I will come to new clause 10 in a few moments, after I have finished with amendment 53, because the arguments raised by the former are slightly different.
I want to deal with the point made by my hon. Friend the Member for Wycombe (Mr Baker). Amendment 53 reapplies section 125 for the purposes of the referendum, but with limited modifications to enable the Government to transact wider EU business without the legal risks I have described. The list of prohibitions in the amendment directly reproduces some of the things in section 125, such as the prohibition on the Government encouraging people to vote in the referendum—that is, I think, a word-for-word replication of what is in section 125. The key difference applies to section 125(1)(b), which we propose to rephrase by replacing the words that capture publications on any subject “raised by” the referendum campaign with words applying the prohibition to material that
“directly addresses the question of whether the United Kingdom should remain a member of the European Union”,
meaning, we believe, that ordinary, ongoing EU business would not be caught.
We have also proposed revisions to subsection (1)(c) that give additional safeguards to those worried about the Government or other public sector bodies misusing the exemption. If subsection (1)(c) were left in its current form, with the words
“puts any arguments for or against any particular answer”
to the question of our membership, it would create a lack of clarity over whether material would be prohibited if it did not argue explicitly for remaining or leaving but did set out a view of the consequences of remaining or leaving. We took the view that there should not be such a loophole. The amendment therefore provides that any material that either deals directly with the referendum question or sets out the consequences of remaining or leaving would be caught, but that a publication on normal EU business that did not touch on those issues or draw lessons about what it meant for the UK’s membership would be permitted.
My hon. Friend asked why we were proposing this alteration in an amendment to the Bill rather than in secondary legislation.