EU Referendum Leaflet

Debate between Lord Redwood and Pat Glass

Monday 9th May 2016 Westminster Hall

[Pat Glass (North West Durham) (Lab)]

We are here to state the merits of a petition that I understand was started by Jayne Adye, who is the director of the Get Britain Out campaign. She is therefore not a disinterested person who is independent of the issue or whose only concern, as the petition claims, is about the spending of public money.

We need to be honest about what this debate is about. It is yet another example of the wider leave campaign wanting to talk about process and not the real issues. I do not have a problem with that, but let us not pretend that this is about a leaflet issued by the Government. The faux outrage is intended to drown out the arguments made in the leaflet. I very much doubt that the director of the Get Britain Out campaign would have raised a petition if the Government were spending taxpayers’ money on a leaflet arguing that we should leave.

[John Redwood]

Has the hon. Lady been listening to the debate? Colleague after colleague has stood up and pointed out that the leaflet is simply wrong and misleading, because we care passionately about getting back democratic accountability and control for the British people.

[Pat Glass]

As the right hon. Gentleman said, I have sat through almost three hours of the debate very politely and courteously and listened to all of the arguments.

If we are going to do this, we should get it right. This is a small issue, but the petition talks about the Government spending

“money on biased campaigning to keep Britain inside the European Union”

and about the “Great British Public”. If we want to get this right, we must talk about the UK, not Britain. Britain is the island; the UK is much wider than that. I am sure that it was not the intention of the campaigners to cut out an entire country and all of the people of Northern Ireland. Nevertheless, let us get it right.

Referendums

Debate between Lord Redwood and Pat Glass

Monday 29th February 2016 Commons Chamber

[Pat Glass]

I agree entirely. Uncertainty is bad for British jobs and the British economy, and we believe that the longer this goes on, the more damage will be done to our economy and our jobs.

[John Redwood]

What does the hon. Lady think that EU state aid rules, energy prices, energy intervention and procurement rules have done to our steel jobs? What has the common fisheries policy done to our fishing jobs?

[Pat Glass]

People will have to make a decision on those issues, but they are not related to this statutory instrument. We accept that this great country would be able to make its way in the world outside the EU, but leaving would cost us dearly in all kinds of ways including jobs, our competitiveness in business, and the safety of our citizens from terrorism, crime, climate change and war. At a time of Russian expansionism and international terrorism from groups such as ISIS-Daesh, we do not believe that it is right to risk our safety and security as a nation. We want the UK to lead, not leave, Europe. We are the second biggest economy in the EU, and many of our partners such as Denmark, Sweden, the Netherlands and others want to work with us further to reform the EU, and they are looking to the UK to lead on that. Leaving the EU risks future peace in Europe, and Britain’s influence in the world.

In government, Labour passed the Political Parties, Elections and Referendums Act 2000 and we supported the passage of the European Union Referendum Act 2015. We support this statutory instrument, and we will leave it to others to moan about the date of the referendum. We are getting on and putting our energy into winning the referendum and keeping Britain leading in Europe.