Localism Bill

Debate between Alec Shelbrooke and Lord Goldsmith of Richmond Park

Monday 7th November 2011 Commons Chamber

[Zac Goldsmith]

To be honest, I do not know what options were offered, but a large percentage of the population turned out to vote and the vast majority of those made their opinion known and were ignored. Whether we agree with that decision is academic. The fact is that people had their say and were ignored.

[Alec Shelbrooke]

To reinforce the point that my hon. Friend makes about councils listening, when the then governing coalition of Conservatives and Liberals on Leeds city council was discussing an incinerator, which I opposed, the Labour councillors made great play of the fact that the incinerator was going to be built. They won power on the council in 2010, and they are now building the incinerator. We have not heard a peep from the councillors who opposed it before.

[Zac Goldsmith]

We could go on. I shall take the opportunity to give one more example of a mad council ignoring the wishes of local people. That was in my own local authority in Richmond, where a couple of years ago—[Interruption.] It happens even in places such as Richmond, where I called a referendum on a proposal to bring in a supermarket, which local people felt would seriously damage the independent shops in one of the much-loved streets in Barnes. We had a bigger turnout in that referendum than in any general election, but we had a Mugabe-esque result: nearly 90% of people rejected Sainsbury’s, yet the local authority did absolutely nothing to prevent the takeover of the high street by Sainsbury’s. Again, whether we agree with the decision or not, democracy ought to play a role in such decisions.

--- Later in debate ---

[Zac Goldsmith]

I have a brief question. If the amendment is pressed to a vote, would my hon. Friend support it if it included turn-out thresholds, not just trigger-mechanism thresholds?

[Alec Shelbrooke]

I would not support the amendment for the reasons my hon. Friend just mentioned, because if someone wants to have a referendum that is binding on any subject, they leave themselves open to several problems. My hon. Friend’s amendment contains provisions that he feels would deal with that. However, in this place, we must be very careful about the legislation we introduce and the language we use. We may try to foresee the instances that may occur and try to stop some unsavoury referendums taking place, but once the legislation saying that it is binding is in place, someone somewhere will find a way around it.

We live in heightened times of tension. That is inevitable in an economic downturn. We go through periods when there is a blame culture and it is easy to pick on the weakest person.

If the House will indulge me, I would like to refer to “The Simpsons”. I am sure I am not alone when I say that I am huge fan of “The Simpsons”. Some of the episodes can be particularly cutting. I remember one episode when some of the characters woke up to find a bear in the front garden and decided that they wanted to introduce a bear tax to keep the bears out. The mayor had a meeting and said, “I want to bring in a bear tax.” Everybody said, “We’re not paying any more tax”, to which the mayor said, “All right. Well, I blame the immigrants.” Everybody cheered and the mayor said, “We’ll have a referendum on it.” As the episode goes on, they have a referendum to kick out the immigrants because they are unhappy about having to pay more tax and there was not enough tax to sort out the bears. Later, the episode highlights the fact that people in their communities, their friends and so on have an immigrant past and are fully integrated. There is a road to Damascus moment for Homer who goes around saying, “This is a terrible referendum. We can’t vote on this.” The result comes in, and there is a 96% vote to get rid of all the immigrants because nobody listens.

[Zac Goldsmith]

I apologise for intervening again, but my hon. Friend’s argument is exactly an argument in favour of democracy and referendums. If an unattractive proposition is made, people’s gut reaction may be to take the least attractive option. However, after debate and discussion—just as Homer Simpson proved to my hon. Friend in his youth—the right decision is normally reached. There are examples of that happening. In Switzerland, there was recently a vote on a motion that would have made migration to that country almost impossible. All the pundits and pollsters said the proposal would be overwhelmingly accepted; in fact, it was rejected by two to one as a result of the type of discussions prompted by the referendum. I say to my hon. Friend: please do not fear democracy in the way so many of our colleagues here do.

[Alec Shelbrooke]

It is not democracy I fear; it is people who may not be fully informed going to the ballot box. Let us not forget that the Third Reich was elected.

In conclusion, there is a place for referendums, and the balance in the Bill is about right. However, referendums should not be binding, which could open things up. It is perhaps sometimes hon. Members’ responsibility not to adopt the position we would take ourselves, but to consider what is best overall to protect the people from those who would seek to abuse and twist a system, as, indeed, happened with the Standards Board.