European Union Bill

My Lords, I want to make one or two brief comments on this long debate. When you have been here for two hours and seven minutes, it is quite difficult to remember what you proposed, but I think that I can still do it. There were two separate proposals. First, I put forward the general proposal in Amendment 5 that we should move to an advisory referendum. I think that the House should consider that and decide whether it is going for advisory or obligatory referendums. That is a general issue, which needs to be decided. Secondly, I am grateful for all the support that I have had from around the House for my second proposal, which is in Amendment 6. Apart from the Liberal Democrats, everyone else has supported it, which is not surprising, as this was the position taken by the House of Lords as a whole a few weeks ago. I thank all those who have spoken on this, in particular the opposition Front Bench. The proposal is that, where there is a very low turnout, instead of being mandatory, the referendum would be advisory and Parliament would decide. I am an extremely friendly and happy person most of the time but I was rather depressed by the arguments advanced from the Liberal Democrat Benches, because everyone assumed that, if Parliament took the final decision, Parliament’s idea would always be to go against the public. I quote from one of them: ““The public would not be listened to””. Another Member from the Liberal Democrat Benches said that the Parliament would be ““ignored””; or, again, that it would not be like the Barnsley by-election because this would ““nullify”” the referendum. That is not what I have proposed at all. I have proposed that the final decision—because by definition there would be a miserable turnout of the British people—would be with Parliament and the Government, who would be able to decide on the basis of the result before them. In my view, the normal situation would be that they would endorse the view of the British public. Let us say that 36 per cent vote, which is quite possible. Normally they would endorse that and the press headlines would simply state, ““Good: Parliament and people together””. That would be the reaction and it would be extremely positive, not negative. The Liberal Democrat Benches are quite wrong in their assessment of what the public reaction would be in those circumstances, and I find that rather depressing. In cases where there was a poor turnout, either it would be endorsed by the Government or the public themselves would say, ““This is such a miserable result, let’s not bother with it any more. We don't care about how the Advocates-General are appointed, so forget it””. That would be the British public's reaction. With those comments, which I felt bound to make after two hours and seven minutes, and seeing that it is now two hours and 11 minutes and that we are rather late, I will withdraw Amendment 5. Yet these issues will absolutely inevitably come back at a later stage because, as I said in speaking to Amendment 6, the House’s view on this is so recently established that we can be fairly confident that it will be endorsed again. Let us wait until Report to endorse it. So, for the moment, I beg leave to withdraw the amendment. Amendment 5 withdrawn. Amendments 6 to 8 not moved. Debate on whether Clause 2 should stand part of the Bill.