interesting points put forward by the noble Lord, Lord Williams. Amendment 75 is simple and I would have thought that, if the owners of this Bill were in a mind to accept amendments, this would be the sort of amendment that should be built in. It purely and simply makes provision—were the Scottish to vote for independence in the referendum, and we do not know whether they will—to take Scotland out of the Bill. That may not be what the majority of noble Lords in this Chamber want, but it could happen, and it strikes me as being a little short-sighted to put through a Bill that does not make provision for one of the eventualities that we have spent considerable time discussing, including just yesterday in this Chamber. I therefore put this forward as a constructive amendment to be considered at the appropriate stage—if not now, in fine-tuning the Bill—to meet that eventuality.

The amendment moved by the noble Lord, Lord Williams, touches on some pretty sensitive areas. I, like the noble Lord, want to see all parts of the United Kingdom voting yes to remain within the European Union. Certainly, there need to be changes to the European Union, but I want Wales, Scotland, Northern Ireland and England—the UK, as it is now—to be members of the European Union. That is my starting point and that is what I will be campaigning for.

However, issues arise in the context of the referendum because the interests in Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland are, to some extent, different from the mainstream interests in England. For example, in Scotland, there is the question of fisheries. A lot of attention has been given to that in recent months and the Government have made some progress on some issues. But Scotland always wants to have its Ministers associated with any UK team. The problem at present is that, within the UK ministerial team negotiating in Brussels, Ministers from the devolved Administrations have to follow the lead of the UK Minister.

That is fine if there is unanimity of view on these issues, but there are occasions on matters such as fisheries where there may not be. Whatever our relationships are with each other in the United Kingdom over the coming years, our relationship with the European Union must develop in a way that allows flexibility to take that consideration on board. That must arise in countries such as Spain as well, where Catalonia or the Basque country may have a slightly different view from Madrid on some issues. If the European Union insists on being a totally centralist organisation, which I do not believe in its essence it has to be if the principle of subsidiarity works through, then the European Union must work towards an ability to take these variations from area to area on board.

I mentioned Scotland and now I come to Wales and the farming regime, which I mentioned earlier. On the sheep-meat regime, particularly as sheep are the greater part of the Welsh agricultural economy, there have been times when the Minister from the Government in Wales spoke in the UK team in Brussels on these matters. But if there is an idea that the well-being of vital sectors such as fisheries in Scotland and sheep farming in Wales is going to be lost, swamped by the English vote in a referendum, that can build up tensions. This needs to be thought through. I do not think that the noble Lord, Lord Williams, necessarily sees this as the formula to provide all the answers, but he is raising the questions and these are questions that should be raised.

They should also be raised in the context of Northern Ireland. We are all a little sensitive of treading into Northern Irish matters but, quite clearly, the co-operation that has developed over the past 15 years or so in Northern Ireland has grown to some extent because of cross-border movement, which is so easy. If the Irish Republic were in the European Union and Northern Ireland were out, I fear that there could be a winding back of the clock and that some people would want to do that.

I realise that these amendments go much further than the intention of the Bill. None the less, the issues are worthy of consideration. As we move forward, not just in the context of the European Union referendum but in the context of what happens to the United Kingdom in the wake of the Scottish referendum, these considerations must be taken on board, one way or another.

[Lord Giddens]

My noble friend Lord Williams raises a significant set of issues. There plainly could be big discrepancies in patterns of voting across the United Kingdom and these will be consequential for Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland. It would be interesting to hear from the noble Lord, Lord Dobbs, how the Government would deal with a situation where the English basically settled the vote in such a decisive way that you could argue that the voices of other parts of the country were eclipsed. It will be interesting to hear what the noble Lord has to say on that issue.

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[Lord Wigley]

The noble Lord touches on a fundamental here. The implication of what he is saying is that if Scotland voted for independence it would undermine this Bill because of the complexity of issues that would arise. Surely that is not his intention. By accepting the amendment in my name, he would have the flexibility to deal with it.

[Lord Dobbs]

As I have said, I think that the issue would go far beyond the scope of any one single Bill. He and I, I hope, will be fighting on the same side of the barricade in order to retain the United Kingdom which we both value so highly.

The noble Lord, Lord Williams, said that he cannot even imagine what our responses would be in various situations. That is precisely the point: we cannot imagine them. We should not therefore try, because, in trying to do so in the form of legislation, we would inevitably get things wrong. I certainly do not think that we need to make that effort at this stage. In that spirit of understanding, I ask that the amendments be not pressed.