As I was saying, following the amendment tabled by the hon. Member for Windsor, we know that the Conservative party is deeply divided on the timetable for any referendum. Some want it next year, others want 2017, and Foreign Office Ministers are not sure when
they want it. Therefore, I understand why my hon. Friend the Member for Ilford South suggests different dates by which the Electoral Commission should report on the rules.
Amendment 6, tabled by my hon. Friend, refers to the broadcasting rights of the proponents and opponents during the election campaign. There is a clear British tradition of party political and referendum campaign broadcasts, and I understand that that is relatively unusual in comparative terms. This is in part because political advertising in broadcast media is prohibited in the UK. Indeed, the ban was the subject of a recent European Court of Human Rights case, which upheld the UK position. I understand that Ofcom is tasked with drawing up the rules regarding the allocation, length and frequency of referendum campaign broadcasts for commercial broadcasters with public service obligations. I acknowledge that the amendment takes particular care to highlight the importance of Welsh language broadcasts.
The amendment seeks to place on the face of the Bill clear provisions for a minimum of six broadcasts, with the possibility of 10 broadcasts, of 60 minutes in length. I am not sure why my hon. Friend has settled on 10. If he gets the chance to wind up the debate, perhaps he will say why. Is it, perhaps, because of who he thinks might want to appear in the 10 broadcasts? After all, no one is quite sure where the Foreign Secretary stands on Europe. This is the man who famously, while wearing a baseball cap, said that there were only 12 days to save the pound. He was wrong, but notwithstanding that flurry of Euroscepticism, some Conservative Members believe that he is part of the problem on Europe. Clearly, if the Foreign Secretary appeared in one of the broadcasts for either side, a less divisive figure would be needed to appear in the next broadcast. Perhaps the difficulties that the anti-EU campaign might face if there were not enough broadcasts are a further reason why my hon. Friend has suggested 10 of them. Imagine if it put up one of UKIP’s MEPs—it might provoke scrutiny of their low work-rate in Brussels.
I think that at least one of any broadcasts during the campaign ought to focus on how the ordinary, hard-working people of this country would be affected. We know from CBI research that every UK household stands to take a £3,000 hit to their living standards if the Prime Minister’s reckless gamble to keep his party together results in a British exit from the European Union.
Why else might we need 10 broadcasts? Is it possible that the Prime Minister might want to feature in one? Perhaps he might want to dwell on the powers and competences he has repatriated back to the UK due to the treaty change he thinks is coming. As we do not know what powers and competencies he wants to repatriate, it is hard to judge how successful he might be and therefore whether such a broadcast, and resulting opposition broadcast, would be necessary. We have tried at length, as has the hon. Member for Gainsborough (Sir Edward Leigh), to elicit from the Minister for Europe what powers and competencies the Prime Minister wants to repatriate as a result of the treaty change he thinks is coming, but there has been absolutely no clarity from the Minister at all.
Perhaps a further reason for my hon. Friend’s advocating 10 broadcasts is to give the last Conservative Prime Minister to win a majority, John Major, the chance to
speak in a referendum campaign broadcast. Yesterday he said that Britain will pay a “severe price” if it votes to leave the European Union, and that an exit could cost billions and leave the UK isolated internationally yet still required to implement EU regulations it had no part in framing. I could see him being an excellent choice for one of the 10 broadcasts that my hon. Friend suggests. One wonders why the current Prime Minister wants to take such a risk for Britain if this is anything other than a desperate effort to keep his party united.
One could imagine that a further reason a limit of 10 broadcasts is needed is that UKIP would want one of the no campaign broadcasts to dwell on the unnecessary expense—some £100 million to £150 million a year—of the Strasbourg Parliament, that expensive and unnecessary extra European parliamentary body that the French like so much and that they bullied John Major’s Conservative Government into accepting as the price for staying out of the social chapter.
Perhaps we need so many broadcasts in order to focus on the issues, such as the economic case for staying in Europe and the folly of the idea that we should try to be like Switzerland or Norway. We would certainly need a broadcast to focus on the benefits that EU membership delivers for co-operation on crime and justice matters across Europe. If we want to tackle the mafia-like gangs that control illegal immigration, we need cross-border co-operation.
I can see the case, then, for some broadcasts, but I am not sure, if I am honest, that we need to be quite as specific as my hon. Friend proposes. I think we can trust the broadcasters and the Electoral Commission to get this right. However, he has raised an important issue, which, along with many other important elements of this Bill, has so far been ignored by the Conservatives as the red mist of Euroscepticism has descended.
Let me raise a few points about my amendment 64, which I may want to press to a Division. We have already discussed on Report and in Committee many of the unique aspects of Gibraltar’s position with regard to EU matters and the proposed referendum—thankfully so, as Conservative Members had singularly failed to consider the Gibraltarian people in this matter before the Bill emerged from Lynton Crosby’s office. In fact, Labour Members are becoming increasingly concerned that the Minister for Europe is being insufficiently robust with his Spanish counterparts over Gibraltar, but that debate is rightly for another time.
As the House will know, in ordinary European parliamentary elections the results of voting in Gibraltar are included in the south-west region of the UK. My amendment suggests a provision to allow a change from this norm whereby for referendums only the results are published separately, allowing it to be clear and beyond doubt how the Gibraltarian people have voted should such a referendum go ahead. I cannot, in all honesty, foresee a great added expense in such an arrangement. I gently suggest to Conservative Members that adding such a provision to the Bill might go some way towards making up to the Gibraltarian people for the rather—dare I say?—rude way in which they were treated in this proposed legislation at the outset. I would have welcomed the Minister’s comments on the amendment, but I do not think he touched on it at all.
Amendment 84 suggests a proper audit of the arrangements and conduct of any in/out referendum. The hon. Member for Cheltenham has said that we can always learn from what has gone before, and he is right. I gently suggest that the amendment is a sensible provision for the Minister to reflect on.
12.30 pm
On amendment 17, my hon. Friend the Member for Ilford South makes a number of interesting suggestions, which appear to be designed to ensure that the proposed ballot produces a definitive answer. I understand that minimum thresholds are frequently put in place in referendums elsewhere in the world, particularly with regard to constitutional change.
My hon. Friend raises an interesting point about minimum thresholds. Conservative Members may recall with some unease the mess the Home Secretary made in organising last year’s elections for police and crime commissioner, the turnout for which was a very disappointing and very low 15%. Put another way, 85% of eligible voters decided to abstain from voting on that cold day last November. Had the elections for PCCs—a new set of elections, without precedent, and a constitutional change—been subject to a minimum turnout similar to that suggested by my hon. Friend, hon. Members can work out for themselves just how many commissioners we would now have.
On a matter as important as changing the UK’s relationship with the European Union, I understand why my hon. Friend wants to prevent a repeat of the Home Secretary’s PCC election shambles. Nevertheless, I am not sure we need this particular threshold amendment. In these closing moments, it is probably worth drawing the House’s attention to the work of the independent commission on the conduct of referendums back in 1996. It was chaired by Sir Patrick Nairne, who said:
“Requiring a proportion of the total registered population to vote ‘Yes’ creates further problems because the register can be so inaccurate.”
Moreover, while the ill-fated referendum on the alternative vote two and a half years ago delivered a disappointing turnout of 42%, I am not sure whether anyone would argue that it failed to deliver a decisive result. I cannot, therefore, support my hon. Friend’s amendment.
Question put, That the amendment be made.