European Union (Referendum) Bill

Lord Williams of Elvel Excerpts

Friday 31st January 2014 Lords Chamber

Moved by

[Lord Williams of Elvel]

55: After Clause 1, insert the following new Clause—
“Definition of “United Kingdom”
(1) For the purposes of this Act, the United Kingdom comprises England, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland.
(2) Subject to subsections (3) and (4), the Secretary of State may amend subsection (1) by order made by statutory instrument subject to approval by resolution of both Houses of Parliament.
(3) Notwithstanding any provisions of the Scotland Act 1998, the Government of Wales Acts 1998 and 2006 and the Northern Ireland Act 1998, the—
(a) Scottish Parliament relating to Scotland,(b) Welsh Assembly relating to Wales, or(c) the Northern Ireland Assembly relating to Northern Ireland,may authorise their presiding officer to forward a request, along with any relevant reports agreed to by the Parliament or Assembly, that the Secretary of State make an order under subsection (2) to amend subsection (1).(4) No order shall be made under this section until the Secretary of State has laid before both Houses of Parliament a report setting out any opinion on his or her proposal to make such an order expressed by any of the Scottish Parliament, the Northern Ireland Assembly or the Welsh Assembly.”

[Lord Williams of Elvel (Lab)]

My Lords, it may be for the convenience of the Committee if, in moving Amendment 55, I also touch on Amendment 75 in the name of the noble Lord, Lord Wigley.

I hasten to reassure the noble Lord, Lord Dobbs, that this is a genuine probing amendment. We are not trying to elicit any response other than that there is a problem—

[Lord Trefgarne]

My Lords, I apologise for interrupting the noble Lord but I hope that the sound system can be adjusted as, most regrettably, I am finding it impossible to hear him.

[Lord Williams of Elvel]

I will do my best. Can the noble Lord hear me now?

[Noble Lords]

Hear, hear!

[Lord Williams of Elvel]

This is a probing amendment. The question is: how can the noble Lord, Lord Dobbs, and the House involve devolved Administrations in the conduct of the referendum? There are two issues. This, in a sense, follows on from the previous debate. First, there is the potential for a disaster if we do not get this right. Secondly, there is the question of how devolved Administrations can indicate to their constituents what their considered view is.

Let me take the first issue. I give your Lordships a rather irreverent description of the United Kingdom. Not long ago, the former First Minister of Wales, Rhodri Morgan, had a meeting with Alex Salmond. “The United Kingdom”, Rhodri said, “consisted of one large mammal: an elephant and three fleas”. The elephant was England and the three fleas were Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland. As it happened, Mr Salmond was not entirely pleased with this analogy, nor would many of my colleagues in Wales or Northern Ireland be. Nevertheless, let us consider the truth of the matter. England, in population terms—hence, in terms of votes—outweighs the combined total of the three devolved Administrations by a factor of roughly five. In other words, the elephant can easily vote on any issue to squash the fleas. To be more precise, England might vote in any UK-wide referendum by such a wide margin that the matter would be settled, regardless of how the votes fell in Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland. Therein lies the problem.

Let me consider the “in or out” referendum as proposed in the Bill of the noble Lord, Lord Dobbs. By the way, in the light of what my noble friend Lord Giddens said about referendums, I should note that, in my experience, they always start off with one question and end up with another, usually on whether the electorate want to give the Government of the day a kicking. That happened in France, for instance, in the referendum there. I hope that that will not translate into the referendum that the noble Lord, Lord Dobbs, proposes. If all constituent parts of the United Kingdom, the elephant and the fleas, voted in the same way, there would be no problem. All would be harmony. As for the specific referendum proposals that we have in front of us, if Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland showed the same appetite as England for staying in or leaving the European Union and all were as one, there would be no problem. Alas, on the current evidence on this issue, that may not be case.

Let me take the situation as I understand it to be in the four regions that make up the UK and try to gauge their attitudes to UK membership of the European Union. I cannot speak for Northern Ireland as I have no great knowledge of the feeling there on this issue. I have had to consult colleagues. All that I can say is that it would look odd, to say the least, to see Northern Ireland out of the European Union and the Republic staying in. This matter, I am told, worries the Republic a lot. That might please some people but it would surely disconcert others. After consulting noble colleagues on the spread of opinion, I am led to believe that a vote in Northern Ireland would go, on a best guess, 60:40 in favour of remaining in the European Union. As is normal, some noble colleagues think that it might go the other way, but I am not there to judge that.

As for Wales, the position is equally unclear. A distinguished academic wrote only a few days ago that as far as he knew,

“nobody in the mainstream of Welsh politics, business and academia wants to leave the European Union”.

In fact, he argued that Wales has benefited greatly from UK membership. The protections afforded by the EU treaties and consequent directives and regulations, as well as the flow of funds from the EU, have been much welcomed. Economic development, environmental policy and the protection of social and employment rights are just a few examples. In short, it is hard to see the Welsh electorate voting to reject all that has been of benefit to them from UK membership of the European Union. Nevertheless, some polling evidence in Wales suggests that there might be a substantial “out” vote.

As for Scotland, again the picture is not entirely clear. After all, the Scottish National Party has spent a good deal of energy, and quite a lot of money on legal fees, arguing for continued Scottish membership of the European Union in the event of Scotland leaving the United Kingdom. It would be almost absurdly idiosyncratic for it to advocate the UK leaving the EU if Scotland itself voted to remain part of the UK. That being so, and given the relative weakness of the Conservatives and UKIP in Scotland, I think that it would be safe to assume that the Scottish vote would fall in favour of the UK staying in the European Union.

As for England—well, who knows? It seems clear that a large section of the Conservative vote and, I imagine, the totality of the UKIP vote would be in favour of the UK leaving the European Union. Of course, I very much hope that I am wrong but I very much fear that the English vote may go quite powerfully in what I personally regard as the wrong direction. Worse still—and here is the major point—I fear that it would go in the wrong direction to the point where an English majority might overwhelm the totality of the vote in the Celtic fringe.

So what happens then? It could easily be that my worst-case scenario comes about: England votes for exit in sufficient numbers to overcome the Celtic fringe voting to stay in. With an overall majority in its pocket, the Conservative Government of the day would then presumably proceed to dismantle all the arrangements between the UK and the European Union which have been put in place since we first joined all those years ago. So far, so relatively simple—or disastrous, according to your opinion.

At that point, what is at present a theoretical problem becomes a constitutional nightmare. The new Conservative Government set about legislating for the exit of the United Kingdom from the European Union. However, how would that play with the Celtic fringe countries if the result of the “in or out” referendum had been a thumping “out” in England and an equally thumping “in” in Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland, and the overall vote in the UK—including, of course, Gibraltar—when totted up amounted to “out”?

As for Northern Ireland, noble Lords with better knowledge than mine will no doubt have their own opinion. All I can say is that there would probably be, as usual, political fireworks, and possibly real fireworks as well. As for Wales, I am afraid that I imagine there would be the customary sullen acceptance of the historical domination of the English—expressed yet again—over their Celtic neighbour, but it would be sullen anger to be fed into resentment in the future. As for Scotland, I cannot even begin to imagine the reaction of Scots when they hear that the English have kicked them out of Europe. It just does not bear thinking about.

So what can be done? I have to be honest and say that I doubt whether it will be possible, within the present legislative framework, to solve this problem in its entirety. The Committee will no doubt be aware that foreign affairs are a reserved issue under the devolution Acts and are thus the preserve of the UK Government. In the normal course of events, this is a perfectly reasonable arrangement, but this Bill does not fall within the normal course of events, and I do not see how anybody could claim that it does. Therefore, we have a special situation that calls for special measures.

What I propose in the amendment is that devolved Administrations should have the right to request of the Secretary of State what amounts to an opt-out from the referendum proposed in the Bill. In deciding whether to make such a request, each devolved Assembly or Parliament shall debate the grounds for such a request and explain them to the Secretary of State in a memorandum after consulting, in one form or another, their electorate. It goes, I think, without saying that each one would take into account the advantages and disadvantages for their electorate in taking part in the “in or out” referendum—in other words, the debate would be a responsible one and not just a petulant gesture. The best we can do is to allow a formal mechanism which would enable the devolved Administrations to have their voices heard. At present, under the devolution Act, they have no right to do so.

--- Later in debate ---

[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.

[Lord Williams of Elvel]

I am grateful to the noble Lord, Lord Dobbs. As I said, this was a probing amendment, intended simply to raise the problem as I saw it of how to involve the devolved Administrations in this referendum, because at the moment there is no mechanism for them to be involved. After all, they will be affected and they are elected by their own constituents to their assemblies or parliaments. I hope that the noble Lord has taken that on board. I hope that the Government have done so, too, because, if it comes to implementing the amendment in the name of the noble Lord, Lord Turnbull, this will be one of the issues that will be addressed by the Government at that point. However, in view of the sympathetic response from the noble Lord, I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.

Amendment 55 withdrawn.