My Lords, I strongly support the amendment of the noble Lord, Lord Shipley. I declare what may be a tangential interest: I am entitled to vote in local elections in France.
I feel very strongly that people who are entitled to vote in local elections here as EU citizens should not be denied that right. My fear is that if we were to deny them this right, we would be reinforcing the image of a country that was on its way out of the EU. You could look at it the other way around, too: if we were to allow this amendment to go through, which I hope we will, then to my great pleasure we might be reinforcing the image of a country that was engaging properly with its European partners.
I think particularly of my French friends, who are living here in Britain. There are thousands of them living here—not all of them my friends—and maybe I will be destroying my own case here by saying: do not count on all of them to vote in an in/out referendum for Britain to stay in. Some of them may think that Britain is too much trouble to keep in the European Union. I venture to add that I think the vast majority,
if given the vote, would want Britain to stay in, not just in their own personal interest but in the interests of Britain, France and the European Union.