My Lords, I put my name to this amendment; I do not want to add very much to what has already been said, but I support it because I want this referendum which—I must say to my noble friends for the avoidance of doubt—I accept is a commitment of my party and is going to happen. I want this referendum to be fair, and to include European Union citizens living here would add to the fairness. They will be affected by whatever the outcome is of a referendum. They have taken residence in this country and made their lives under the provisions of the treaties into which we, as a nation, freely entered and to which have agreed to be a party. The same can be said of the rights and interests of British citizens living in other European Union countries, to which we may come later.
However, in the interest of fairness, one might make the comparison between those citizens living in other European Union countries—and European Union citizens living in this country—with the position of Commonwealth citizens, who are not British citizens but who will have the right to vote, even if their countries have been suspended or expelled from membership of the Commonwealth. According to a reply which I received to a Written Question, we have no idea how many Commonwealth citizens who are not British citizens are on the electoral roll. However, there have been estimates—I have no idea how reliable they are; I believe that they may have been based on the 2011 census—that the number of people, whether or not on the electoral roll, which is not known, could amount to 900,000 in the country as a whole. That is not insignificant.
The noble and learned Lord, Lord Goldsmith, prepared a report for the previous Government on citizenship in which he made the observation, not pursued by the previous Government—or, indeed, this Government—that the right to vote and citizenship are closely linked. I do not think that it is good enough to embark on this referendum asking a question of this importance without
having given some thought to the composition of the franchise. I hope that my noble friend Lord Dobbs can tell me that some thought was given to it. I suspect that the easiest, quickest option, which did not involve too much thought, was employed to put the provision in the Bill. This and other amendments need to be carefully considered in the interest of fairness before the Bill passes into law and we have a referendum.