European Union (Referendum) Bill

Debate between Lord Field of Birkenhead and Karl Turner

Friday 5th July 2013 Commons Chamber

[Mr Frank Field (Birkenhead) (Lab)]

I, like my hon. Friend the Member for Birmingham, Edgbaston (Ms Stuart), congratulate the hon. Member for Stockton South (James Wharton) on proposing the Bill. I have been in the House for a number of decades and if I could give a speech as good as he gave today I would be pleased. To do it in almost his maiden speech was simply stunning, and to have had the Prime Minister sitting on the Front Bench listening to his gifts of delivery cannot have done his future career any harm whatsoever.

[Karl Turner]

Three and a half million jobs, Frank.

[Mr Field]

That sort of intervention is pathetic. I think it is quite reasonable to congratulate the hon. Member for Stockton South. If we think that we can win elections by not recognising the truth and paying tribute to people, our time in politics is wasted.

I have one point to make, which is to echo what my right hon. Friend the Member for Leicester East (Keith Vaz) said. We are going to have a referendum and the question for Labour is whether we reach that point gracefully or reluctantly. We now need to move beyond this debate and set out the terms of how sovereignty can be redrawn between us and Europe. That is my single plea. This is the easy part of the debate where we ask whether we should have a referendum or not. We clearly are going to have one, so we now have some very serious work to do.

I end by echoing what the hon. Member for Richmond Park (Zac Goldsmith) said—I hope he has a large majority; otherwise I will be accused of helping him, too—namely that this is a matter not just of us trusting the British voters, but of the possibility of them trusting us a little bit more in return, and my God, we are in need of that.