European Union Referendum Bill

Debate between William Cash and Owen Paterson

Monday 7th September 2015 Commons Chamber

[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.