European Union Referendum Bill

Viscount Trenchard Excerpts

Monday 2nd November 2015 Lords Chamber

[Lord Spicer]

I very much understand why the noble Lord makes a distinction, because—I will say it again—the amendment that he has produced in its form will hope to skew the results. One point made in this short debate is that the reason for having this rather skewed amendment is that people who live in the European Union like living there. Well, fine, but it gives a perspective on the answer that they might give in a referendum. I have no doubt that the noble Lord has that in his mind. I therefore say to the Government, who are meant to be neutral in all this, that in the interests of fairness and neutrality, and if they are going to extend the franchise, they should listen to the arguments for doing so on a worldwide basis.

[Viscount Trenchard (Con)]

My Lords, I, too, wholly agree with what my noble friend Lord Flight said—that if we are going to extend the vote in the referendum to those United Kingdom citizens who live outside the United Kingdom, it should be extended to all of them. However, I do not feel that those who live outside the United Kingdom have quite an equivalent right to vote as those who live here. As democracy was being extended in this country, it was often said, “No taxation without representation”. I seem to remember that when I went to live and work in Japan, I stopped paying United Kingdom income tax fairly immediately, although I did have to pay Japanese income tax, which was at rather a higher rate.

I later became chairman of Conservatives Abroad in Japan, and asked for the franchise for those of us who were abroad for a relatively short time with the clear intention of coming back. If you have been abroad for a long time and made your life abroad and have no intention of coming back to the UK to live, your right to have your voice heard in a general election or referendum is somewhat less. There may well be a case for extending the franchise beyond 15 years to United Kingdom citizens abroad, but there are practical difficulties in tracing who they are. On which electoral register would they be if they no longer have any family members living in the area where they previously lived? It seems rather complicated, so I cannot support the amendments.

[Lord Liddle (Lab)]

On the point about British citizens living in the EU, of course I go along with the principle of no taxation without representation, but many of our citizens who live on the continent worked in Britain all their lives, paid taxes all their lives and have gone to the continent to retire. So it is a bit hard to deny them the vote on the no taxation without representation ground.

--- Later in debate ---

[Lord Judd (Lab)]

My Lords, I have listened to this debate with fascination. It is, of course, crucial. It raises huge issues and takes us right back to the origins of the move towards having a referendum at all. In the end, what we need in this country is leadership and people who stand up for what they believe in and argue for it. This vision of nurturing an imaginary world in which somehow the provision of passive, impartial information will enable people to make up their minds is naive, as has been said. What enables people to make up their minds is an argument of real substance adduced with passion and conviction. That is the issue.

I am very glad that the noble Lord, Lord Hannay, has given us an opportunity to have this debate although I have slight anxieties about how you can spell out the consequences of this situation. That seems to me a very absolute understanding of how human affairs are conducted. I do not know that you can say what the consequences are. However, you can say what the implications are and they can be well argued and substantiated, and a report of that kind would be helpful.

Having had the privilege to serve on the home affairs sub-committee of the European Union Committee, I know that the sense of urgency behind our deliberations has not been neglected. The sub-committee looked at the implications of change in the home affairs role and at crime and security. One thing was absolutely clear in those deliberations—modern crime is completely internationalised. Indeed, one thing was devastatingly clear—terrorism is totally internationalised. There can be no one in this House who does not lose sleep over security issues. We took evidence from people in the front line with practical, in-the-field responsibility in these spheres. It is worth noble Lords looking at not just that report but also the evidence because what came across to me as we listened to that evidence was that virtually without exception those with operational responsibility said that, unless we had gone mad, we must realise that we could handle this situation only with effective international arrangements in place. They had not a shred of doubt that we would have lost our marbles if we ceased to co-operate within the context of Europe. It is there in the evidence. Noble Lords should not listen to the opinions of fellow Peers but should read the evidence. However inadequate, however much there is need for change and improvement in the relevant arrangements, the European dimension has become indispensable to work in that sphere.

I think that a timescale of at least 12 weeks before the referendum is incredibly short for consideration of any report, but I also think that it is awfully luxurious in terms of how much time would elapse before such a report was available. If we are talking about the safety of our families and this nation and the protection of our industry, given the cyber issues that have been raised, we need factual information from the people in the operational front line about what we are luxuriously contemplating. The immediate security issues affecting our people today—tonight—demand that we know what we are going to do and how we are going to achieve that if we withdraw from the European Union, and how we ensure that the co-operation which those in the front line see as indispensable is maintained.

[Viscount Trenchard]

My Lords, I will not detain the Committee by going over all the arguments that have been made. I, of course, agree with those noble Lords who think that the information and any statements that may be produced should inform people about the consequences of remaining in as well as leaving the European Union. However difficult that may be, at least the Government should say what kind of association with the European Union they think would be desirable for the United Kingdom to pursue in the event that it votes to leave the EU.

My noble friend Lord Forsyth commented that under the Bank of England bank deposit guarantee scheme the maximum amount that is guaranteed has been reduced from £85,000 to £75,000. It is clear that that is because the euro is the currency of the European Union and all monetary values are determined in euro amounts. I suspect that this has happened because the sum was fixed at €100,000, which was approximately £85,000 and is now approximately £75,000. That is why the Bank of England has reduced by a significant percentage the maximum amount available under its guarantee scheme.

I also noticed that, according to the Daily Telegraph, Cabinet sources have informed that newspaper that the Prime Minister’s thrust for substantial alterations to our terms of membership will cover four main areas, and that he is asking for an explicit statement that the euro is not the official currency of the EU, making it clear that Europe is a multicurrency union. From that it follows that if Europe is to be a multicurrency union, it would not be possible in future for the Bank of England arbitrarily to reduce the maximum amount under its guarantee scheme in the way that it has, or to increase it, should the currency movement be reversed.

[Lord Forsyth of Drumlean]

My noble friend is absolutely right. Is the situation not even worse, however, in that even if the Bank of England wished to set another level it cannot do so? British pensioners and savers are having to reorganise their savings to make a reduction. The British Government, the Prime Minister or the Bank of England do not have the power to decide a simple matter, such as how much is guaranteed on deposit. That illustrates how overwhelmingly intrusive Europe has become.

[Viscount Trenchard]

The noble Lord is completely right. As I said in at Second Reading, it is necessary that our renegotiations should include the repatriation of financial regulation, the independence of the Bank of England from the European authorities, and the independence and equivalence of our own financial regulators with those of the European ones, which should be those for the eurozone.

[Baroness Ludford (LD)]

My Lords, in intervening briefly on this group of amendments, I apologise for doing so after having been unable to speak at Second Reading or in Committee last week, because of a serious family illness. I hope that the Committee will permit me to make a brief intervention, despite that absence.

I want to say two things. One has been said more than adequately by the noble Lord, Lord Judd. This concerned the point in Amendment 21 that stresses that the report on withdrawal should cover law enforcement, security and justice. The noble Lord is right: we should listen to the police and others in front-line operational roles. This indeed happened with the exercise of opting back in to 35 measures and that is what was so persuasive. That has been said by the noble Lord, Lord Judd.

Secondly, in supporting this group of amendments, particularly Amendment 21, may I take issue with the noble Lord, Lord Stoddart? He suggested that those of us who are perhaps on the inside have a lack of confidence in the UK. I deny that charge. It is not about lacking confidence in Britain, with its overtones of almost being unpatriotic, a charge I also deny; it is about living in the real world.

May I also take issue with the noble Lord, Lord Blencathra? Earlier, we heard that somehow we know better than the US trade representative. Mike Froman, a senior and serious person, has, in the words of the Financial Times, “poured cold water” on the prospect of the UK negotiating its own trade agreement with the US or with other major trading partners, such as China. He said that the US would have little interest in doing so and that the UK could face the same tariffs as China, Brazil or India. With respect, the noble Lord, Lord Blencathra, suggested that we know better than the US what the US would want to do.