European Union Referendum Bill

Lord Lamont of Lerwick Excerpts

Wednesday 4th November 2015 Lords Chamber

[Lord Forsyth of Drumlean]

I agree with the noble Lord, which is why I want to make sure that all parties cannot spend any money at all, and that the people who can spend the money are the designated campaigners, so that there is a fair basis. I beg to move.

[Lord Lamont of Lerwick (Con)]

The amendment of the noble Lord, Lord Hannay, has a lot of logic. I was amused, however, when he referred to how difficult it is to understand legislation that refers back to previous legislation. Exactly—and that is what a lot of us complain about with the European Union. The noble Lord may remember that, when the constitutional treaty had to be ratified by national parliaments, no comprehensive single version was available. Everybody had to refer back to previous legislation. In the case of the Czech Republic, the relevant documents had not even been translated into the national language.

That said, I very much agree with the points the noble Lord made, and I support his amendment. I would, however, very much like to support my noble friend Lord Forsyth. I am somewhat bemused by the intervention from the noble Lord, Lord Collins, who does not seem to take on board that we are talking about funding: about limits laid down by Parliament on the funding of both sides of the referendum. What surprises me—this is the issue I would like my noble friend to address—is that the Government simply decided to consolidate the PPERA into this legislation and did not introduce their own. They have, after all, amended various parts of the PPERA; they do not have to accept what is written into it as if it were tablets of stone.

I followed the debate in the House of Commons, which touched on this issue. The Minister in the Commons said that it is a good thing—that this is the first time we have had such comprehensive and far-reaching limits. Okay, but if you have limits they ought to be fair to the two sides of the referendum. Otherwise, why have limits at all? Would it not be better to let both sides raise what money they can and spend it? It seems to me there is a fundamental flaw in the proposal. The whole point of referenda is to deal with issues that cut across political parties; that is partly why we have them. I very much doubt we would have referenda if there were not constitutional issues that cut across different political parties. It seems perverse to say, just because a political party in a general election some time ago got 30% of the vote, it is entitled to X amount of money; and another party, which came third the time before and second last time, is allowed Y proportion of money. Why?

[Lord Collins of Highbury]

My Lords—

[Lord Lamont of Lerwick]

I will give way in a minute. If you are going to impose limits on spending, let them be fair between the two sides. After all, the government grant is equal for each side, and the limit on what the designated organisations can do is equal, one with the other, so why bring in political parties? Why say that because the Conservative Party won 30-plus% of the vote it is allowed to spend £7 million, because the Labour Party scored about 30%, it is allowed to spend £7 million, because UKIP got above 10% of the vote it is allowed to spend £4 million and because the Liberals, scored somewhere around 10%, they are allowed to spend £3 million? Of course, as my noble friend Lord Forsyth said, when you add them all up—let us exclude the Conservative Party, because it has said it is not going to fund either side in the organisation—there is a huge inequity between the limit on one side and the limit on the other. I find it very difficult to understand how this can be justified. I do not see the necessity of it. It would have been extremely simple, if the Government insist on having a cap on spending in the campaign, to have it the same for both sides. The noble Lord wanted to intervene.

[Lord Collins of Highbury]

No, no.

[Lord Lamont of Lerwick]

I am glad that I have his agreement—or perhaps I have not, but we shall hear in a minute. The provision seems fundamentally flawed. I do not see why the Government just picked up that legislation and incorporated it into this. It seems not to make any sense whatever.

[Lord Davies of Stamford (Lab)]

My Lords, Amendment 58 is in my name and that of my noble friend Lord Liddle, who apologises that he cannot be present today. Before I address the substance of the amendment, perhaps I may say how much I agree with the noble Lord, Lord Hannay, in his amendment and therefore agree with what the noble Lords, Lord Lamont and Lord Forsyth, said about it—that is an interesting axis of agreement across the Floor of the Chamber which does not often occur.

The noble Lord, Lord Forsyth, asked why we should bring in political parties. I was astonished by that. No one is bringing in political parties; political parties are there; political parties are part of our democracy; political parties are part of every sophisticated democracy in the world. Political parties expect to take part in political campaigns, in elections or in referenda. It would be quite extraordinary if a political party was not interested in a major political campaign.

[Lord Davies of Stamford]

I have an interesting experience of political parties. I have talked for some time about that in the past, but I shall not delay the Committee on that subject today.

I was actually quoting the noble Lord, Lord Lamont, who asked, “Why bring in political parties?”. That was an extraordinary thing to say, because political parties are part of the structure of our system and part of our national life. It is inconceivable to me that you could have a body of men and women—

[Lord Lamont of Lerwick]

My Lords—

[Lord Davies of Stamford]

I will give way in a second, but let me just complete my sentence, or my paragraph.

It would be extraordinary if you had a body of men and women who were interested in public life and the choices facing the nation and who wanted to play their part in determining the future history of our country, and a big referendum of the importance which this referendum represents came along and they did not take part in that campaign or have any views at all. The Conservative Party has of course decided to opt out of this campaign, but that is because of the peculiar situation in which it finds itself where the leadership of the party is terrified by the Eurosceptics. That has been the history of our relationship with the European Union during the past five years: everything is vetoed by the Eurosceptics and the Government are often paralysed by them. The Government are continually coming up with some ploy to buy off the Eurosceptics and, on this occasion, the Government have decided not to have their own party take part in a campaign. It is an extraordinarily anomalous position, in which a major party is supposedly silent on the great issue of the day. Just because the Conservative Party has got itself into this mess and this absurdity is no reason to deny the important role of political parties generally in a democracy or to handicap other political parties that are in no way responsible for the shambles of the Conservative Party and prevent them doing what they should have a natural right to do in any democratic election or electoral campaign.

[Lord Lamont of Lerwick]

My Lords—

[Lord Tebbit (Con)]

My Lords—

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[Lord Lamont of Lerwick]

I was not aware that the noble Lord was the Speaker yet, but I am grateful to him for giving way. It was a very long paragraph; perhaps he should have a few more paragraphs in his prose.

No one is saying in supporting this amendment that political parties should not campaign vigorously or be a very important part of the referendum argument. What we are saying is that the spending limits on either side in a referendum should not be related to political parties nor to some historic measure of how the parties fared in the previous election.

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[Lord Davies of Stamford]

In relation to the principles of our public life and our constitution, I like to think that I take positions that are consistent. Therefore my answer to the question must be yes. Political parties have an essential part to play in our democracy and their position should be respected. They should not be in any way suffocated by being told that they cannot have any money for a campaign that they genuinely believe in and where their members are willing to support them financially.

As for the complaints that the noble Lord always makes about the treatment of UKIP, in this case he does not have the ground that he normally has for complaint, because the amount of money available to UKIP—

[Lord Lamont of Lerwick]

My Lords—

[Lord Davies of Stamford]

I must finish my sentence—and it will only be a sentence on this occasion. The amount of money available to the noble Lord’s party in the referendum campaign will be a function of the votes cast for his party and not a function of the number of MPs elected with his party label. If that was the case, he really would be in a bad situation. I give way once again to the noble Lord, Lord Lamont.

[Lord Lamont of Lerwick]

I am most grateful to the noble Lord for giving way. Again I stress that this amendment I have been supporting has nothing to do with political parties participating. It has everything to do with spending limits. My question to the noble Lord is: if in a general election the laws provided that what each party could spend in a general election was related to how it had done last time, would he think that that was fair?

[Lord Davies of Stamford]

We could argue this for a very long time but we actually have a consensus. Until this issue arose, there was a general consensus in public life in favour of the 2000 Act. Therefore, it is quite right that we should base ourselves in this campaign on that consensus and on the practice over the last 15 years. With that, I will leave that subject—I will not take any more interventions on anything else—and turn to Amendment 58.

Amendment 58 is very important because it is all about the Government being straight with the public—which I do not think they are planning to be at the moment. They have launched a very complicated negotiation, which many of us have many thoughts about, and they hope that it will result in a deal. If it results in a deal, they intend to call a referendum and to advise the public to vote for that deal. If they do not get the deal, of course none of those things will happen.

I totally understand that while the Government are negotiating they do not want to give a running commentary—that is the Government’s phrase, not mine. I even understand why they are a bit reticent about saying exactly what their aims are in the negotiation. In fact, Eurosceptics will always say that they are not aiming high enough and will always say that whatever they get is not adequate. So they are wasting their time, but I can understand why they have got themselves in this position.

However, I cannot understand any hesitation about the Government’s duty, once they have a deal—if they have a deal—to be absolutely straight with the British public about what that deal is and to make an official, authoritative declaration to the British public of what that deal consists of. We cannot possibly have a situation in which knowledge of the deal comes out through unattributed and deniable press briefings from special advisers and spin doctors and so on. We need a clear government document when the day comes, if that deal arises.

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[Lord Wallace of Saltaire]

I am simply remarking that principles should apply across the field. I am strongly in favour of greater control over political parties’ spending, which the Conservative Party has resisted extremely strongly. I just remarked that we need to be a little more consistent than we were being.

I will make one other point relating to this group of amendments and to the next.

[Lord Lamont of Lerwick]

Will the noble Lord give way?

[Lord Wallace of Saltaire]

May I continue? I will give way to the noble Lord in a minute or two.

There is a principle that we have a Government. We are not like the United States, where Congress can stop the Government taking everything through if it wants As we were told with reference to the House of Lords’ vote last week, the principle is that the Government must be allowed to get their business through and must be able to say what they think is in the national interest. At the end of this negotiation, the Prime Minister has to be able to say, on behalf of the Government, what he now considers to be in the national interest. I note that a number of noble Lords think that the Prime Minister should not be able to make that case. That seems to me to be moving towards the sort of deadlock between Congress and the presidency seen in the United States, where what the President says has no impact at all. This is a renegotiation. At the end of the renegotiation, the Government are entitled, under our constitutional arrangements, to say what they think is in the national interest. I trust that they will do so.

[Lord Lamont of Lerwick]

My Lords, I am most grateful to the noble Lord for giving way. I actually said that I would be perfectly happy with no cap: I was not talking about caps and supporting them in the way that he suggested. However, would the noble Lord be quite content if there were caps in the general election and the Liberal party were capped at less than half the spending allowed to the Conservative and Labour parties because it got less than half the votes of those parties at the previous election?

[Lord Wallace of Saltaire]

My Lords, I have some familiarity with the previous negotiations on political funding and whether there should be a state contribution. The discussions on whether there should be public support for political parties had indeed taken on board the issue of how many votes each party got in the previous election, so the principle might well be taken, but the issue of caps on expenditure is not really one for a referendum which, I think, the out camp fears it may lose. It is a wider issue.

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[Lord Collins of Highbury]

Political parties are treated differently, as the Minister indicated at the outset. The fact is, they are different. They are covered, as she said, by separate elements of PPERA. If political parties do not register as participants in the referendum, they will be limited to spending £10,000. I do not have to answer for the Conservative Party but, in effect, by advocating this amendment noble Lords are saying to local Conservative associations, “You cannot use your office, your staff or your resources in this referendum campaign because if you exceed £10,000, the Conservative Party will be acting illegally”.

[Lord Lamont of Lerwick]

I have tried very hard to follow the noble Lord’s speech. I still do not understand the £10,000 figure, but going back a bit in his speech, he expressed himself as being strongly in favour of caps in general elections—fair enough. If we are to have caps in general elections, should they not be the same for all political parties?

[Lord Collins of Highbury]

I do not know that I strongly expressed my support for caps. I said I thought they had a function and a role. Actually, what the public demand of our political parties is greater transparency. The noble Lords opposite constantly refer to the trade union movement supporting the Labour Party. Every single penny of that money is properly accounted for under a range of legislation, including the trade union Acts that cover the establishment of political funds, but I am not so sure that is clear in the case of some company donations, the origins of which can be obscure and unclear. For me, the most important thing in funding is transparency.

I am a strong advocate of capping donations, which is far more effective than having a cap on spending. Caps on spending have not been particularly effective. As we have seen in every general election since PPERA was enacted, no political party has got anywhere near the spending cap. But capping donations—limiting how people might influence policy—is much more effective. When the Committee on Standards in Public Life held an inquiry into the funding of political parties, I argued that we should have a cap of £500 on political donations because members of the public would understand that amount. Most members of the public would find it incredibly difficult to raise £50,000, which was the amount suggested by the Conservative Party. Not many members of the public would be able to donate that amount. But if you had a cap of £500, most members of the public would say, “Yes, that is a reasonable amount”. But that is the debate: it is more effective to have caps on donations than on spending. No doubt we will return to that debate some other time.

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[Lord Kerr of Kinlochard]

My Lords, I speak to Amendment 55, which stands in my name. It seems to me that the problem that we are facing comes from the very wide language of the PPERA, which clearly was not intended to deal with the problem that I am drawing attention to. No Minister or servant of the Crown can publish any information which deals with any of the issues raised by the question during the 28 days—and “publish” is defined very widely as making,

“available to the public at large, or any section of the public, in whatever form and by whatever means”.

My worry is whether that might prove obstructive to the conduct of government business in Brussels. Ministers will continue to go there, European Union committees and the Council will continue to meet, and the myriad working groups will continue their work. It seems to me that it would be possible to construe that everything said—such as a document or briefing note passed to Members of the European Parliament, a document sent to the Commission or a pleading before the court—could be said to be relevant to the issue of the question of the referendum and could be caught by this 28-day ban.

I am sure that that was nobody’s intention, and I quite understand why the Minister does not wish to go back and reopen the language that we are confronted with. I am sure that people such as Mr Bernard Jenkin, who spoke on the purdah issue in the Commons, had no intention of making it impossible for the Government to carry out their business in Brussels. These are honourable people making a completely different point.

I am puzzled by the noble Baroness saying that she is confident that the Government would have a sufficient defence if challenged during the 28-day period. I am concerned about that. It seems to me that a judicial review—a challenge in court—could be disruptive to business, even if that challenge was successfully resisted in court. It seems to me that the possibility of the challenge might be an inhibition on our people in Brussels who are working in the national interest, doing the job they are meant to do. I am therefore very puzzled by what I think I heard the noble Baroness say—that she did not envisage making any regulations on this issue. I do not know whether we can be sure. If I were the Permanent Representative, I would be very uncertain whether I would be able to do what I am paid to do with the threat of legal challenge.

I may be exaggerating the problem but it is certainly a real one. Mr Lidington, Minister of State in the Foreign Office, told the European Union Committee in evidence in July that Section 125 of the PPERA would make it,

“very difficult if not impossible for us to undertake a whole range of routine EU business in the four weeks leading up to the referendum date”.

I admit that Mr Lidington said that in the context of the presidency. The hypothetical question was: “Suppose that the referendum date and the 28 days fell within the second half of 2017, during the UK presidency of the EU”. He was talking about how very difficult if not impossible it would be to undertake a whole range of routine EU business as the presidency. However, it seems to me that if it would be difficult to advance and defend the EU interest, as the presidency is meant to do, it would be just as difficult to advance and defend the UK interest, which is the daily business of our representatives in Brussels.

[Lord Lamont of Lerwick]

I am listening very carefully to what the noble Lord is saying—and of course he has huge knowledge of this—but Section 125 refers to “promotional material”. That is what it talks about. It says that it specifically excludes material which is requested by a member of the public. If the Scotch Whisky Association or somebody wanted a particular copy of something that had been discussed, they would still be able to do that. What this prohibits is promotional material. Surely that is wholly right—that promotional material should not be allowed in this way.

[Lord Kerr of Kinlochard]

If the noble Lord is right, I am delighted. If the meaning of Section 125 of the PPERA is that only material of a particular kind defined as “promotional” is caught, my problem is much smaller; in fact; it disappears. But it seems to me that the language of the Act says that any Minister of the Crown, government department or local authority may not “publish”, which,

“means make available to the public at large, or any section of the public, in whatever form and by whatever means”—

for 28 days, any material bearing on the issue that is in the question. If that is to be the case, then for 28 days we are going to be saying, “Stop the world while we consider whether we want to get off”. I worry that the answer to that is to say, “Don’t be silly; we would defend ourselves in court”. The atmosphere might be quite febrile. There might be legal challenges brought. I think there would be a considerable inhibition on the public service doing its job.

I ask the Minister to look at my amendment, which would not require the making of any regulations. It would simply create a small carve-out, an exemption, for the normal business of the Government with the European Union, in and with the Council, with the Commission, with the Court and with the Parliament. It seems to me that that is much safer ground on which to rest than the thought of defending challenges in court. I am quite sure that when they drafted the PPERA nobody intended Section 125 to have effect on the pursuit of government interests and policies abroad. I am sure that that was not what they had in mind. I am sure that nobody in the other place, in the great debates that took place there over purdah, had it in mind to make it more difficult for the Government to defend the national interest in Brussels. I would argue for my amendment as the simplest way in which to deal with that problem.