European Union (Referendum) Bill

Steve McCabe Excerpts

Friday 8th November 2013 Commons Chamber

[Martin Horwood]

Heaven forfend that I should question the selection of amendments once again, having been appropriately chastised at the beginning of the debate.

I apologise to the hon. Member for Ilford South (Mike Gapes) if I suggested that he was being frivolous. I am sure that that is not true. I am sure that he was well-meaning in tabling the amendments. What I was highlighting was that those of us who are on the pro-European side of the debate and who want to move on from arcane discussions about the minutiae of referendums to the real issue, which is whether Britain should be in or out, do ourselves no favours if we run the risk of being seen as putting forward anything that might be interpreted as frivolous. If I may put it in those guarded terms, I hope that he will respect my slight warning that we are getting close to dangerous territory.

The one amendment that I will single out is amendment 44, which raises the issue of the voting age. We debated that matter in Committee, but it was not fully resolved. I want to put on the record the long-standing Liberal Democrat commitment to extend democratic voting rights to those of 16 or above. It is important to young people and to the future of our democracy that people who are younger than 18 are given the vote and are engaged in political debate, if possible while still at school. Yesterday, I was at Balcarras school, which is an outstanding comprehensive school in Cheltenham. I had a long, gruelling debate with the sixth-formers, who were really engaged in the issues. It must be a frustration to such well-informed observers of the political scene that they cannot vote. We should take every available opportunity to advance the arguments for votes at 16 and this is a good opportunity to do so.

[Steve McCabe (Birmingham, Selly Oak) (Lab)]

Is the hon. Gentleman as perplexed as I am that the Government can justify reducing the voting age for a referendum in Scotland on the basis that the young people there will be determining the long-term future of their country in deciding whether it should be in or out of the UK, but will deny them that privilege in a referendum that will determine the long-term future of the entire UK in deciding whether we should be in or out of Europe? Where is the logic and consistency in that?

[Martin Horwood]

The hon. Gentleman is drawing me into commenting on the Scottish referendum, which is rather dangerous territory, so I will leave it at saying that I think that votes should be extended to 16-year-olds.

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[Mike Gapes]

I agree, which was why I tabled a series of amendments relating to the overseas territories. We must also consider Crown dependencies such as Guernsey and Jersey.

[Steve McCabe]

I am curious about what would happen if the people of Gibraltar voted to remain part of the EU, but the rest of the UK voted to opt out. If Gibraltar then found itself in conflict with Spain, where would we appeal for international support for Gibraltar? What would be the EU’s position?

[Mike Gapes]

My guess is that if we had left the EU, the rest of the EU would not necessarily regard us as a country to which it owed any favours, to put it mildly. Presumably we could appeal to the United Nations, but given the problems we have had in the so-called Special Committee on Decolonisation in the UN over the years, and the way in which countries such as Argentina have behaved with regard to other British overseas territories, we would be in a difficult position. The people of Gibraltar would be in a very difficult position, because if they wished to stay in the European Union, they would presumably have to find some way of getting Spain to sponsor their membership of the EU. Britain would have deserted and betrayed them.

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[Mike Gapes]

My hon. Friend has concluded. As an aside, perhaps the solution for the Government would be to appoint the hon. Member for Stockton South (James Wharton) as a PPS for today so that such difficulties could be avoided. Perhaps that could be conveyed rapidly to the powers that be.

[Steve McCabe]

I want to return one last time to the point that my hon. Friend raised about Gibraltar and the situation involving Spain. He said that if the people of Gibraltar wanted to be in the EU but the rest of Britain did not, we might have to appeal to Spain, with whom we would also have some difficulties. He suggested that we would be driven into the arms of Spain. Has he had an opportunity to talk about that to the hon. Member for Romford (Andrew Rosindell), who moved new clause 1, because he has clearly not foreseen that as one of the consequences of his proposal?

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[Steve McCabe]

May I take my hon. Friend back to the point he made about the Members of the other place having the right to vote? That raises the concern that several of us have had from the outset about the wisdom of addressing such a constitutionally far-reaching measure in a private Member’s Bill. In particular, has he sought any advice on the implications of the Bill’s consideration in the other place? Will Members there have to declare an interest or say how they intend to vote in such a referendum? Will they have to disbar themselves from taking part in the debate? As far as I can see, this is new constitutional territory.

[Mike Gapes]

It is difficult enough for me to contemplate the implications of rulings from the Chair in this Chamber without tying myself in knots over how the Lord Speaker would deal with such issues should they be raised with her in the other place. It would be best to put that issue on the agenda for the other place if it comes to consider this Bill. It will have to deal with that issue at that point. I do not have a view on or any detailed knowledge of how it would be dealt with at that time.

I want to be clear about the important differences between the amendments I have tabled. Amendment 43 would allow people with the right of abode in the United Kingdom to vote in this referendum, because it would affect them. Would they be expelled from the European Union? Would they no longer have the right to travel freely to the 27 other member states?

As I have already said, amendment 45 concerns those who are entitled to vote as electors in a European Parliament election, such as all the residents of the UK who are citizens of Austria, Latvia, Estonia, Italy, Germany, France, Spain, Portugal, the Czech Republic or Slovakia—I will not list all the other 27 member states, but there are a lot of them. Some of those people gain the full benefit of our education system and contribute to our society in many ways, just as British people living in other European countries benefit from their systems. We have seen recent reports that say that more British people are on welfare benefits in other EU countries than people from other EU countries living in the UK on benefits. If we were to leave the European Union, what would happen to those British people’s right to reside in those other European countries and benefit from the facilities, social security systems and other amenities of those countries? These are issues of great importance, but British people living in other countries would not be allowed to vote in the referendum, and nor would European Union citizens living in this country. That would be wrong, because the decision would have profound, long-term implications for them. That is why we need proper parliamentary scrutiny of it, which we are beginning here today. I hope that we will be able to continue it over the coming weeks and months.

Amendment 46 relates to the local government franchise, which is the basis for the Scottish referendum. In my opinion, there are no strong arguments against that. I have already covered amendment 47, which addresses the issue of those British citizens resident in any of the member states of the European Union.

Amendment 48 refers to the rights of prisoners to vote. Interesting statements have been made recently by the Government’s senior law officers, but the position is confused on whether some—if not all—prisoners will be given the right to vote. The Bill is silent on that issue, but if the Government’s position changes in the next few months—despite the clear vote of this House against giving votes to prisoners—we would need to discuss it in some detail. There would be implications if the European Court maintains its judgment that some prisoners should be given the right to vote, not just for parliamentary elections but for the franchise for any referendum on leaving the European Union. That is why I have tabled the amendment.

Amendment 8 would clarify the basis on which people would be able to vote. At present, overseas voters can register under the 15-year rule using the address of the local authority area in which they had lived previously. The amendment would allow people to register to vote at a British embassy or high commission. It is deplorable that only 20,000 people living elsewhere in the European Union have the entitlement to vote under the 15-year rule. Some 1.4 million British people live in other European Union countries and we should be trying to find ways to encourage them to register. To reduce the bureaucratic hurdles, the easiest way to do that would be to allow people in Spain, say, to contact the British embassy in Madrid; people in Portugal to go to Lisbon; people in France to go to Paris; and so on. Similarly, if we were to change the franchise to allow British citizens living anywhere in the world to take part in the referendum, we should allow them to go to the British high commissions in Delhi or other countries of the Commonwealth.

I have touched on amendment 44 and I know that other hon. Members will wish to speak on it. My hon. Friend the Member for Dunfermline and West Fife (Thomas Docherty) mentioned the age at which people can vote in the Scottish separatist referendum, and the UK referendum should be held on the same basis. Young people have a great interest in the future of the European Union. I would hope, therefore, that they would be able to take part.

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[Mr Bain]

I rise to support amendment 69. I would also like to comment on other amendments, including those tabled by my hon. Friend the Member for Ilford South (Mike Gapes).

Some important points have been raised about the franchise. The first I would take up is the one about EU nationals. I have a regular correspondence with a Danish constituent in the Hogganfield part of my constituency who is married to a UK national, and has the right to vote in a Scottish Parliament election, a local government election in Scotland and European elections in this country. He will have the right to vote in the Scottish referendum, but under the Bill as drafted by the hon. Member for Stockton South (James Wharton) he will not have the right to vote in this referendum.

That throws up an interesting anomaly. We know that one of the implications of the Scottish referendum is that Scotland would no longer be an EU member state. Therefore, my constituent is being allowed the opportunity to vote once on whether to stay in the EU, but in the event of Scotland’s voting to stay in the UK he would be denied the opportunity to vote a second time on whether to stay part of the EU as a citizen of the UK. Such anomalies show the mess that the hon. Gentleman and the Government are getting themselves into with the Bill as currently drafted.

My hon. Friend the Member for Ilford South mentioned prisoners’ right to vote. Of course none of us in the House wants prisoners who have been convicted of serious offences or given long sentences to be given the right to vote, but an important point in relation to the franchise of prisoners in referendums came up in the discussion about the Scottish referendum. It is regrettable that we have not been joined by the Attorney-General because we would have benefited from his good counsel on that point. There is case law from the European Court of Human Rights in 2008. That says that article 3 of protocol 1, which deals with the right to vote and participate in democratic votes, says that that right is qualified, is limited to the choice of the legislature and does not apply to the election of a Head of State or indeed to referendums.

[Steve McCabe]

I wonder whether my hon. Friend thinks it is also regrettable that we have not been joined this morning by the Under-Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs, the hon. Member for Boston and Skegness (Mark Simmonds), who has responsibility for British overseas territories. He could have dealt with some of the issues that my hon. Friend has raised. Much as I love to hear the Minister for Europe’s comments, he seemed slightly reluctant to engage with those issues in his contribution.

[Mr Bain]

My hon. Friend is clairvoyant in picking up that ambience from the Minister for Europe. I hope that we will hear more from hon. Members who are willing to comment on these issues later in the debate.

Human Rights: Iran

Steve McCabe Excerpts

Wednesday 16th January 2013 Commons Chamber

[Mr David Amess (Southend West) (Con)]

I am particularly pleased that you are chairing this debate, Mr Deputy Speaker, because I know your profoundly held views on the issue of human rights in Iran. Many colleagues are attending the debate tonight and, as I am having great difficulty in pronouncing some of the names that I need to read out, I would be grateful if they could intervene to help me with that exercise.

I am pleased to have the opportunity to talk about Iran’s human rights record, which is an absolute disgrace. The record of the clerical regime’s 34-year rule includes the execution of 120,000 of its political opponents, yet the world remains silent. It also includes the catastrophic repression of women, oppressed nationalities, and followers of various religions; the destruction of the majority of the middle class; the obliteration of the private sector; the falling of at least 40 million people below the poverty line; unemployment standing at 35%—an absolute disgrace—and a 40% inflation rate; and the plunging of the nation’s official currency.

At the same time, Iran’s regime is sowing the seeds of discord right across the middle east, not least in Syria, where the mullahs are lending huge assistance to the dictator Assad, who is a very wicked man indeed. The regime is also attempting to eliminate Iraq’s democratic opposition leaders, as well as the 3,300 Iranian dissidents in Camp Ashraf and Camp Liberty. The mullahs are a particular concern, owing to their dangerous pursuit of nuclear weapons. Let there be no doubt in the House that those nuclear weapons would be directed towards the destruction of the entire world.

I shall keep my remarks brief, as I hope to be able to give my right hon. Friend the Minister for Europe at least a couple of minutes in which to respond to the debate. I shall focus on the regime’s brutal efforts to suppress a Persian spring, which stopped the possibility of democratic change occurring organically in Iran. Iran’s fundamentalist regime has embarked on a brutal campaign of mass executions to terrorise its people and prevent a resurgence of the protests calling for regime change.

[Steve McCabe (Birmingham, Selly Oak) (Lab)]

Does the hon. Gentleman agree that the regime has simply run out of chances and that it has to go? Does he also agree that the one constructive thing that we could do would be to let the legitimate leader of the Iranian opposition, Mrs Rajavi, come to this country to talk to British politicians and the people in our media, so that they could see the alternative?

[Mr Amess]

I absolutely agree with the hon. Gentleman. As he knows, I stand shoulder to shoulder with him on this issue.

On 13 November, 44 people in Iran were sent to the gallows. At least 450 people have been executed in Iran since the beginning of 2012, according to the tally publicly announced by the authorities, which we can hardly believe. The true number is far greater.

Iran

Steve McCabe Excerpts

Monday 20th February 2012 Commons Chamber

[Steve McCabe (Birmingham, Selly Oak) (Lab)]

I am afraid that this is sounding terribly like an appeasement argument. If the hon. Gentleman does not wish his position to be characterised as such, will he say something about what the western powers should do to support legitimate protest in Iran by the people who are pushing for regime change, whom we have supported in other countries and whom we should support in this instance?

[Mr Baron]

I ask the hon. Gentleman to be patient. I promise to deal directly with that later in my speech.

At this point, many invoke President Ahmadinejad’s call for Israel to be wiped off the face of the map. Surely, they say, that is proof of irrationality; surely that is evidence that Iran cannot be allowed to develop nuclear weapons. However, a careful examination of the translation suggests that President Ahmadinejad was badly misquoted. Even The New York Times, one of the first outlets to misquote Ahmadinejad, now accepts that the word “map” was never used. A more accurate translation offers

“the regime occupying Jerusalem must vanish from the page of time”.

Given that Ahmadinejad compared his desired option—the elimination of “the regime occupying Jerusalem”—with the fall of the Shah’s regime in Iran, it is quite clear that he was talking about regime change and not about the destruction of Israel itself, just as he did not want the end of Iran in his comparison. The pedantry over the translation is important. Some Members may scoff, but this is a terribly important point. The immediate reaction to Ahmadinejad’s speech in 2005 was the then Israeli Prime Minister’s call for Iran to be expelled from the United Nations, and the US urging its allies to “get tougher” on Iran.

That mistranslation is used to this day, even by former Foreign Secretaries outside the House. I wonder why the Foreign and Commonwealth Office has not provided more clarity on the point. I hope that it is not to do with a hidden agenda. Perhaps it is to do with a shortage of properly qualified Farsi speakers, but we would appreciate clarity from the Foreign Secretary in due course. I ask him to tell us whether he denies at least the possibility that President Ahmadinejad was misquoted.

EU Sanctions (Iran)

Steve McCabe Excerpts

Tuesday 24th January 2012 Commons Chamber

[Mr Hague]

I am reporting to the House on the European Union sanctions. As my hon. Friend will gather, I am not advocating military action, and if he is asking about other areas of activity, I cannot go into them in the House.

[Steve McCabe (Birmingham, Selly Oak) (Lab)]

The Government have rightly gained credit for the support that they have shown opposition movements elsewhere during the Arab spring. Why do they set their face so implacably against opposition movements when it comes to Iran?

[Mr Hague]

I am not aware that that is our approach. Indeed, I deplored earlier the house arrest and imprisonment of opposition leaders in Iran, and the brutal and repressive treatment of opposition spokesmen and demonstrations. At the same time, the future of Iran is for the Iranian people—at least, we hope so. It is very important that opposition movements with which anyone in this country associates themselves are credible and likely to represent the Iranian people.

National Referendum on the European Union

Steve McCabe Excerpts

Monday 24th October 2011 Commons Chamber

[Steve McCabe (Birmingham, Selly Oak) (Lab)]

Given what I want to say, Mr Deputy Speaker, I might, with all due respect, if I had had a choice, have preferred not to follow the hon. Member for Clacton (Mr Carswell).

They say that if you hang around this place for long enough nothing should surprise you, but recent antics do surprise me. The other week we were subjected to manoeuvres par excellence by the Government Whips and business managers to block discussion on a clause put forward by the hon. Member for Gainsborough (Mr Leigh) on the subject of freedom of speech in a Bill laughably called the Protection of Freedoms Bill. Tonight, the Government Whips—indeed, the Whips and business managers of all three main parties—have conspired to put a three-line Whip on a Back-Bench business motion, which effectively means that Parliament is being invited to talk about Europe but not to vote on it. So much for the mother of Parliaments!

Let me make it clear that I am not anti-European and that if I vote for the motion tonight I shall find myself in the Lobby with some strange bedfellows, including some people who, frankly, I think are mad. If there ever were an in/out referendum, I would almost certainly find myself arguing the case for trade and jobs in Europe. I think that is where I would end up. However, I also recognise that there is growing demand for reform in Europe. It is Lib Dem policy to have an in/out referendum, and most people understood it to be the Prime Minister’s policy to have a referendum if there was any significant change to the Lisbon treaty. Indeed, no one who has heard the Prime Minister over the past three years could think he was anything but a referendum man. And our esteemed Foreign Secretary once thought these issues were so important that he fought an entire general election on them.

Tonight, however, in a little Back-Bench business debate where the normally unimportant little people are expressing their views—views that strike a remarkable chord with the British public—the muscle men, the U-turn merchants and the bully boys, the Ministers and the would-be Ministers, are all out to force their say. What they are saying is, “All you little Cinderellas can go to the ball, but you can’t dance.” All the grand talk from this Government about greater respect for Parliament and Back Benchers, and the role that they have played in setting up the Backbench Business Committee, amount to nothing if the Government show tonight that they are scared to debate the topic.

A Back-Bench business debate is just that. It is about taking the temperature. This is not an Opposition day. We are not dealing with Government business. In a simple little Back-Bench business debate, I think I am entitled to vote how I damn well like.

Libya (London Conference)

Steve McCabe Excerpts

Wednesday 30th March 2011 Commons Chamber

[Mr Hague]

It is very important that it is the people of Libya who determine their own future. That is very clear, and my hon. Friend underlines the point. We are not trying to determine the future Government. It is clear that the ITNC has brought together a wide spread of groups and figures in the opposition and that they genuinely represent the opposition forces in Libya at present, but that is not to say that exactly that combination of people would turn out to be the future Government of a free Libya. As my hon. Friend says, we will not pick winners, but we will support an open process of political transition in Libya.

[Steve McCabe (Birmingham, Selly Oak) (Lab)]

The Foreign Secretary presents quite an upbeat picture, but what assessment has he made of the Deputy Prime Minister’s observation that the current action could well result in the creation of a hostile Islamist Government in Libya?

[Mr Hague]

It is very important that not only in Libya, but in north Africa as a whole, the UK and the European Union take the bold and ambitious approach that I described earlier, in order to act as a magnet for positive change—for civil society, open political systems, the building up of small and medium-sized enterprises, and all the other building blocks of democracy—but we cannot guarantee the outcome, of course. That is why we must make sure Europe provides a very big and effective magnet for those changes. If we fail to do that, not just Libya but any of the other countries in the region could become breeding grounds for terrorism and extremism. I think we should be on the optimistic side of this situation in which millions of people are seeking greater freedom, openness and democracy, but we should also be alert to the dangers if they do not succeed in getting those things.

Oral Answers to Questions

Steve McCabe Excerpts

Tuesday 15th March 2011 Commons Chamber

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs (Mr Henry Bellingham)]

I certainly share my hon. Friend’s concerns about the arrest and detention of those MDC MPs. It is a disgrace that they remain in custody. However, our ambassador in Harare attended the hearing this morning for Elton Mangoma, who has now been released on bail. I agree with my hon. Friend that it is essential that President Zuma carries on his good work with the Southern African Development Community to create a robust road map to credible elections.

[Steve McCabe (Birmingham, Selly Oak) (Lab)]

T2. Do the Government find it acceptable that residents of Camp Ashraf—opponents of the Iranian regime—are subjected to a 24-hour campaign of abuse and torture, including bombardment by 210 loudspeakers? What on earth are we doing about it?

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs (Alistair Burt)]

We are aware of both the intrusion of loudspeakers and occasional suggestions that the residents of Camp Ashraf are denied medical assistance. The UK meets representatives of the Iraqi Government’s Camp Ashraf committee, the UN regularly visits the camp and we make every effort to urge the Iraqi authorities to ensure that the residents of Camp Ashraf are treated in accordance with international humanitarian standards.

Libya and the Middle East

Steve McCabe Excerpts

Monday 7th March 2011 Commons Chamber

[Mr Hague]

Yes. My hon. Friend makes a powerful point, and I join him in his congratulations.

[Steve McCabe (Birmingham, Selly Oak) (Lab)]

Does the Foreign Secretary agree that one of the lessons of the past few days is that we must be careful about the number of western military missions seeking to operate in Libya, lest they play into Gaddafi’s hands in respect of foreign interference and undermine the very opposition we are trying to reinforce?

[Mr Hague]

Yes, of course, but I think that the hon. Gentleman would also join me in accepting that there have been necessary military missions, including for the evacuation of some of our workers. We have just been praising the work of HMS Cumberland and HMS York. Those were also military missions. We do not go ahead with any military mission unless we believe it to be genuinely necessary.

Oral Answers to Questions

Steve McCabe Excerpts

Tuesday 14th September 2010 Commons Chamber

[Mr Speaker]

It is okay, but another time. We are grateful to the hon. Gentleman.

[Steve McCabe (Birmingham, Selly Oak) (Lab)]

13. What his most recent assessment is of the state of UK-Iranian relations; and if he will make a statement.

[The Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs (Mr William Hague)]

We would welcome improved relations with Iran. Improved relations will come with the Iranian Government engaging in good faith with the E3 plus 3 on their nuclear programme and on improving their increasingly poor human rights record.

[Steve McCabe]

Iran claims that criticism of attacks on Camp Ashraf refugees and the stoning to death of Sakineh Ashtiani are part of a soft war that the west is waging on Iran. Are we engaged in a soft war, and does more need to be done now to confront that regime’s intolerable human rights agenda?

[Mr Hague]

We are not engaged in a war of any kind, but we want legitimate expressions of opinion to be heard and we want the human rights record of the Iranian Government to be seen for what it is throughout the world, because it is utterly unacceptable to anyone who cares about basic human rights anywhere on earth. I do not call that a war, but certainly, we want those things. The most important thing that we seek is for Iran to negotiate on its nuclear programme with the E3 plus 3—the three leading European nations and the other members of the UN Security Council—so that the danger of nuclear proliferation in the middle east can be addressed.