European Union (Notification of Withdrawal) Bill

Norman Lamb Excerpts

Committee: 2nd sitting: House of Commons
Tuesday 7th February 2017 Commons Chamber

[Mr Umunna]

I think the hon. Gentleman was involved in Vote Leave—perhaps he was not—but I am not going to take any lectures about peddling fear and all the rest of it, in any campaign, from anyone associated with Vote Leave. I will come on to the point that he made about the Conservative party shortly.

[Norman Lamb (North Norfolk) (LD)]

I entirely agree with the points that the hon. Gentleman is making. Having made that complaint to the UK Statistics Authority, the response that I received was that the claim was potentially misleading. As he has said, Vote Leave campaigners kept using it. Surely, they kept using it because they knew they needed to do so in order to win the referendum. Now that they have done that, we need to hold them to account.

[Mr Umunna]

That is absolutely right, and I completely agree with the right hon. Gentleman. I come to the point that the hon. Member for Lincoln (Karl MᶜCartney) made about the Conservative party—[Interruption.] Admittedly, it could also apply to some people from the Labour party. Some say that the pledges were made primarily by people who may have been members of a Conservative Government, but who did not speak with the authority of that Government. Of the five Cabinet Members I have mentioned who took leading roles in the campaign, three were members of the Government at the time and one, the Foreign Secretary, attended the political Cabinet. Part of the reason why those key campaigners were put up to do media and to campaign for Vote Leave was that they carried the authority of being Ministers. We cannot detach one from the other.

The other, and connected, argument that is made is that the commitment was given by one side in a referendum campaign, not by a Government, so we should leave the matter alone and get on with things—we should all shut up. I am sorry, but I do not think that that will wash. Whether they were Ministers or not, all the key Vote Leave campaigners were Members of this House. As I have said, if our democracy is to mean anything, it is that Members of this House answer and are held to account in this House for the promises that they make to the people. After all, as has been said, they campaigned in the name of parliamentary sovereignty. If Parliament is sovereign, they should be held to account here.