My Lords, it is always a pleasure to listen in this House to the autobiographical discourses of the noble Lord, Lord Selsdon. I congratulate the noble Lord, Lord Dobbs, on accepting a challenge that even Eddie the Eagle would have balked at, but he made an elegant speech.
The outstanding feature of this debate so far has been the total failure of the Bill’s supporters to address, let alone answer, any of the flaws in the Bill repeatedly identified by speakers around the House. The Bill will need serious amendment if it is to serve any purpose beyond that of attempting to quell unrest within the ranks of the Conservative Party. To appropriate a matter of such high constitutional importance for so narrow a purpose is, in my view, not worthy of the senior partner in a coalition Government.
We on these Benches will apply to this Bill what we apply to any other Bill before us, which is a thorough scrutiny of it clause by clause throughout its legislative passage through this House. We will table sensible and responsibly framed amendments which we judge would materially improve the Bill, and seek their acceptance. That is our constitutional duty. The noble Lord, Lord Crickhowell, appears to disagree. I found his intervention on this point incredible, coming from someone with such a long career in Parliament.
There is absolutely no reason or justification for granting the Bill special treatment, which is what its promoters seek in their efforts to ensure that not a single word or number in the text is amended. What is so sacred about this text that it has its promoters so paralysed by fear of any attempt to tamper with it? From the degree of panic visibly permeating their ranks in the face of this perceived vandalism, one might think that we were daring to rewrite the opening bars of the Fifth Symphony or draw a moustache on the face of the Mona Lisa. No, we are not vandals, and they know that. The cause of their fear is of their own creation. Mismanagement of the timing of the Bill has resulted in a time-bind that could lead to the loss of it. If that is the outcome, they will have only themselves to blame, and the prospect of that can neither excuse this House from its duty to scrutinise properly nor deprive it of its right to propose amendments to improve the Bill. The Bill cannot possibly be allowed to go on to the statute book in its present form. There are serious questions surrounding: the timing of a referendum; the almost unfettered powers granted to the Secretary of State to appoint the day on which the Act would come into force; the wording of the question to be put to the people; the need to spell out a turnout threshold and a voting age; and the Bill’s inappropriately restrictive policy on voter eligibility—and there are other issues which time does not permit me to enumerate.
Many of the amendments will be tabled, and supported, by Members drawn from all sides of the House. We fully expect them to be resisted by the promoters of the Bill because that is their blanket response to any attempt to amend it. They will dismiss them as the confections of troublemakers bent on
obstructing the Bill’s passage to the statute book. However, I ask them to consider carefully this: are they going to toss aside the conclusions and recommendations of such important Lords committees as the Constitution Committee and the Delegated Powers and Regulatory Reform Committee on such crucial questions as the exercise of the powers conferred by the Bill on the Secretary of State? Are they going to reject the Electoral Commission’s recommended wording of the referendum question? I cannot believe that they would follow such a risky course but, if they do so, it will confirm in my mind, at least, that the Bill’s Conservative promoters are not acting in the national interest but only in the narrow interest of a party divided on Europe.
We on these Benches do not believe that an “in or out” referendum by December 31 2017, at the latest, is in the national interest. That is why we oppose the Bill. As my right honourable friend the shadow Secretary of State said in the Second Reading of the Bill in another place:
“The Bill reflects an arbitrary date unrelated to the likely timetable of major treaty change”.—[Official Report, Commons, 5/7/13; col. 1181.]
That can hardly be in the national interest. What is the purpose of holding an “in or out” referendum at a point when we will almost certainly not yet know what treaty changes will need to be agreed to reform the EU, and thus what kind of EU, and what our negotiated relationship with it is, is the subject of the question to be put to the people? In the same Second Reading debate in the other place, the Secretary of State, Mr Hague, repeatedly said that his Government’s policy was to seek reform of the EU. The noble Baroness, Lady Warsi, said it at least twice yesterday, and will surely say it again this afternoon. We all want to see effective reforms. Our European partners want to see effective reforms, but why risk a British exit at a time when reform is work still in progress, in which we are all—and should be—actively participating ? It makes no sense at all, so why the rush?
I conclude by suggesting to our Conservatives on the other side of the House, particularly to its leadership, that they heed the words of a formidable European statesman:
“In the European card game we must not allow ourselves to be forced from the phase of waiting into the phase of premature action by impatience, complaisance, vanity or the provocation of our friends”.
The greatest political truths have long lives. That was Otto von Bismarck.
3.30 pm