Bernard Jenkin
Main Page: Bernard Jenkin (Conservative - Harwich and North Essex)Department Debates - View all Bernard Jenkin's debates with the HM Treasury
(8 years, 10 months ago)
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Mr McFadden
We know the costs of being in. The point of the amendments is to assess the costs of being out. Amendment 5 calls for each Secretary of State to produce a report at least 10 weeks before polling day on the possible consequences of exit for their area of responsibility. I will resist the temptation to get back into the issues of collective responsibility by saying that a report from each Department might test that. That is not the point of the amendment; the point is that EU membership touches many parts of what the Government do, and the public have a right to know about them.
Most obviously, there are the trade issues. What would exit mean for exports, inward investment and some of our great companies that operate across borders? For example, Airbus president Paul Kahn has said:
“If after an exit from the European Union, economic conditions in Britain were less favourable for business than in other parts of Europe, or beyond, would Airbus reconsider future investment in the United Kingdom? Yes, absolutely.”
Vodafone chief executive Vittorio Colao said recently:
“As a company we think it is in the interests of our shareholders and our customers that Britain does not leave the EU.”
ManpowerGroup Solutions UK managing director James Hick said last week:
“Our position on Europe is clear: leaving the EU would threaten jobs and harm Britain’s prospects”.
Mr Bernard Jenkin (Harwich and North Essex) (Con)
On a point of order, Mr Hoyle. Excuse me, but I thought we were discussing amendments, not the views of certain businessmen about the EU. Surely we should stick to the amendments.
The Chairman of Ways and Means (Mr Lindsay Hoyle)
The Chair can decide what is in order and what is out of order, but I thank the hon. Gentleman for his intervention.
The Chairman
Thank you, Mr Jenkin. We do not need any applause. We can save that for another occasion.
I was giving the right hon. Gentleman some time, but we now need to get on to the amendments. As important as Wolverhampton is to him and me, I am sure that discussion of the amendments would be more welcome in the Chamber.
Mr McFadden
I am not aware of any other occasions.
When my right hon. and learned Friend the Member for Camberwell and Peckham asked the Prime Minister, he gave two justifications. First, he said that,
“because the European issue is so pervasive, I do not want a situation where, in the four weeks before a referendum, Ministers cannot talk about the European budget, make statements about European Court judgments, respond to European Councils and all the rest of it.”
He then said the second issue was a bigger one:
“When the negotiation is complete and the Government have taken a clear view, I do not want us to be neutral on this issue; I want us to speak clearly and frankly.”—[Official Report, 10 June 2015; Vol. 596, c. 1179.]
On Second Reading, my right hon. Friend the Member for Leeds Central (Hilary Benn) said:
“Everybody in the House would agree that the referendum must be fair and must be seen to be fair, but at the same time the Government—any Government—are entitled to argue their case.”
He had said a few moments earlier:
“It would not be sensible for any Government to find themselves constrained from explaining to the people the Government’s view, because the people are entitled to hear from the Government of the day”.—[Official Report, 9 June 2015; Vol. 596, c. 1059.]
The Foreign Secretary sought to reassure the House, telling a fellow Member that if his concern
“is that the Government are thinking of spending public money to deliver doorstep mailshots in the last four weeks of the campaign, I can assure him that the Government have no such intention. The Government will exercise proper restraint”.—[Official Report, 9 June 2015; Vol. 596, c. 1055.]
We read overnight that the Government would have more to say on the issue, and we wait with interest to hear it. How will they reassure the House that there will not be abuse of the lifting of the purdah provisions, and that there should be the legal framework that has been called for by the Leader of the Opposition? Our amendment does not seek to reinstate the purdah provisions in full, but it does seek clarity on what exactly the Government intend to do or to publish during the referendum period. More clarity is needed than has so far been made available in ministerial statements. What form will expressing a view take, and what form will it not take? The Government need to provide more information, more clarity and more reassurance.
Mr Jenkin
I thank the right hon. Gentleman for giving way, and for the pertinent questions that he is putting to Ministers. They and I have been engaged in similar discussions. May I ask, however, why his party has decided not to support amendment 11, which would reinstate purdah, until he has received those assurances? Why is he letting the Government off the hook—or is it part of a Euro-stitch-up to rig the referendum?
Mr McFadden
As my right hon. Friend the Member for Leeds Central said on Second Reading, we do not object to the Government’s taking a view, but we want to see a fair referendum.
Will the Government agree to publish a report, a document or a code of conduct, or to provide the clarity that we seek in some other way? If so, what form will that information take? Will it set out clearly what kind of reports or statements the Government think they may need to make? What assurances will the Minister be able to give us about the use of taxpayer funds, beyond the funds that are channelled to the official yes and no campaigns in the normal way, through the Electoral Commission?
Mr Jenkin
The Government argue—I think we have to accept their argument—that these detailed and broad restrictions are too prescriptive and that they would not be able to carry on with the normal course of government, as my right hon. and learned Friend the Member for Rushcliffe (Mr Clarke) has explained. Does my hon. Friend not agree that there would be too much interference in the normal conduct of government?
Sir William Cash
I just do not think that makes sense. The bottom line is that we are now so invading the ability of the voters in the referendum to make a free and fair choice, by canting the process and taking all the things to which I have just referred out of the equation, that we could seriously undermine the whole democratic process with respect to referendums. This is simply not a tenable position. If it was good enough for the Scottish and the Welsh, why is it not good enough for the referendum on the EU, which will go even further towards infringing—as we would put it—the role of this Parliament and our democratic freedoms?
I also want to discuss what publishing means. Section 125 of the 2000 Act is very general on this point, and this is what hon. Members are being asked to repeal this afternoon. It states:
“‘publish’ means make available to the public at large, or any section of the public, in whatever form and by whatever means”,
and the relevant period
“means the period of 28 days ending with the date of the poll.”
There are profound reasons for maintaining the status quo at this stage and for retaining the restriction, because once it has been repealed, we would then have to reinvent the wheel, as it were, on Report. That could open a huge can of worms for the Government. The question is: what would the Government not be restrained from doing, compared with some of the things that it is currently stated they would be restrained from doing?
The Minister for Europe has sent us a letter today, 16 June, in which he says:
“It is our clear intention, through the Bill, to provide a straightforward, fair and effective framework for the referendum.”
I have to say to him that I must cast some doubt on that in relation to the questions that are being raised. He goes on to say that it would be “inappropriate” to
“prevent Ministers from effectively conducting the significant amounts of ordinary day-to-day business between the Government and the EU that will necessarily continue during the pre-poll period.”
I have been Chairman of the European Scrutiny Committee for five years, and I just do not recognise this at all. There are things that go on in the monumental amount of material that comes in from the European Union, but in my judgment there is no suggestion that anything of this nature would be affected by retaining section 125. The section was applied during the Scottish referendum, which had a European dimension. The same applied to the Welsh Assembly. If it was all right for Ministers to continue to make statements in those circumstances, we should keep section 125 and do as the Foreign Secretary suggested during the Second Reading debate. The Minister for Europe’s letter states:
“The Foreign Secretary said during the debate that the Government will exercise proper restraint to ensure a balanced debate during the campaign.”
This is the moment to ensure that we get this right by keeping the restriction for the time being, having discussions and coming back with specific proposals on Report, on which we can then vote.
I acknowledge that the Minister for Europe has conceded that we have more than a reasonable case. His letter goes on:
“Working out a system that will reassure colleagues and voters that the referendum is a fair fight, yet will preserve the Government’s ability to act in the national interest is not straightforward.”
Well, it would be very straightforward if we kept section 125. He adds:
“It is important that it is legally clear and robust.”
It would make things very unclear and very unrobust if we were to remove the provisions in section 125, which are based on common sense and fairness and on giving voters a proper opportunity to make a fair choice.
Hywel Williams (Arfon) (PC)
I support amendment 16 and new clauses 3 and 4 in the name of my right hon. Friend the Member for Gordon (Alex Salmond) and other hon. Members.
I hope I can welcome some clarification from the Government later on the question of holding the referendum on the same day as the elections in Scotland and the elections for the Assemblies in Northern Ireland and Wales. An aspect that has not received much attention is that of the effects of the franchise. EU citizens have the right to vote in our general elections in Wales and in Scotland. The Government here in London propose to exclude them from the referendum. If the referendum and the election were held at the same time, one can picture the spectacle in Northern Ireland, Scotland and Wales when EU citizens turn up to vote, cast a vote and then are cast out. They are being prevented from voting on our future in the EU. That spectacle would cheer the hearts of despots throughout the world, from Moscow to Damascus to Pyongyang.
On the declaration of the results and the so-called quad lock, there are particular EU issues pertaining to Wales. I would say that these are national issues. On Second Reading I referred to the value that we as a multilingual society derive from membership of a multilingual and multicultural European Union. This may not figure as largely elsewhere in the UK as it does in Wales—it is a particular Welsh issue.
Wales is one of the poorest parts of Europe—it is at the same level as some former Soviet bloc countries—and we have derived much benefit from EU regional policy. Again, that is of national significance to Wales. We are also very dependent on EU agricultural support. There are other issues relating to manufacturing and demography, but I will not go into those now. All those factors might or might not decide the result in Wales—I cannot say whether they will—but they are legitimate national interests and should be respected as such.
We have a particular national interest. It might be different from the national interest of our neighbours. As the Government intend, their national interest will trump ours. I think that there are only two ways to go on the respect issue: either to respect or not to respect. The current proposals potentially will not respect, which is why we will support amendment 16.
Mr Jenkin
I will endeavour to be as brief as possible in order to allow other Members to speak. I will speak primarily to amendments (a) and (b) to amendment 11, which stand in my name, but also in support of amendment 11, which stands in the name of my hon. Friend the Member for Stone (Sir William Cash). I thank my right hon. Friends the Minister and the Foreign Secretary for the positive way in which they have engaged with the entire party on these questions. We are grateful for that dialogue. I think that absolutely proves that we are not in some re-run of previous grief. This debate is not even about Europe; it is, in fact, about how to conduct a fair referendum.
I have some experience of referendums, because I set up the “North East Says No” referendum campaign in 2004, which turned around a two-thirds majority in favour of a north-east Assembly into a 4:1 defeat. We operated under the provisions laid down by the Political Parties, Elections and Referendums Act 2000, which worked pretty well. The purdah provisions restricted what the Government did, although they are probably not tough enough. They did not prevent the then Deputy Prime Minister, John Prescott, changing the Government’s policy on what powers that putative Assembly would have only a few days before the postal votes went out. When we rang up the Cabinet Secretary to complain that the Deputy Prime Minister had breached the purdah rules, we were told, “That’s a matter for the Minister, not for me.”
That underlines the argument that the purdah rules are not tough enough, rather than that we should not have them at all, because they prevented civil servants from becoming embroiled in referendum questions, or being used by Ministers to promulgate the case that the Government wanted them to promulgate, and that is the vital protection. It is principally towards the impartiality of civil servants that I want to address my remarks, particularly given that, I am proud to say, I have been elected unopposed to the Chair of the Public Administration and Constitutional Affairs Committee. I very much hope to persuade my fellow members of the Committee to address some of these issues during this Parliament.
I am disappointed that the Labour party has abandoned the principled position it adopted on purdah when it implemented the 2000 Act, which is quite extraordinary. I ran into Jack Straw, the former Foreign Secretary, this morning, and he was thoroughly disappointed to hear that the Labour party was backing off from supporting the constitutional legislation that it had implemented. Those ideas did not just come out of nowhere; they were ideas for a fair referendum that arose from the unfairness of the conduct of the first Welsh referendum, which were addressed by the Neil committee, which became the Committee on Standards in Public Life—the key is in the name. It was regarded as essential to have a period when the machinery of government cannot be involved in supporting one side or the other in a referendum campaign. The Electoral Commission would like 10 weeks, rather than just four weeks.
There are certain myths about purdah. The Government do not grind to a halt during a general election. Ministers even attend meetings of the Council of Ministers during general elections. However, during a general election a Minister cannot use their Department to promulgate information or to brief the press in a manner that is intended to affect the outcome. We want the same to apply in the referendum.
The letter from my right hon. Friend the Minister for Europe, which the right hon. Member for Gordon (Alex Salmond) has now seen, does not actually provide the reassurance that is required. In fact, by explaining what is contemplated, it confirms precisely the opposite. For example, it states that the Government,
“having taken a position on the outcome of our negotiations with the rest of the EU, will naturally be obliged to account to Parliament and the British people.”
There is absolutely no problem about accounting to Parliament in any purdah period about any matter at all, because it is privileged. There are no purdah rules that apply to anything that any Minister would say on the Floor of the House of Commons.
But are we seriously to believe, as my right hon. and learned Friend the Member for Rushcliffe (Mr Clarke) indicated, that civil servants should be used to put out press releases on matters that are being addressed by the referendum question, because that is what he is saying? That is precisely what should not be allowed. The idea that this will prevent Ministers from saying anything, and that somehow Ministers will not be able to take part in the referendum campaign, is clearly tosh. I seem to recall the Prime Minister being very vociferous in the run-up to the Scottish independence referendum, right to the last day of the campaign. However, he was unable to use his ministerial car, fly at ministerial expense or use the machinery of government to promulgate the messages he wanted to get across. There might have been a rather frustrating moment when he said, “I want to put out a statement”, and the Cabinet Secretary would have had to tell him, “I’m sorry, Prime Minister, but you can’t do that now that we are in purdah. You will have to do that through the no campaign or through your party.” That is exactly right. What is the point of the expenditure limits for the yes and no campaigns if the Government have 80 special advisers and thousands of press officers able to issue press releases, brief the media and organise media tours for Ministers? That is precisely what should not be available to Ministers during the closing stages of a referendum campaign.
Kate Hoey (Vauxhall) (Lab)
I support that amendment, of course. Does the hon. Gentleman agree that it would be even worse if we happened to get to a situation in which the leadership of the two main political parties were campaigning on one side? That is an even more important reason to have a proper purdah, if the referendum is to be seen as a free and fair.
Mr Jenkin
It is a simple matter of principle, which is why I think we would be right to press this to a vote if necessary, unless the Government accept our amendment. I really hope that they will, because it would simply put purdah back into the Bill, where it should be. I commend my right hon. Friend the Minister for saying that he wants dialogue on what the problem actually is and on how it can be addressed by amending the purdah regime, rather than scrapping it altogether and relying on assurances based on advice from civil servants who have clearly got it wrong.
I want to focus in my final remarks on the impartiality of civil servants, because this is really about what they can and cannot do. They must be in a position to protect their impartiality. They must be able to say to a Minister, “No, Minister, we are in purdah, so I cannot do that now. You must do that yourself or through some other organisation.” If they are not subject to purdah, it is the job of civil servants to support the Government of the day by carrying out the instructions of their Ministers, so they will be obliged to put out press releases, to help Ministers make the case and to use the machinery of government unfairly to support one side or the other.
I draw the Committee’s attention to the report that the Public Administration Committee produced just before the general election, “Lessons for Civil Service impartiality from the Scottish independence referendum”. The report shows that the Scottish Executive abused their position by sending out a rather political White Paper, some parts of which read more like an SNP manifesto than an objective Government document—that is always the danger with Government publications—but at least they did not send it out in the purdah period, at the most sensitive moment.
Not only that, but the advice of the permanent secretary at the Treasury, Sir Nicholas Macpherson, on currency unions was published in a completely unprecedented move on the basis that he had to “reassure the markets”. That was his excuse, and I am afraid that we regarded it as only an excuse. Are we to say that Ministers will agree to civil servants publishing their advice during the purdah period? Perhaps they might even be instructed to publish their advice during that period.
Alex Salmond
The hon. Gentleman makes the point that what Governments do outwith the purdah period is quite different from what they can do within that period. Is he aware that there was referendum unit in the Treasury, which during the 28-day purdah period was briefing in favour of the no campaign in the referendum? Can that possibly be right? Should not that sort of practice be stopped before an upcoming European campaign?
Mr Jenkin
There is a serious question about whether civil servants should be closely involved in referendum campaigns over a period much longer than 28 days. There is a serious problem for the civil service if it allows such things to happen. That is why one of the main recommendations of our report is the addition of a paragraph to the civil service code to the effect that what applies to civil servants in general elections should apply to them equally in referendums. That would prevent civil servants who are put in difficult positions, and perhaps asked to do things that they know are not in the spirit of the code, from acting in such a way.
The underpinning of the principle of civil service impartiality during a referendum now rests on section 125 of the Political Parties, Elections and Referendums Act 2000. If we do not press the amendment, we consent to the removal of that protection from the Bill. My right hon. Friend the Minister cannot ask us to do that. It is an issue of principle, and he is asking us to accede to completely the wrong principle. As I have said, I believe that he has been given very wrong advice. Far be it from me to speculate about how many Eurosceptics there are among the permanent secretary community, who might want a bit of extra freedom about what they get Ministers to do during a referendum campaign.
I am deeply disappointed that the Labour party has abandoned all its principles, but we know that it is split on the matter. On Second Reading, it was in favour of scrapping purdah. At Prime Minister’s questions, it was against scrapping purdah. Last night, Labour Members were going to vote for amendment 11, but today they are no longer going to do so. I think that they are in a bit of a muddle, and I suspect that quite a few pro-EU Labour Members would like to help to rig the referendum in favour of the yes campaign. [Interruption.] I see I have provoked the hon. Member for Rhondda (Chris Bryant). In the interests of brevity, I shall not invite him to intervene.
Unless we insist that the provisions for purdah remain in the Bill, we are acquiescing in the dilution of an important principle.
Mr Geoffrey Cox (Torridge and West Devon) (Con)
My hon. Friend has insisted, and I understand this, that any safeguards relating to a purdah period should be in the Bill and should be made clear by statute. As I understand it, the Government’s undertaking, by means of the Minister’s letter, is to table amendments on Report, which would go into the final Act of Parliament and have legal force. It is not a matter of relying on the assurances of civil servants; it is a matter of law. If that is correct, it may go some way to alleviating the concerns of Government Members.
Mr Jenkin
I am grateful to my hon. Friend for drawing the Committee’s attention to that point. We should all be grateful for the fact that the Government have listened, but they are still requesting that we withdraw the amendment. To do so would be to concede the principle that purdah might not exist in statutory form. The Labour party’s amendment on purdah would not actually create purdah; it would require the Government to produce a list of things. What we want in the Bill is purdah. If the Government are not prepared to accept that principle now, on the Floor of the House, I fear that we will have to force the amendment to a vote, because it is a matter of principle.
John McDonnell (Hayes and Harlington) (Lab)
He is not in his usual place, but may I commend the hon. Member for Stone (Sir William Cash), whose health is fragile today but who has still turned up to fulfil his parliamentary duties? I apologise for the fact that I had to leave the debate for 20 minutes to chair a meeting.
I want to speak about amendments 46 and 47, but before I do so, I will say a few words about purdah. I remember the original legislation going through the House. It came about as a result of concerns expressed about what had happened prior to other elections and referendums. At the time, I thought that a number of lessons had been learned about the need to ensure that purdah existed, so that confidence could be expressed in the outcome of a referendum. For the life of me, I cannot understand why the Government are varying the procedure this time. They have not advanced any consistent argument in which I can have any confidence. When we are dealing with such a controversial matter, why stir up such controversy over such a relatively minor point? I do not understand the Government’s motives.
I am minded to support amendment 11. Although the Government have assured us that we will return to the matter on Report, I would like some certainty at this stage, which we might vary on Report. I am quite attracted to the idea of a fairness commission, as proposed in new clause 4. I was a bit anxious when I learned who might be a member of such a commission, but I agree that there needs to be a mechanism for dealing with any unfairness.
I will be brief, because we are running out of time. I have tabled two amendments concerning the Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership. Several hon. Members have campaigned doggedly for openness and transparency regarding the negotiations on that proposed partnership between the EU and the US. I accept that it would be out of order for me to go into any detail about that, but the principle is this. For two days in the Chamber, we have debated sovereignty and democratic rights in relation to Scotland and the EU. TTIP may result in Parliament handing over sovereignty and democratic decision making not only to the EU but to transnational corporations and an investor dispute panel of corporate lawyers, meeting in secret. Their decisions could affect regulations governing health and safety, food safety, labour rights and even our recent attempts to achieve some sort of regulation of our finance sector, but we have not had any debate that resulted in a democratic decision of the House. We have had Adjournment debate after Adjournment debate, but there has been no report from Government on the progress of the negotiations. Why? Because the negotiations are held in secret. There was a debate in the European Parliament only last week. When a report was eventually produced, 200 amendments were tabled, and the EU Commission has backed off and delayed the matter.
Mr Grieve
I appreciate my hon. Friend’s point. Governments, like the world, move in mysterious ways. If I may gently coax the Government back to the path of righteousness, as I think we are probably succeeding in doing, I, for one, will be broadly content.
On hearing assurances from my right hon. Friend the Minister that the Government will reconsider this and return on Report with a proper amendment, I will be quite prepared to continue to give them my confidence in this matter. However, if the Government were to be using this as a device to come back whenever Report takes place and try to wriggle out of this obligation again, I would regard that as a rather infamous thing to do, and I am afraid I would not be in a position to support them at all on this matter.
Mr Grieve
My hon. Friend makes a very important point. Certainly, I would be much happier to see the return of section 125 and the introduction of some one-off qualifications for the purpose of this particular referendum. That would be the ideal, because it would preserve the principle of section 125. That would be better than coming back with a set of regulations. I have read the letter. It has a whole series of assurances, but that is not a proper way in which referendums should be conducted. The problem historically—not necessarily in this country—is that referendums have been systematically abused, with many assurances being given. That why this House should, on this matter, fix the Government with a clear responsibility to come up with a legal framework. I see my right hon. Friend the Minister nodding.
Mr Lidington
My hon. Friend is obviously free to take legal opinion of his own, but if he looks again at the wording of section 125 and applies it to the conduct of EU business, he will find that there would be very serious problems in carrying out day-to-day business in the national interest at EU level if the section is left untouched.
We believe that applying the section would be inappropriate because the referendum is taking place as the result of a clear manifesto commitment to negotiate the terms of the UK’s relationship with the European Union and to put them to people in a referendum. Section 125 could make it impossible to explain to the public what the outcome of the renegotiation was and what the Government’s view of that result was.
The Government must be able, and legitimately should be able, to offer their views, including up to the day of the referendum. However, as I have said, the Government are not a campaign: it is not the Government’s job to supplant the role of the lead campaign organisations during the referendum campaign, and it is certainly not our intention to act in that way. We recognise and understand the strength of feeling that exists on this issue, and I am grateful for the constructive and courteous tone in which the debate has been conducted both this afternoon and in private conversations outside the Chamber.
Mr Jenkin
I rise briefly in connection with some amendments standing in my name, such as amendments 32, 29, 22, 30 and 26, relating to provisions in the Bill that struck me as very strange to begin with. They seemed to envisage that royal charter bodies and certain types of charity should become permitted participants as campaigners in referendums and permitted donors to referendum campaigns. The matter of charities and the function of the Charity Commission is the responsibility of the Public Administration and Constitutional Affairs Committee, and it is something we have taken a great deal of care and interest over. I have made inquiries of the Charity Commission, and I am extremely grateful that it has furnished me with a comprehensive note explaining that this is a slightly bizarre tidying-up exercise. It brings the provisions in this Bill into line with what was agreed in the Lobbying Bill which is now an Act from the last Parliament. The Charity Commission is very clear that the Political Parties, Elections and Referendums Act 2000 does not give the charities it covers a general power to campaign or make donations to campaigns.
I will be grateful if the Minister replying to this debate makes it clear that there is no suggestion that charities are being empowered to be donors or participants under this Bill. They are of course governed by charity law and the regulations set down by the Charity Commission. Those are still enforced. This Bill does not alter charity law. When we were conducting the north-east says no campaign, some charities—I shall not embarrass them now by naming them—did allow their logos to be used on the yes campaign website. We quickly made our concern about that clear to the Charity Commission, and they were quickly instructed to take down their logos as this was a misuse of charitable funds and of their logos.
Charities are not intended to be involved in political campaigning. Of course, many of them are involved in campaigns that have political implications—for example, anti-slavery and child trafficking campaigns are legitimate campaigns—but they are not allowed to get involved in party political campaigns. Charities can be punished for making donations to political parties, and it is important for them to understand that this also applies to donations and participation relating to referendums, as set out in the Political Parties, Elections and Referendums Act 2000. That is all that these provisions are intended to do. I therefore do not intend to press my amendments to a vote.
It strikes me that any intervention by a charity would pale into insignificance when compared with the imbalance that is being locked into the Bill. My hon. Friend the Member for Gainsborough (Sir Edward Leigh), when speaking to amendment 53, drew our attention to the fact that political parties would be allowed to participate pro rata according to the vote they received in the general election. Incidentally, the European Union was not a major issue at the general election. It was an issue, but not the major one, and the election result hardly constitutes a mandate for spending on this scale.
If the Government were released from purdah, or if we could not contain what the European institutions were able to do during the referendum, the issue of charities would be very small beer. It is important, none the less, for the charities to realise that they must not get themselves into difficulties by misinterpreting the provisions of the Bill. I would be grateful if the Parliamentary Secretary, Cabinet Office, my hon. Friend the Member for Weston-super-Mare (John Penrose), would reiterate that that is the case.
Mr Jenkin
I should correct the right hon. Gentleman. The correct title of the group to which he referred, to which I and others such as Mr Speaker and one of the Deputy Speakers, the hon. Member for Epping Forest (Mrs Laing), belonged, was called the White Guard.
I want to pick up the right hon. Gentleman’s point about the letter. It says that the Government wish to use civil servants to explain the position arising from the renegotiation during the purdah period. If the referendum is not going to be about the Government’s deal with the EU, what is it going to be about? The letter says that the Government want to use the government machinery for precisely the purpose that they should not be allowed to use it for.
Alex Salmond
That is an excellent point. I bow to the hon. Gentleman’s memory as to the White Guard as opposed to the White Rose group. I am delighted to receive the information that Mr Speaker was a member. I cannot believe that he was unsuccessful in an election anywhere, but I am delighted to have that information. No doubt I shall use it at some point in the future.
I am afraid that I have just got the letter through Twitter and have not had a chance to examine it fully. The hon. Gentleman makes a serious point that goes to the heart of the profound issues that he and others have raised.
Sir William Cash
I do beg my hon. Friend’s pardon. He was a Whip a short time ago, but he has now been promoted, on which I congratulate him. I hope he will pass back the message that we really must have a substantive response to this question.
Furthermore, the amendment will extend the minimum referendum period to 16 weeks, thus providing for a minimum 10-week post-appointment period. I am glad to say that the Electoral Commission supports my amendment; indeed, it supports the majority of my amendments. It says that extending the period to 16 weeks
“would go some way to giving designated lead campaign groups the time needed to get their messages to voters, including to plan and effectively use free mailing and TV broadcasts.”
As a matter of fairness—that hallowed expression—I cannot think of anything more important.
Mr Jenkin
I commend my hon. Friend’s amendment, to which I have added my name, but does that not presuppose that the Government will conclude the negotiations and report them to the House well before the 16-week period kicks in, and that it is not legitimate for them then to use the Government’s machinery to explain the deal that they have reached through the purdah period and the 16-week period up to polling day? Does that not suggest that the Government will try to pull a fast one? Would it not be better if they made it clear now that they are going to conclude the deal long before the referendum is called so that there can be a proper and dispassionate debate about it?
Sir William Cash
I very much agree with my hon. Friend and I will go further and say that in the period between now and Report there will be substantial issues of this kind that we will need to dig into. There are references to counsel’s opinion on the purdah period and views that have been expressed by the Electoral Commission. We had a Bill before us without our having any idea of the outcome of the negotiations. This is not a satisfactory way to proceed.
As one who spent 25 years in very senior practice as a constitutional and administrative lawyer dealing with matters such as the dispute between Canada and Quebec, I can only say that counsel’s opinion is not the basis on which to make political decisions. We as lawyers may be very good at coming up with legal answers, but when I get my hands on that counsel’s opinion, as eventually we did on the Iraq opinion, there will be quite a lot of question marks. As my hon. Friend the Member for Harwich and North Essex (Mr Jenkin) said in an earlier intervention, the Government can take their counsel’s opinion; we will take ours.
That is the position on that important amendment. The Electoral Commission supports the principle behind it. Will the Minister be good enough to give us a substantive reply and support amendment 9? I might not hold my breath about that.
The other amendment in my name, amendment 10—again, I am grateful for the support of hon. Members who have signed it—would ensure that no funds or support provided directly or indirectly by European Union bodies have a bearing on the outcome of the referendum. Is there any conceivable basis on which the Committee of the whole House would think a proper and fair referendum could be conducted if the entire resources of the European Commission and the European Union can be deployed in order to support a yes vote in the United Kingdom? By the way, there is no chance whatever that those bodies will not use all that money. They may have problems with Greece and they do not want a Grexit, but that pales into insignificance.
This is a very important proposal. The Electoral Commission takes the view that it already has controls on direct and indirect sources of campaign funding. Before I come to that, I refer to the situation as it applied in Ireland. I have spoken, debated and been at mass meetings when campaigners have been good enough to invite me in the run-up to referendums in France, Ireland, Denmark—all over Europe. There one sees the power of the state, pouring money down the throats of voters, and the machinery that underpins the yes campaign. I have come across some figures suggesting that in the second Irish referendum the amount of money deployed by the yes campaign after the machinery was geared up was around 15 times the amount available to the no campaign. That shows the scale of the problem.
Sir William Cash
The hon. Gentleman is seeking to draw me down that path, but I have been in this place for 31 years and will not buy that one. I am very glad that we got the vote we did last September, but that does not prevent me from being critical of the manner in which the procedures were followed.
I want to say something else. We have mentioned Mr Barroso. Here we are in the Westminster Parliament, described as the mother of Parliaments, and yesterday the celebrations for the Magna Carta were seen all over the world. The fact is that the traditions of those two things are illuminated around the world. We have fought in two world wars, against unprovoked aggression, and through our Parliament—through Churchill in this Parliament—we managed to save not just the United Kingdom, but Europe. They managed to drop a bomb on this place on my first birthday. Indeed, on the day I was born Hitler invaded Holland and France and Churchill became Prime Minister, but that is another story. The fact is that we have played a massive part in relation to democracy. What really worries me is that allowing the European Union to use its financial resources to manipulate the system is very dangerous.
According to the Electoral Commission, a central principle of its regulatory regime is to ensure—this is important—
“that foreign sources of funding do not have an undue influence on our democratic process.”
As hon. Members know, I have an eagle eye for the danger points. The Electoral Commission states that the 2000 Act, which sets out that regulatory regime,
“already provides that referendum campaigners are only able to accept donations over £500 from certain ‘permissible’ sources. In general, the permissibility rules provide that funding can only be accepted by referendum campaigners from certain UK-based sources. There are also rules and offences related to using permissible donors as agents to circumvent the rules.”
The Electoral Commission therefore put in place its regulatory arrangements. What it goes on to say is extremely important, and I still believe that my amendment would achieve this, because it uses the words “directly” and “indirectly” when talking about moneys, resources or support from any source within the European Union. The Electoral Commission states:
“It is important that the legislation is clear about those organisations that can and cannot participate in the referendum. The Commission’s view—
wait for it—
is that the European Commission does not fall within the list of bodies that can register as a campaigner or donate to other referendum campaigners. This amendment is therefore unnecessary.”
However, the analysis that I have provided shows the reach of the tentacles of the European Union, driven by Mr Barroso and his successors—Mr Juncker and all the others. We must never forget that Mr Barroso has said that the European Parliament, and only the European Parliament, is the Parliament for the European Union. He and his successors do not believe in this Parliament. There is a lot of talk now about national Parliaments, but his comments are on the record.
The Electoral Commission’s view is that the European Commission does not fall within the list of bodies that can register as campaigners. We should look into that carefully, because if the Electoral Commission were wrong, the European Commission might manage to worm its way in, on the scale that it has at its disposal, and subsidise the yes vote. I understand that that happened in Ireland, not to mention other countries throughout the European Union.
The Prime Minister has said that we can find an answer to the problems inherent in the purdah question. The Government acknowledge that there are problems with section 125 of the 2000 Act, but they say that they will get around them. That would include dealing with the civil service, but we must remember that the civil service includes permanent representatives. Members who are new to the House may not know about COREPER, the Committee of Permanent Representatives, which is the most powerful body in the European Union bar none, because it stitches up deals between all the member states. As Chairman of the European Scrutiny Committee, I took evidence from our chief representative on that body. I emphasise to the Committee that the evaporation of section 125, combined with the monetary intrusion of the European Union, represents a monumental challenge to our democratic system.
Mr Jenkin
My hon. Friend is explaining coherently how even though the European Commission does not consider itself to be a permitted participant or a permitted donor in a UK referendum campaign, its ability to fund bodies that will be participants or campaigners is unlimited. What about the Brussels-backed CBI, which has already received funds from the European Union, presumably to promote the EU? What is to prevent the CBI from receiving further funds? What restrictions will the Bill place on the CBI’s ability to receive such funds if it wants to donate to other campaigns?
Sir William Cash
This is vital territory. In a nutshell, we will have to get it right. Opening the floodgates on that money would be devastating, especially if it were to be employed alongside the lifting of the restrictions in section 125, which would bring the whole panoply of the civil service into play. That would be a nightmare scenario, but it is a genuine possibility. I am not convinced that the European Union is not a foreign source, although I will look into that. We passed an Act of Parliament, the European Communities Act 1972, under which we absorbed into our legislation all the treaties and all the functions of the bodies in the European Union. Because they became part of our constitutional settlement—for the time being, I trust—I believe that it would be an uncertain, if not a dangerous, assumption to make that the European Union and the European Commission would not be construed as being based in the United Kingdom as well as in all the other EU countries, in other words, as not being a foreign source. This matter will have to be looked at very carefully. I shall consult and confer with my colleagues as to what we do about these amendments.
John Penrose
We have already discussed that, and I understand that promises were made from the Dispatch Box earlier this afternoon by my colleague the Minister for Europe. Further proposals will be brought back to the House in due course, and I hope that the right hon. Gentleman and other colleagues will be pleased by what is brought back at that point.
Clause 3 therefore introduces schedules 1 and 2, which make further provision, and it modifies PPERA in relation to the campaigning and financial controls that will apply for the referendum. It also introduces schedule 3, which makes further provision, and it modifies PPERA in relation to the framework for administering the referendum.
Rather than spending a great deal of time on the detail of those schedules, I will move on to the Government amendments and then try to respond to the other amendments in the group, particularly those tabled by colleagues on the Government side of the Committee. The Government have tabled two amendments, which I will briefly explain. Amendment 14 will increase the spending limits for permitted participants at the EU referendum. The limits will apply instead of those provided for by PPERA. The increase takes account of inflation since PPERA was passed in 2000 but goes no further. The changes will apply to the spending limits for all those campaigners who are eligible to become permitted participants on both sides of the debate, including the designated lead organisations and political parties. It should be fair for both sides.
Amendment 15 gives effect to a recommendation of the Electoral Commission. It provides that where campaigners register as permitted participants but do not incur regulated spending, the responsible person must submit to the Electoral Commission a declaration that no regulated expenses were incurred. It will apply only for the purposes of this referendum. It is a technical amendment. Under the current provisions, there is no provision for a nil return. Although that can perhaps be seen as a logical approach in the event of a campaigner not spending, it creates a challenge for the Electoral Commission in undertaking its statutory duties. When a registered campaigner does not submit a spending return after the poll, it is not always clear whether that is an act of non-compliance, or because they have not incurred regulated spending. The amendment will make the situation clearer. Every registered permitted participant will be required to submit a return or declaration of some sort. Failing to do so without reasonable excuse will be a criminal offence. That should help to ensure that the Electoral Commission can focus its attention on clear cases of non-compliance. Given that it applies only to people or organisations that have already registered as campaigning groups, it ensures that transparency will be paramount.
Let me move on to some of the other amendments in the group. I will begin with amendment 9, tabled by my hon. Friend the Member for Stone, which a number of colleagues have addressed. The amendment seeks to extend the referendum period from the currently envisaged 10 weeks to up to 16 weeks. Having listened to my hon. Friend’s speech, I think that he is particularly concerned because at the start of any campaign the Electoral Commission needs to go through a process of designating the lead campaigning groups, and in the past there have been great concerns. In fact, the designation process has occasionally lasted for five or six weeks. If that six-week period begins at the start of 10 weeks of referendum campaigning, we will effectively end up with lead campaigning organisations being designated as such, and getting the public funds to which they are entitled, with a period of only four weeks to go before polling day. My hon. Friend rightly pointed out that that might put a crimp in the way in which the campaign was run, for both sides, which would not leave enough time to air important issues or make preparations. His proposed solution is to extend the period from 10 weeks to 16 weeks. I suggest a slightly more flexible alternative, which I hope will achieve the same outcome.
The Bill states that Parliament must agree to an affirmative statutory instrument to fix the date of the referendum in law. As my hon. Friend knows, an affirmative SI takes about six weeks to go through Parliament. Therefore, after the announcement of the election date, the House will consider the SI for a period of about six weeks before it approves the date of the referendum, and only then can the 10-week period start. Clearly, that will not help unless the designation of lead campaigning organisations can be done in parallel.
As my right hon. Friend the Member for Wokingham and others have mentioned, stirrings of campaigns are already under way. Campaigns are already gearing up, and the organisations involved are already co-operating and co-ordinating with each other, although we are at an early stage. I encourage those on both sides of the debate to engage at an early stage with the Electoral Commission, because both sides will, in all probability, start campaigning unofficially long before the eventual official start of the referendum campaign. Because they will be able to start engaging with the Electoral Commission at an early stage, not only will we be able to begin designation six weeks before the beginning of the 10-week period, but we stand a decent chance—with the Electoral Commission’s blessing, of course—of getting through the designation process rather faster than we otherwise could.
Mr Jenkin
To assist the Committee, and indeed the whole House, in the scrutiny of the Bill, will my hon. Friend undertake to produce a d-minus chronology of events that details all the steps between the Government’s decision to proceed with the referendum and the referendum itself? Presumably, that chronology could include the latest possible date for the conclusion of negotiations. We are concerned because some of the Government’s statements suggest that negotiations will conclude after the Government have triggered the referendum process.
John Penrose
I will happily produce a d-minus election schedule. What I will not be able to do, because it has less to do with the Bill, is to say when negotiations might be complete. However, we will be able to work back and produce a schedule that indicates how the process could and should look.