European Union Referendum Bill — House of Commons, 2015-06-16
Topic: International Affairs
William Nigel Paul Cash (Conservative, Centre-right): I just do not think that makes sense. The bottom line is that we are now so invading the ability of the voters in the referendum to make a free and fair choice, by canting the process and taking all the things to which I have just referred out of the equation, that we could seriously undermine the whole democratic process with respect to referendums. This is simply not a tenable position. If it was good enough for the Scottish and the Welsh, why is it not good enough for the referendum on the EU, which will go even further towards infringing—as we would put it—the role of this Parliament and our democratic freedoms I also want to discuss what publishing means. Section 125 of the 2000 Act is very general on this point, and this is what hon. Members are being asked to repeal this afternoon. It states: "‘publish’ means make available to the public at large, or any section of the public, in whatever form and by whatever means", and the relevant period "means the period of 28 days ending with the date of the poll." There are profound reasons for maintaining the status quo at this stage and for retaining the restriction, because once it has been repealed, we would then have to reinvent the wheel, as it were, on Report. That could open a huge can of worms for the Government. The question is: what would the Government not be restrained from doing, compared with some of the things that it is currently stated they would be restrained from doing The Minister for Europe has sent us a letter today, 16 June, in which he says: "It is our clear intention, through the Bill, to provide a straightforward, fair and effective framework for the referendum." I have to say to him that I must cast some doubt on that in relation to the questions that are being raised. He goes on to say that it would be "inappropriate" to "prevent Ministers from effectively conducting the significant amounts of ordinary day-to-day business between the Government and the EU that will necessarily continue during the pre-poll period." I have been Chairman of the European Scrutiny Committee for five years, and I just do not recognise this at all. There are things that go on in the monumental amount of material that comes in from the European Union, but in my judgment there is no suggestion that anything of this nature would be affected by retaining section 125. The section was applied during the Scottish referendum, which had a European dimension. The same applied to the Welsh Assembly. If it was all right for Ministers to continue to make statements in those circumstances, we should keep section 125 and do as the Foreign Secretary suggested during the Second Reading debate. The Minister for Europe’s letter states: "The Foreign Secretary said during the debate that the Government will exercise proper restraint to ensure a balanced debate during the campaign." This is the moment to ensure that we get this right by keeping the restriction for the time being, having discussions and coming back with specific proposals on Report, on which we can then vote I acknowledge that the Minister for Europe has conceded that we have more than a reasonable case. His letter goes on: "Working out a system that will reassure colleagues and voters that the referendum is a fair fight, yet will preserve the Government’s ability to act in the national interest is not straightforward." Well, it would be very straightforward if we kept section 125. He adds: "It is important that it is legally clear and robust." It would make things very unclear and very unrobust if we were to remove the provisions in section 125, which are based on common sense and fairness and on giving voters a proper opportunity to make a fair choice.