European Union Referendum Bill

Owen Paterson Excerpts

Monday 7th September 2015 Commons Chamber

[Kelvin Hopkins]

I broadly agree with my hon. Friend. The debate has largely cleared the air and I look forward to a much fairer referendum than might have taken place if we had not had it or these changes.

Before I conclude, I should apologise for not being in the Chamber for the beginning of the Minister’s speech. I heard the meat of it and the important points that he made, however.

[Mr Owen Paterson (North Shropshire) (Con)]

It is a great pleasure to follow the hon. Member for Luton North (Kelvin Hopkins) and I agree with pretty much every word he said.

I find it extraordinary that we are having this debate. We are discussing something that is part of our national politics. We have had a long-standing convention that Ministers can act and speak as Ministers and then move into a different mode and act as politicians. The most graphic example I can give is for Members go to the Government website and look at the transcript of the Bloomberg speech and then go to the New Statesman’s website. On the Government website, certain political phrases are excised. That is absolutely normal in our political discourse, certainly in general elections.

The Cabinet Secretary himself, referring to the last general election, wrote on the civil service blog:

“For this election, purdah begins today. Of course, the country—and the public services that we deliver—can’t just stop for the election. The UK Government retains the responsibility to govern and Ministers remain in charge of their departments. Civil servants will keep delivering government business, and if any crisis needed urgent action then we would tackle it in the normal way.”

We know that that works perfectly well in general elections. I remember going to help one of our Ministers. She had been to a ministerial event with her red box in the morning and she came back and was acting as a politician. It works fine and we have a long-standing tradition of doing that during general elections.

We did not have purdah in referendums, as was shown spectacularly in the first Welsh referendum. I was involved, as there was a complete cleanout of Tory MPs in Wales. I was the nearest thing, because my bottom gate is 50 yards from the Welsh border. The Tory party was flat on its back at the time and the Labour party behaved in the most amazing manner. There was even an aeroplane that flew along the south coast of Wales with a large banner fluttering along behind it reading “Vote yes, support Blair”. That was where we were with referendums, so it was quite right that the Neill committee was established.

It is worth remembering the comment made by Professor Vernon Bogdanor, which I mentioned earlier. He taught the Prime Minister a little something. He said that

“one purpose of a referendum…is to secure legitimacy for decisions where Parliament alone can not secure that legitimacy. For that legitimacy to be secured, the losers have to feel that the fight was fairly conducted.”

That point has not been made tonight, apart from by my hon. Friend the Member for Stone (Sir William Cash). Everything we say tonight is for the birds if the public smell a rat. If the public detect that the referendum has been rigged to help one side, they will not feel that it is legitimate or that the debates are straight. Whatever the result, many of them will not accept it.

There is an incredibly important point here. Purdah was not set up lightly. It was set up after long debates and I remember clearly that Labour’s interpretation of the Neill committee’s recommendations was that it should be 28 days. Those of us in the Conservative Opposition at the time were very unhappy with that. We had wild, radical Jacobins who are now in the Lords, such as Lord Fowler, Lord MacGregor and Lord Mackay of Ardbrecknish—not crazies, or crazy radicals—who argued consistently and steadily for more than 28 days, and we pushed that. I remind the House of those debates, in which those of us in the Conservative party reluctantly accepted 28 days.

I find it strange that those on the Labour Front Bench are not proud, as they should be, of introducing purdah. After the horrors of the first Welsh referendum, they took note, listened to the Neill committee and came forward with these purdah rules, which have worked extremely well. Labour should be proud of how the rules have worked. We have had several referendums. I am sitting next to my right hon. Friend the Member for Chesham and Amersham (Mrs Gillan), who was Secretary of State during the most recent Welsh referendum. I am totally unaware of any problem relating to purdah in any of those referendums so I am afraid that I doubt the Government on this.

[Mrs Gillan]

My right hon. Friend is absolutely right. The referendum was conducted on 3 March 2011. As Secretary of State at the time, I remained neutral, because I wanted the Welsh people to have confidence in the outcome, and that is what happened. There was a good result in favour of the Welsh Assembly Government having primary legislative powers, and there was no problem whatsoever with the period of purdah, either at UK Government level or at Welsh Government level.

[Mr Paterson]

I am grateful to my right hon. Friend for that helpful intervention. I would like the Minister to try to cite a single example of purdah rules infringing the ability of the Minister with responsibilities in the areas affected by those referendums to act effectively.

I do not have much time, but I want to mention one interesting organisation, the European Commission for Democracy through Law, which is better known as the Venice Commission. It is the Council of Europe’s advisory body on constitutional matters. My interpretation of its guidelines on referendums is that they seem to be breached by the current UK Government’s stance on purdah. I would be very interested to hear my right hon. Friend the Minister’s comments on that. To help his team, the guidelines to which I am referring are the “Guidelines for Constitutional Referendums at National Level”, which state that

“public authorities (national, regional and local) must not influence the outcome of the vote by excessive, one-sided campaigning.”

In 2005 the commission published “Referendums in Europe: An Analysis of the Legal Rules in European States”, which noted approvingly that countries such as Ireland, Portugal and Latvia have strict provisions for electoral neutrality. Even the Russian Federation has neutrality rules. It would be interesting to know where we feature in that regard. Also, have the Government looked at the most recent code of practice on referendums from 2007, which makes it very clear that respect for equality of opportunity is crucial for referendums and elections?

The most recent endorsements of the proposals are in amendment 4 and in amendment 78, which was tabled by my hon. Friend the Member for Stone, and which I have signed. It is worth noting that the Electoral Commission has stated:

“We have not identified problems with the workability of section 125 of PPERA applying to governments at previous referendums, and so we think that it should be workable in relation to this referendum.”

I am afraid that everything I see this evening will be a mess. The only really clean solution is to go back to purdah, as outlined in the debates when we reluctantly agreed 28 days, and we can do that with amendment 78. I would like to hear what the Minister’s legal advice is. The Speaker’s Counsel—this has been mentioned twice, but I will mention it a third time—has said clearly that making statements on European Councils and putting them in press releases is allowed because they do not infringe section 125. Let me just put that on the record. Section 125 refers to material that

“(a) provides general information about a referendum…

(b) deals with any of the issues raised by any question on which such a referendum is being held;

(c) puts any arguments for or against any particular answer to any such question”.

As a layman, I just do not see how a Minister going to a Council, putting that into a statement and then repeating it in a press release can infringe section 125. I would really like the Minister to put the legal advice he has received in the Library.

I will bring my remarks to a swift conclusion. I do not like new clause 10. We will have to trust the Government to produce a list of exemptions. It is entirely black and white; we either accept or we reject. It would have been much better if the Government had put those exemptions in an amendment, as they have done with amendment 53. Why not consider the other exemptions in a full debate such as this, rather than a take-it-or-leave-it statutory instrument? I am convinced that the only real solution is to go back to the proper purdah that we thrashed out previously, which worked in previous referendums.

[Sir William Cash]

Does my right hon. Friend have some sympathy with the amendment tabled by the right hon. Member for Gordon (Alex Salmond) on the enforcement of purdah, because we are getting into a bit of a mess on this, as my right hon. Friend has said? If there was some means of enforcing the purdah that is left, we might have at least some leverage over what happens later.

[Mr Paterson]

That is certainly worth looking at, but what we really need is a return to proper purdah and we want section 125, so we would like the House to support amendment 78, which covers the devolved parts of the United Kingdom. That is the best solution. I think that what we are looking at is a botch. I think that it will end up looking like new clause 10, and possibly like amendment 4, but that is better than where we were last time.

I thank the Minister for the respectful way in which he has listened to the debate, but I would be grateful if he answered the points I have made. I repeat them again. What are the instances in previous referendums when purdah stopped normal Government functioning? Where are we with clarity regarding the Venice Commission? Please can these horrific legal statements, which have put such a spook under the Government, be placed in the Library? For myself, I will seek a return to pure purdah.

[Ms Tasmina Ahmed-Sheikh (Ochil and South Perthshire) (SNP)]

The rules relating to purdah in elections ensure a fair and proper process during elections and referendums. In fact, the Cabinet Office’s general election guidance, issued just before this year’s general election, states that elections

“have a number of implications for the work of Departments and civil servants. These arise from the special character of Government business during an Election campaign, and from the need to maintain, and be seen to maintain, the impartiality of the Civil Service, and to avoid any criticism of an inappropriate use of official resources.”

The Scottish National party believes that the referendum on the UK’s membership of the European Union—arguably our most vital and strategic international relationship—should set the gold standard for fairness and impartiality. The Government’s original proposals fall far short of that standard—indeed, they will undermine public and parliamentary confidence in the process. That is why they are now—eventually—being opposed by Members on both sides of the House.

The Government’s latest back-pedalling exercise, otherwise known as new clause 10, still fails to live up to the highest standard of impartial conduct, and specifically fails to introduce any mechanism properly to enforce the purdah regulations it proposes. Amendment 11, standing in my name and those of my colleagues, fills that gap. The Minister’s own former Government colleague, the right hon. Member for North Shropshire (Mr Paterson), from whom we have just heard, is quoted in The Times today as saying:

“All we’re asking is that this debate is open and fair, and we adhere to the current rules on purdah”.

He continues:

“You cannot have sneaky little tricks to try and rattle the thing through… It is just going to dirty the whole process and the losers may well consider it to be illegitimate if it has not been done fairly.”

Many voters in Scotland remember the sophistry deployed by the previous Government during the referendum campaign on Scottish independence. Despite the Conservatives and Liberal Democrats signing up to the Edinburgh agreement, the agreement was blatantly ignored following the no campaign’s last-gasp panic in the face of judgment by voters in Scotland. My right hon. Friend the Member for Gordon (Alex Salmond) mentioned the vow, and we will continue to mention the vow until it is implemented in full, but eleventh-hour initiatives such as the vow, and using the referendum unit in the Treasury to orchestrate a scaremongering campaign by pressurising banks and other companies, were clear breaches of the agreement on the part of the UK Government. Understandably, MPs on both sides of the argument do not want to see a repeat in the Euro-poll. If only they had spoken up last year. That is why I call on the House to support the SNP amendment, which will introduce an enforcement mechanism against breaches of purdah covering both Ministers and civil servants.

As on so many issues, rather than provide strong leadership, the Prime Minister has botched this business at every possible step. That may lead some of us to believe that his heart is not in it and he was somehow bounced into making the commitment against his own free will. First, he backed down on asserting collective Cabinet responsibility on a vital national issue. Then, he caved in on the timing of the poll, after his attempt to hold it on the same day as the Scottish elections faced parliamentary defeat before the summer recess. Last week, he was overturned by the Electoral Commission on the referendum question itself. And in the past few days, we have seen the Government retreat on their original attempt to influence the campaign by using Ministers and civil servants during what should be a strict purdah period. Our amendment will keep the campaign fair and honest and provide the means to enforce good intentions, and I recommend it to the House.