European Union Referendum Bill — House of Commons, 2015-12-08
Topic: Government Operations
Bernard Christison Jenkin (Conservative, Centre-right): The Governor of the Bank of England is a different case. He is not a civil servant, so he is not bound by the civil service code and he does not advise Ministers as a private civil servant—he gives his advice very publicly. Although I was prompted by that example, I think it is reasonable for the Governor, judiciously, soberly and carefully to proffer his advice. I think his advice on the currency question in the Scottish referendum was very germane, but I do not think it was necessary for the permanent secretary at the Treasury to give similar advice. On the speech that the Governor made on the European Union, the remarkable thing about it was how little he was prepared to say which supported the Government’s view. He did not put himself out on a limb. It was an incredible damp squib of a speech as far as the remain campaign was concerned, and it had extraordinarily little impact, because he was very careful about what he said. That might be because he sees that both business and the country are divided on whether we should remain in the EU and that the arguments are much more finely divided than on the currency question in the Scottish referendum I wish to deal with Lords amendment 13 and amendment (a) proposed thereto, which stands in my name and that of my hon. Friend the Member for Stone and other colleagues. This relates to another startling change made in the other place on the designation of organisations to campaign for or against the particular proposition. I should declare an interest here—it is not a remunerated interest. I am a director of the company Vote Leave, which will be applying for designation The Lords amendment added a provision that suggests that it is perfectly okay for the Electoral Commission to designate one campaign supporting one proposition but not another campaign supporting the opposite proposition. The reason why that has been put into the Bill is perfectly understandable; in the 2011 referendum in Wales there was no application from a no campaign and therefore it was impossible for the Electoral Commission to designate a yes campaign, even though there was a very respectable yes campaign. It was suspected that there was an element of sabotage by the no campaign, because it wanted to prevent the yes campaign from getting designation as the no campaign was going to be incredibly weak, whether or not it was designated The result of this provision, which was included in the Scottish legislation passed by the Scottish Parliament in order to prevent the same thing from recurring, is extraordinary. It offers the possibility that the Electoral Commission "may" designate one campaign and not another without any restraining factors. In good faith, I do not think we should question the bona fides of the Electoral Commission as to whether it would ever do such a thing, but this is what the Lords amendment actually contemplates. It would be unconscionable, in this of all referendums, for there to be only one designated campaign. It would be intolerable if Parliament let this go on to the statute book without even a discussion about what the consequence would be. It would completely invalidate the result, it would destroy the purpose of having a referendum and it would mean that this issue was not settled in a fair manner at all. We have framed an amendment to the new clause, which I hope will at least draw the Minister out to explain how everything might work.