RESTRICTION ON PUBLICATION ETC. OF PROMOTIONAL MATERIAL BY CENTRAL AND LOCAL GOVERNMENT ETC. (Hansard, 16 February 2000)

§ Mr. Grieve
I beg to move amendment No. 54, in page 72, line 41, leave out "relevant" and insert "referendum".

§ The First Deputy Chairman of Ways and Means (Mr. Michael J. Martin)
With this it will be convenient to discuss the following amendments: No. 56, in page 73, line 10, leave out from "poll" to end of line 11.

§ Mr. Grieve
We now come to an important clause that concerns the control of publications during a referendum. As it is drafted, it does not appear to reflect what Lord Neill said on the subject in his report.
Our amendments seek to rectify an omission and the Government's failure properly to reflect Lord Neill's recommendations. The starting point must be what the Neill committee said. As the Minister will be aware, it was concerned about the role of Government in the course of a referendum campaign. To put it bluntly, its view of the role that the Government played in the Welsh referendum was not complimentary. Given the comments about the referendum in Northern Ireland, I remind the Minister that it had equal anxieties about how the Good Friday agreement referendum was conducted.
I draw attention to the salient points on this subject in the Neill report. It says: Another important question concerns the role of the government of the day during a referendum campaign, especially when it will itself have called the referendum and will almost certainly have publicly declared a preference regarding the outcome. Our view is straightforward. We believe it is perfectly appropriate for the government of the day to state its view and for members of the Government to campaign vigorously during referendum campaigns, just as they do during general election campaigns. But we also believe that, just as in general election campaigns, neither taxpayers' money nor the permanent government machine—civil servants, 1048 official cars, the Government Information Service, and so forth—should be used to promote the interests of the Government side of the argument. In other words, referendum campaigns should be treated for these purposes in every way as though they were general election campaigns.

§ Mr. Tipping
It would help if the hon. Gentleman gave the reference.

§ Mr. Grieve
I apologise to the Minister. I should have thought that by now he would be very familiar with Lord Neill's report, but I accept that other members of the Committee may not be. I refer the Minister to paragraph 12.41.
As I pointed out, the report then discourses on past referendums with a critique that is not complimentary to Government roles. In particular, paragraph 12.43 criticises the conduct of the referendum on the Good Friday agreement in Northern Ireland, and contains quotations from those who felt that they were being emotionally blackmailed by the way in which the Government involved themselves and the government machine in it.
Lord Neill concludes in paragraph 12.44: We believe that it is extraordinarily difficult, if not impossible, for the government of the day to offer purely objective and factual information in the course of a referendum campaign, especially when, as will usually be the case, itself it is a party to the campaign. We believe governments should not participate in referendum campaigns in this manner, just as it would be thought to be wholly inappropriate during a general election campaign for the government to print and distribute, at the taxpayer's expense, literature setting out government policy. Recommendation 89 says: The government of the day in future referendums should, as a government, remain neutral and should not distribute at public expense literature, even purportedly 'factual' literature, setting out or otherwise promoting its case. With that in mind we turn to clause 118. It certainly makes a few concessions towards Lord Neill's recommendations, but the single most important and glaring omission is the identification of the relevant period of a referendum as merely the last 28 days of the campaign. That is not in the spirit of what Lord Neill intended.
As the Minister himself pointed out, there will be a minimum of 10 weeks—the period may be longer in certain circumstances—between the beginning of the referendum period and the date when the referendum takes place. It seems to us that that is the entire referendum period. It is wrong to say that the last 28 days of that period can somehow be separated from the rest.
The Government may have a role in initiating the referendum and putting into statute the necessary order or Bill for it to take place. Once that has been done, there should be an end to Government propaganda seeking a particular outcome. As I said earlier, one of the difficulties, which I do not necessarily attribute to this Government, is that there is ample evidence that referendums have in the past been used as instruments of tyranny, often by semi-tyrannical Governments of a populist bent.

§ Sir Patrick Cormack
Or really tyrannical Governments.

§ Mr. Grieve
I agree with my hon. Friend. I remember studying Napoleon III at university. I sometimes think that 1049 the Government, above all the Prime Minister, resemble Napoleon III more every day. His reign ended in disaster, but he maintained a populist Government by a series of referendum fixes that covered what was, in effect, his poor government. There have to be rules to make sure that there is proper, adequate debate when referendums occur.
Amendment No. 54 would change the "relevant" period to the "referendum" period, being the entire period within which the referendum will be taking place. I will be interested to hear from the Minister why the Government feel that only the last 28 days should be counted.

§ Mr. Bercow
That is when the browbeating will be done.

§ Mr. Grieve
Indeed it will, and I find it extraordinary that it will take place during the period in which the commission will be examining whether an organisation is favoured.
The party that is opposing the Government will always be at a disadvantage because only in the last 28 days can it be up and running as a separate umbrella organisation of equal status to those that are arguing the Government's case. In those circumstances, it is particularly important that the entire referendum period should be covered.

§ Mr. Hayes
My hon. Friend will be as familiar as I am with the debate on 10 April 1975, in which my hon. Friend the Member for South Staffordshire (Sir P. Cormack) raised precisely the same point in debating the timetable of the 1975 referendum and the opportunities that hon. Members who were active in that campaign would have to participate in that debate. We are witnessing a repetition of the concerns expressed so sagely on that occasion.

§ Mr. Grieve
I agree entirely with my hon. Friend. The situation is a little bizarre. We are setting up a framework that is designed to iron out problems that have caused public disquiet, yet on this critical issue we are failing to implement Lord Neill's recommendations fully. It is difficult to escape the conclusion—the Minister knows that in Committee we sought to take a non-partisan view of the matter—that the Government are introducing the provision only because they see some advantage from it. It is difficult to envisage why Lord Neill's proposals would not be implemented in full if the Government were neutral in their approach.
I shall not comment on amendment No. 16. Suffice it to say that it again addresses the funding problem concerning European Union institutions and foreign Governments. I shall be interested in the Minister's comments because my understanding is—[HON. MEMBERS: "It has not been selected for debate."] I apologise. The amendment is relevant, although I accept that the subject was dealt with. I shall move on.
Amendment No. 56 relates to a most curious state of affairs. Certain activities are prohibited during the relevant period, whether it be the relevant period as the Minister identifies it or the referendum period, as I would prefer it. One activity that is not prohibited is the issue of press notices by Government. How long is a piece of string? What is intended? Once one accepts that press 1050 notices that are relevant to the referendum may be issued, it is difficult to see how one is not preventing the possibility of Governments issuing propaganda on the question of the referendum result.
Before I am prepared to accept this provision, I shall need much reassurance from the Minister that the Government do not intend to create a loophole to enable them to put their view across. In those circumstances, 1 hope that he will give a positive response to its proposed deletion. I do not understand why the provision is included, unless there is some ulterior motive.

§ Mr. Bercow
Can my hon. Friend confirm that line 11 on page 73 directly contradicts line 39 on page 72? Is it not extraordinary that in the space of only 16 lines, the Government have contradicted themselves? Does he agree that the purpose of the press releases that the Government will be entitled to issue is to influence the result? Clearly, they are not supposed to be about the merits of basket weaving or about the weather forecast.

§ Mr. Grieve
I try to be fair to the Government—

§ Sir Patrick Cormack
Do not try too hard.

§ Mr. Grieve
I shall not try too hard, but I have always tried to be fair to the Government in Committee, and I intend to continue.
I accept that a press notice covering, for instance, the formalities of the referendum may be perfectly in order. The times at which the polls will open and close are suitable, neutral matters for the Government to deal with. After all, they must implement and run the referendum, subject to the input of the Electoral Commission. However, as my hon. Friend the Member for Buckingham (Mr. Bercow) said, I do not see why press notices would be specified at all, except to provide a loophole. A press notice designed to encourage voting at a referendum would clearly be prohibited. I want to identify, with the Minister, what is intended in the clause.

§ Mr. Stunell
The hon. Gentleman is a lawyer of sound repute. Can he offer the Committee a legal definition of a press notice? Does he agree that interpretation of the provision is open-ended?

§ Mr. Grieve
I agree. That is precisely why I want to press the Minister. If he can satisfy me, I shall be reassured, but, having read the Bill, I am not happy with it, or I should not have tabled the amendment.

§ Mr. Nicholas Winterton (Macclesfield)
May I try to help my hon. Friend? Is he not, like all Opposition Members, deeply suspicious of press notices? We seem to have a Government who govern by press briefings, formal or informal, and press notices. Is not that the real loophole?

§ Mr. Grieve
I agree. As matters stand, we might describe it as the Alastair Campbell loophole. I do not want such a loophole in the Bill, and I want it plugged now, rather than having serious disagreements with the Government later. As the Minister rightly says, this is a framework Bill designed to command widespread public acceptance.
1051 Amendment No. 55 would delete "the relevant period", which is defined as 28 days. As I explained, we want Government propaganda to be prohibited during the entire referendum period.
Amendment No. 57 deals with the role of the civil service in the course of a referendum campaign and prohibits civil servants providing arguments for or against any answer to a referendum question. I accept that subsection (2) provides that any Minister of the Crown, government department or local authority shall not publish, display or distribute information, but that does not go far enough.
We are particularly concerned about the role of special advisers, who have always been a hybrid entity and whose activities in government are bringing them into increasing disrepute for receiving the taxpayers' money, but doing their political masters' bidding.

§ Mr. Mike Hall (Weaver Vale)
What about your lot?

§ Mr. Grieve
The hon. Gentleman makes a reference to political advisers under previous Governments. He cannot escape the fact that the number of political advisers has increased exponentially under this Government. They are present in all Departments and their role, activities and failure to follow civil service rules have been questioned time and again by the press. I therefore recommend him not to pursue that argument from a sedentary or any other position.

§ Mr. Bercow
I endorse the thrust of my hon. Friend's comments. Does he agree that it is important that our amendment is not only intellectually robust—it is—but capable of being monitored and enforced? Does he accept that to enforce the restriction on special advisers, it will be necessary to put them all on a slow boat to China during any referendum campaign under a Labour Government?

§ Mr. Grieve
I am not sure whether exile to China is necessary; the amendments would do the job adequately.
I hope that the Bill will be a monument to the Government and that it will endure well beyond the time when the electorate throw out the Labour Government. After that, when I confidently believe that a Conservative Government will be in office, the rules that the amendment proposes would fetter that Government as effectively as today's Labour Government. That is the principal justification for ensuring that the Bill is neutral and fair, and protects the liberty of the people.

§ Mr. Owen Paterson (North Shropshire)
My hon. Friend the Member for Buckingham (Mr. Bercow) referred to special advisers' travel plans. Does my hon. Friend the Member for Beaconsfield (Mr. Grieve) know that the travel bill for special advisers has increased by £500,000 in the past year?

The First Deputy Chairman
Order. We are straying from the amendment.

§ Mr. Grieve
I want to ensure that the referendum will be regarded as having taken place in a fair environment. The controls on publications under clause 118 are 1052 inadequate and do not reflect Lord Neill's report. I hope that, in the spirit of co-operation that has prevailed in our proceedings, the Minister will give the amendments special consideration. If he believes that I have made valid points, I hope that he will provide some reassurance, as he has done so often in the past, that they will be properly considered.

§ Sir Michael Spicer
The amendments and short debate are significant because the Government are not neutral in any referendum. That is crucial. A referendum on the single currency would never take place if the Government did not decide that they wanted to join it and therefore wished to put their view to the test. The Government are perhaps the major participant in such circumstances. It is therefore of paramount importance that they are on one side in a campaign.
Many of us have constantly stressed that the Bill is inadequate because it gives the Secretary of State too many powers and the commission too few. We have therefore been especially pleased to hear Ministers' constant assurances, especially those of the Parliamentary Secretary, Privy Council Office, who was described as the man who gives away the cigarettes. He has been especially good at saying that he will consider several of our suggestions to place the Government at one remove from managing the campaigns or the events that lead up to them.
The amendment is crucial, because if the Secretary of State is to be responsible for ensuring neutrality, setting the questions and all matters that significantly affect the campaign—even some funding matters—it is appalling that the Government should simultaneously be allowed to campaign until 28 days before the referendum. The amendment is a bit generous and 10 weeks is an extremely brief period in which to limit the Government's campaigning abilities, although it is certainly better than 28 days.
I am concerned even about a 10-week period, because, as my hon. Friend the Member for Macclesfield (Mr. Winterton) said, this Government above all have been shameless in the way that they use propaganda to further their particular cause. A recent example is the changeover plan, which they are already using as an instrument for anticipating the referendum on the single currency. They are pumping money into blatant propaganda that often appears in schools and places where they hope to influence people who will vote in a referendum in a few years' time.
We have only to read the pure party political propaganda that appears throughout the intergovernmental conference White Paper, which was published this week, to emphasise our concern that this Government above all cannot be allowed to manage the conduct of the referendum campaign in a so-called neutral way through the Secretary of State when they are also allowed to campaign right up to the last minute.

§ Mr. Nicholas Winterton
Does my hon. Friend agree that the propaganda in our schools to which he referred comes not only from Government circles, but direct from the European Union, albeit that it is paid for in part by our contribution to the EU? It comes from two different sources.

§ Sir Michael Spicer
I agree with my hon. Friend, which is why it would be nice to prevent the European 1053 Union from campaigning or influencing the campaign directly. We tried to introduce an amendment to that effect, but the nice guy who gives out the cigarettes assured us that that would be counterproductive. I think he meant that no one believes or trusts the EU so its intervention would be counter-productive, but I do not take that view. The money would be pumped in surreptitiously through third parties—we know that that is already being done. The Government should accept an amendment if they want to be fair and clear cut. Even at this late stage, I hope that they will see the force of our argument.
The amendment is related to the Government's involvement and I fully support my Front Benchers, although I would prefer an even wider restriction, as 10 weeks is a bit close to the event. However, it is better than 28 days, which is scandalously close given that the Government will manage large chunks of the referendum.

§ Mr. Stunell
It is a pity that a comparatively good case has been spoiled by some of the arguments. There are good reasons for challenging part of the clause and I want to do that, but we should not get too precious about the European referendum. I understand how important it is to Conservative Members, but whatever limits we introduce, those who want to promote a particular view will still do so in government or in opposition. If there are complaints that the European Union is sending literature to schools, there might equally be complaints that the Democracy Movement is sending literature to schools as well.

§ Dr. Julian Lewis
It is not.

§ Mr. Stunell
If the Democracy Movement is not sending literature to schools, it should start doing so and stop sending post cards to me. We cannot make Britain a politics-free zone in which one is not allowed to debate issues or attempt to influence views.

§ Dr. Lewis
The only snag is that a provision in the Education Acts prohibits the indoctrination of children in schools with partisan politics on politically controversial issues. If such literature is being sent to schools, it is breaking the existing law.

§ Mr. Stunell
I rest my case. There is scope for educational material for and against a particular point of view being sent to schools. What use they make of it is another matter.
Given some of the comments that have been made, some hon. Members would obviously not like the subject of Europe to be discussed in any pub, school or workplace in the land, and believe that anyone who tries to do so should be stopped. They may want that, but this is not the Bill to achieve it.
I want to focus more precisely on what the clause does and does not do. I can make common cause with the hon. Member for Beaconsfield (Mr. Grieve) in some respects. When considering the impact of amendment No. 56 and its deletion of press notices from exempt materials that public bodies can distribute, what does the Minister believe a court would consider to be a press notice? Is it 1054 any piece of literature with the words "press notice" at the top? Is it a self-defining document? If so, is he happy with that? If there is some other definition of a press notice, will he put it on the record so that we know what it is? It is unsatisfactory to leave that loophole, especially in its present form. I am not a lawyer, but I do not think that there is a legal definition of a press notice. If there is one that does not arise from case law, it should be clearly stated on the record.
The general issue of when the moratorium on public bodies' advocacy of a particular course of action should start is complex. I would not be averse to an extension of the 28 days. The amendment does not do that with enough accuracy and certainty. There needs to be a date beyond which it is not proper for public bodies to disseminate such material. Four weeks is a short time, but it may not be too short. It could be from the date at which the umbrella organisations were approved by the Electoral Commission or some other prior date that was clear and gave certainty. I would be interested to hear from the Minister what could be achieved.
I come part way with the hon. Member for Beaconsfield on bringing forward the 28-day deadline. I am sympathetic to that view, but I do not think that his amendment quite achieves it. However, I am not with him on the political restrictions on civil servants. It is wrong for us to impose political restrictions on civil servants during referendums additional to those that are already in force. For better or for worse, Parliament has provided for the role of political advisers and their ability to operate under substantially more relaxed guidelines than those for civil servants in general in relation to political activity.

§ Mr. Grieve
I accept that the guidelines are more relaxed, but how are they to be exercised? Does the hon. Gentleman contemplate that special advisers should be allowed to make use of the civil service machinery for the dissemination of their views—which is what they are currently able to do during a referendum?

§ Mr. Stunell
I am not entirely sure that the case has been made that that is different from civil servants exercising their views prior to a vote in the House on, say, a reduction in disability benefits, when quite clearly they are operating on behalf of the Government to develop public opinion and opinion in the House. I am not clear that there is a sufficient distinction that would necessitate those guidelines being varied, in particular for referendum campaigns.

§ Mr. Nicholas Winterton
Does the hon. Gentleman not differentiate between a vote in the House by Members of Parliament who have been elected to decide issues, and an election—a referendum—outside? Surely it is wrong for taxpayers' money to be used to influence people in the country. I understand its being used for that purpose in the House, but surely it should not be used for that purpose in the country, in a referendum.

§ Mr. Stunell
Some interesting points are emerging. Perhaps they should feature in a slightly different debate about what range of relaxations should be available to political advisers. There is nothing to stop a political adviser in any Department making comments in the four, or eight, weeks leading up to a local election campaign, 1055 or a Scottish Parliament campaign, or a Welsh Assembly campaign—or, even more to the point, a London mayoral campaign.
At present, there is no such restriction, although it might be argued that there should be. I am not convinced that this is such a special case that we should treat it as such at this stage. There may be something to be said for the argument that is being advanced, but I do not think that we should load the issue simply because we do not want a particular view to be advanced about Europe.

§ Mr. Bercow
I am trying intently to follow the logic of the hon. Gentleman's argument. Is he saying that Ministers should be restricted in terms of their use of Government facilities and resources during the 28-day period of a referendum campaign, but that their political advisers should not be so restricted? That is an extraordinary proposition.

§ Mr. Stunell
It would be extraordinary if it were advanced, but I am not advancing it. Nothing in the Bill, or in precedent, prevents Ministers, in their party political role, from advocating a particular outcome during a referendum campaign. I do not see what point the hon. Gentleman is making, but if he concentrates even more intently on my argument, I am sure that he will be with me in the end.
The Government have a case to answer on the issue of constraining the output of public bodies. Press notices are certainly a weak link. I also think that we should consider whether the 28-day moratorium should be extended, and I would like to hear the Minister's view.

§ Dr. Julian Lewis
I was fortunate enough to be on the Standing Committee that dealt with other parts of the Bill. I congratulate the Government on having reserved the most controversial parts for the Floor of the House.

§ Mr. Tipping
The hon. Gentleman should be praising his hon. Friends on the Opposition Front Bench.

§ Dr. Lewis
I am delighted. That accords far better with my thesis, which is that the Government's proposals are incredibly unfair—which is why I thought it strange that they were willing to give this part of the Bill a wider and more public airing. Now that I have been informed that my hon. Friends on the Opposition Front Bench are responsible, I am even happier to congratulate them on taking the opportunity to bring these abuses more clearly to the attention of the public.
I am astonished at the difference in the atmosphere—the difference between the relative consensus on uncontroversial matters in the Standing Committee, and what is being proposed here. I well remember when the Home Secretary himself, on July 1997 in the House, compared Neill's recommendations with the Government's proposed responses to them. The one issue on which I felt it incumbent on me to intervene at the time was this very question of the 28-day limit on Government propaganda in favour of one side of the argument on a future referendum issue.
Clearly, the Neill committee was recommending that the Government should keep their nose out of referendum campaigns. Equally clearly, the Government want to observe only the tiniest part of the letter of that 1056 recommendation, while wholly ignoring the spirit of it. In any future referendum, whatever the topic, while Labour are in government, they intend to be able to spend as much public money as they like for weeks and months leading up to the crucial vote and to stop doing so a mere 28 days before the votes are cast. If it is wrong that Governments should be able to spend a great deal of public money during the last 28 days, it is equally wrong that they should be able to spend great quantities of public money for significantly longer periods, up to that tiny window of abstention just before the vote is cast.
Equally, as my hon. Friend the Member for Beaconsfield (Mr. Grieve) points out, why should it be the case that, throughout even that 28-day period, when even the Government are prepared to be a little abstemious in the amount of propaganda that they pump out to try to skew the referendum result, they are still entitled to put the words "press notice" on any further propaganda that they wish to issue, exploiting the loophole in the clause to persist pumping out their message right up to polling day, as far as I can see?
The point has been made: just as the use of public money to pump out literature is wrong, so the use of public money to pay civil servants to do the Government's partisan campaigning is wrong. I am concerned about the way in which the Government are trying to turn what was meant to be the cleaning-up of partisan distortions of referendum campaigns into something that is of advantage to the Government of the day.

§ Mr. Hayes
Contrary to the suggestion from the hon. Member for Hazel Grove (Mr. Stunell), is not the debate a fine opportunity to tighten up and straighten out the business of special advisers, about whom there is growing concern in terms of their political involvement? That would apply to a Government of any political persuasion. Is not the debate an ideal opportunity to assuage those concerns and fears by defining more clearly their role and limiting their involvement in such a political process?

§ Dr. Lewis
It is not only that. The point has been well made by the Conservative Front-Bench team that the matter will affect any future Government. It is like the introduction of a new weapon into warfare, even if it is only political warfare: people should realise what it will be like when that weapon is turned on them and the roles are reversed.
One day, roles will be reversed. I hope still to be in this place when that happens. I will remember the current debate and how the Government have conducted themselves when we hear the squeals of outrage from Labour Members on the Opposition Benches as we seek in government to exploit the very loopholes that they are wrongly building into the Bill. Rather than have such tit-for-tat abuse of the system, such mutual rejection of the spirit of the Neill proposals, I appeal to the Minister to observe on the Floor of the House the same spirit of compromise, consensus and fairness that he has observed elsewhere and at least to promise that, if we do not divide the Committee tonight, he will revisit the matter on Report and introduce more satisfactory proposals.

§ Mr. Paterson
I am grateful to you, Mr. Martin, for calling me in what is an important debate.
1057 If the clause stands, we will have an intolerable situation, given the extraordinary increase in the number of special advisers, whose main role is to pump out Government propaganda.

§ Mr. Nicholas Winterton
Party propaganda.

§ Mr. Paterson
Exactly. They are pumping out party propaganda and Government propaganda—which, in a referendum, as my hon. Friend the Member for West Worcestershire (Sir M. Spicer) said, will be the same thing. The Government will not initiate a referendum campaign if they do not want to win it.
11.15 pm
Before Christmas, I tabled a parliamentary question on the number of special advisers, and was told that, since the Government came to power, an extra 68 have been hired. However, in a previous debate, my hon. Friend the Member for Chichester (Mr. Tyrie) corrected me on that figure, and said that the number of additional advisers had risen to 77, who are costing the taxpayer an extra £1.8 million annually. In total, Government special advisers are costing the taxpayer about £3.9 million. As I said in an earlier intervention, their travel alone costs £500,000.
Special advisers are there not for nothing, but to put across the Government point of view. How much are the Government spending on publicity? Perhaps we should examine the three Departments that would be affected in a referendum campaign. Since May 1997, total publicity spending by the Foreign and Commonwealth Office has been £5,933,637, of which £44,067.39 has been specifically dedicated to spending on press releases. What about websites? The Department spent £554,097 on them. The Department spent £4,818,211 on something called "extra publicity". What is that? Did it have something to do with press releases? A cool £464,628 was spent on media advertising.
The Minister will have to tell us how that money for publicity is being spent. He will also have to tell us how the clause will operate. It would be intolerable if the sums that I have described were spent legally in a referendum by the Government, whereas—as clause 118 currently provides—those who oppose the Government in that contest would not have access to such funds.
Last year, the Scotland Office conducted a referendum. Since May 1999, its total spending on publicity has been £3.4 million—of which £119,000 was spent on press releases—whereas it has spent £808,000 on websites and £2.5 million on media advertising. Those are enormous sums, and they are at the disposal of politically dedicated outsiders who were brought in by the Government with only one purpose: to propagate the Government's point of view. That is what they will be doing in a referendum if clause 118 is not amended.

§ Mr. Bercow
Does my hon. Friend agree that any Government reckless enough to want permanently to abandon the national currency of an independent nation is inevitably prepared to resort to virtually any and every 1058 technique to get the result that they want? Is not the important point that legislation should protect the rest of us from those certifiable tendencies?

§ Mr. Paterson
As usual, my hon. Friend makes the most pertinent observation. The Government already, before a referendum, have the material means in their hands—they have taken on the personnel and have extraordinarily large sums—to propagate their own point of view. When the campaign comes, they will have not only the motive, but the means to put forward their view. Those who are opposed to the Government's position in the referendum will not only be short of means, but will be prevented, by an unamended clause 118, from competing with the Government.

§ Mr. Hayes
The evidence is clear. Neill examined the matter quite carefully, particularly the conduct of the referendum on the Good Friday agreement in Northern Ireland. Regardless of what one thinks of the Good Friday agreement—I think that most hon. Members support it wholeheartedly—Neill specifically criticises the Government for sending out copies of the agreement to every household, but not providing comparable provision—by way of core funding or anything else—for the opposition side. The evidence is such that Governments, when they are completely committed to a case—to which hon. Members on both sides of the House may be committed—will push that case to its limits and not play an entirely straight bat.

§ Mr. Paterson
That was my next point. Since May 1997, the Northern Ireland Office has spent £4.8 million on publicity. Of that, £966,000 was on direct mail publicity. Every house in Northern Ireland was mailed with the Government's point of view during the Good Friday agreement referendum campaign. Whatever the merits of that campaign—most of us endorsed the agreement—we are making no provision for the opposite point of view to be put. Direct mail publicity would be Government propaganda, but it would come under the heading of press releases. It must be possible for the opposite point of view to be put.
I strongly endorse the amendment and I should like a clear definition from the Minister of what counts as a press release.

§ Mr. Tipping
I shall do my best to be emollient and reassuring, but, having heard the comments of the hon. Members for North Shropshire (Mr. Paterson), for West Worcestershire (Sir M. Spicer), for New Forest, East (Dr. Lewis) and for South Holland and The Deepings (Mr. Hayes), I fear that it will be an uphill task.
As the hon. Member for Beaconsfield (Mr. Grieve) pointed out in his well-balanced and well-judged contribution, the clause implements the Neill committee's recommendation that, at a certain point before a referendum is held, the Government of the day should stand back and leave campaigning to political parties and other campaign organisations. So far there is no argument. The Neill committee was particularly sceptical about material that has been circulated to the electorate very close to the date of previous referendums, and questioned the distinction between factual and persuasive material.
The clause implements the committee's recommendations by providing for a 28-day embargo on the issuing to the public of Government publications. The 1059 hon. Member for Beaconsfield will not mind my saying that he built the foundation of his speech on the Neill report and quoted extensively from it. In its comments on the draft Bill, the Neill committee welcomed these provisions. For the sake of completeness, let me tell the Committee what Neill said. Rather than criticising our proposals, he supported them: We welcome your proposals on the part which should be played by the Government in referendum campaigns and your recognition of the importance of ensuring that there is a period immediately prior to a referendum in which, as you say, the Government of the day stands aside and the campaigning is left to the political parties and other organisations. We have had an opportunity this evening to hear the remarks of the right hon. Member for South Norfolk (Mr. MacGregor), who is a touchstone for fairness in the House. On Second Reading he said: I am glad that the Bill includes the 28-day moratorium, which meets our point".—[Official Report, 10 January 2000; Vol. 342, c. 67.] Far from being critical of the Government, the right hon. Gentleman, who is the Opposition representative on the committee, has endorsed our proposals. The hon. Member for Beaconsfield based his argument on Neill, saying that what was right for a general election should be right for a referendum campaign. I have had some research done on the subject and the purdah period for a general election campaign is almost identical to the 28-day period that we are advocating.
Amendments Nos. 54 and 55 would affect the period during which the restrictions apply. They are based on the proposition that if it is right for political parties and other campaign organisations to be subject to controls on expenditure from a date earlier than 28 days before the date of the poll, any controls on the Government should also apply from that earlier date.
My advice to the Committee is to reject the amendments. I fear that not all right hon. and hon. Members will take that advice, so I have the task of trying to explain my case. First, as well as relying on the support of Neill and the right hon. Member for South Norfolk, I should point out that the prohibition in clause 118 is absolute. No material of the kind mentioned in the clause is allowed to be published. Controls on political parties and other organisations, on the other hand, are not of that kind. For 28 days, the Government can issue nothing, but political parties can continue to put out material, so long as their expenditure remains within certain limits during the referendum period. The accounting responsibility runs from the start of the referendum period, but there is nothing to prevent parties and other organisations from beginning to spend their money from the start of that period if they so wish.
Secondly, it is unrealistic to expect the Government to be unable to put out material for the entire referendum period. As has been acknowledged during our discussions this evening, the referendum period could start while the Bill for the referendum was going through the House. It would be a remarkable situation if the Government could not put out material and information while the Bill was passing through the House.

§ Mr. Grieve
In moving the amendment, I pointed out to the Minister that, although it applied to the entire referendum period, there were alternative options, one of which was the 14-day period that preceded the 28-day 1060 period—the time when the Electoral Commission is selecting the umbrella organisations. Is the Minister willing to consider whether that period should be similarly covered, as well as the 28 days?

§ Mr. Tipping
Of course I am willing to consider the points that the hon. Gentleman makes, but I have a firmer and stronger argument. It could often be the case that the referendum period started while the Bill was before the House. Even extending the limits as he proposes would create real difficulties.
In respect of amendments Nos. 54 and 55, first, reliance on Neill is unfair and unfounded. Indeed, the Neill committee supports the Government. Secondly, the 28-day period is similar to the purdah period during a general election campaign—another point acknowledged by Neill. Thirdly, during the 28-day period the Government can put out no material at all, unlike the other campaign groups. Fourthly, and perhaps most important, it would be a strange state of affairs if the Government were passing legislation around the referendum, but were not in a position to put out information or promote their views.

§ Dr. Julian Lewis
I thank the Minister for his courtesy in giving way yet again. Will he refer to the point about press notices? When he says that the Government can put out no material during the 28-day period, what is there to stop them putting out material that would normally be caught by the prohibition, but getting round it by putting the words "press notice" at the top of it?

§ Mr. Tipping
I shall come to that point when I address amendments Nos. 56 and 57. I have tried to reassure the Committee, to be emollient and to say that amendments Nos. 54 and 55 are unnecessary.
The Neill committee was concerned that the Government of the day might—at public expense—distribute material, even purportedly factual documents that put forward the Government's case, that had the effect of influencing the vote. Clause 118 is intended to prohibit the distribution of such unsolicited material addressed directly to the public as a whole. To address the point raised by the hon. Member for New Forest, East (Dr. Lewis) clause 118(3) provides for certain exemptions to the overall prohibition. Those exceptions are entirely consistent with the basic proposition that the Government of the day should not be able unfairly to influence the conduct of a referendum campaign.
11.30 pm
Amendment No. 56 deals with press notices. The hon. Member for Hazel Grove (Mr. Stunell) asked me to define a press notice—and the hon. Member for New Forest, East repeated that request. A press notice is a notice issued to the press. I know that the hon. Member for Hazel Grove is keen to pin those issues down and, since he spoke, we have been trying to identify a statutory definition of a press notice, but I am afraid that none exists. Under clause 118(3)(d), the Government of the day would continue to be able to issue press notices, but that does not represent an attempt to circumvent the basic principle behind the clause.
The point of the restrictions is to prevent the Government distributing directly to the public, but the press should continue to be able to demand information 1061 from the Government. Information contained in a press notice will be subject to the scrutiny and comment of the press before it reaches the public. During the purdah period, the press will approach the Government and it is appropriate that they should be able to respond. The press, as always, will make what they can of the press notice, and one of the issues the press will consider is whether the Government are attempting to engineer the situation during the purdah period.

§ Mr. Nicholas Winterton
The Minister is being emollient and is seeking to answer the genuine concerns felt by Opposition Members, but can he say whether the press notices—which, as he has stressed, are for the press—will be put on the website? If so, they will be available to everyone, and that could create much unfairness.

§ Mr. Tipping
The hon. Gentleman leads me into a difficult area, because one of the issues that the Committee has considered—to which there is no easy solution—is that, prior to the referendum, the Government and other parties will have put material on websites. When the referendum starts, everyone involved will have a backlog of material on their websites that cannot be withdrawn. That is a real problem which the Committee has discussed and the Government are considering.
Amendment No. 57 concerns the role of civil servants.

§ Dr. Julian Lewis
Let us suppose the Government were to issue a substantial publication and call it a press notice. As it had been issued as a press notice, what would stop the Government supplying a copy to anybody who wanted one or supplying many copies to organisations that wished to distribute them to others?

§ Mr. Tipping
The hon. Gentleman has the habit of shining a light into dark corners and discovering what is not really there. It would be faintly ludicrous deliberately to do what is outside the rules of a campaign that is being scrutinised by the press. Moreover, publishing the press notice in the way he described would be against the rules for civil servants.

§ Mr. Paterson
The Minister is trying to be emollient and has been generous in giving way, but he is being naive. The figures that I quoted show that press releases represent only a small portion of the budget. For example, the Foreign Office spent £44,000 on press releases, but £4.8 million is provided for what is called extra publicity. If the press were to pick up that extra publicity, that would be an enormous weapon in the Government's hands.

§ Mr. Tipping
The hon. Gentleman made a similar point earlier about special advisers. It is a bit rich for Conservative Members to criticise such advisers, when the Government—at Opposition Members' request—has increased by 270 per cent. the help available to Opposition parties. I have been called emollient, so I can tell the Committee that the Government will respond to another Neill report on special advisers in due course.
Amendment No. 57 has to do with the role of civil servants. The position is clear: if people ring the Government during a referendum campaign and ask 1062 questions, it would be appropriate for civil servants to send them material. That is the purpose of this part of the Bill. A strong code of practice exists for the civil service, and it has been sharpened over time.
The Government have done their best to balance this issue. They studied the Neill report for a long time and responded to it. Neill has praised the Government and has acted to ensure that the Government do not put out material. He has also acted to ensure that civil servants are not involved in the debate

§ Mr. Nicholas Winterton
The Minister is trying hard to answer the concerns raised by Conservative Members. He mentioned the historical impartiality of the civil service, which is much appreciated. However, if a person asked questions about the single currency, would the civil service send both sides of the argument in answer to those questions? Or if the Government supported a single currency, would they send out only the Government's side of the argument?

§ Mr. Tipping
The civil servants would send the factual material produced by the Government. They would not take a partisan view, as that is proscribed by the sharpened code of practice. The Government are trying to do their best in what is a very difficult area, and I consider that the Bill already meets the questions raised by the amendments. I therefore hope that the amendments will be withdrawn.

§ Mr. Grieve
The Minister will appreciate the strong views among Opposition Members on this issue. If they want to continue in the spirit of consensus that obtained in Standing Committee, the Government would be well advised to examine the clause very carefully once more.
The Minister indicated that he was prepared to consider whether another period might be included within the period of purdah. I draw some slight comfort from that. He made the valid point that the extension from when debate starts in this House, for instance, might be excessive. However, we are worried that the 28-day period on its own will be insufficient. The particular mischief is that there will be a preliminary period, in which the campaign that will be set up in opposition to the view that the Government want to put forward, but which they will subsume into their own campaign organisation, is not up and running because it has not received validation from the commission. That is a particularly sensitive period and the Minister should consider it carefully. I hope that he will; if he does not, I think that the issue will be revisited, because we feel extremely strongly about it.
The Minister has provided some reassurance on civil service impartiality and the role of special advisers, but I have anxieties about the press notices. The hon. Gentleman admitted that they would be to the press, giving what can only be described as the Government view. I simply do not see how, once that has been done, the purdah period applies. The press will be reporting that the Government have said this, that or the other on the subject of the referendum, and will give their views on it. That is a dangerous area, and I urge the Minister to reconsider it as well, if only to qualify what the press notice should consist of.
The Minister quoted Lord Neill as saying approvingly, when he had seen the Bill, that he believed that it implemented what he had been hoping for. I appreciate 1063 that these things are always difficult, but comparing the report with the clause, I see many deficiencies in the clause as drafted. However, Lord Neill may have been pleasantly surprised that the Government were prepared to implement even one iota of his recommendations, because he proposed some revolutionary changes in the way in which Governments approach referendums. The Bill will certainly do away with some of the worst excesses of what happened in the Wales referendum and, I regret, the referendum in Northern Ireland, even if I supported the Government on their aim in that matter.

§ Mr. Hayes
My hon. Friend is right that the Neill report seems to be at variance with what the Minister said, particularly on the issue of civil servants, although the hon. Gentleman was the personification of emollience. The report says that civil servants, official cars, the Government information service and so forth should not be used to promote the interests of the Government's side of the argument. The Minister talks about civil servants answering telephone calls and reacting to inquiries. Surely that is at variance with what the Neill report expressly recommended.

§ Mr. Grieve
I agree with my hon. Friend that it would undoubtedly be at variance if civil servants put over anything other than objective factual material on the progress of the referendum. I think that the Minister can cure the problem if he defines press notices properly. On its own, the provision is extremely ambiguous; it is open to misinterpretation and misunderstanding. I ask the Minister to look at that issue particularly carefully. He could provide considerable reassurance, while still allowing the Government to perform a neutral information role which it is certainly not our intention to prevent.
We are very concerned about the provision. We will not press the matter to a Division this evening—I do not wish to take up the time of the Committee unnecessarily. However, I assure the Minister that the issue will not go away. He has had an opportunity to hear something about the strength of view on this side of the Committee. Although we will continue to listen to his submissions in a spirit of co-operation and will try to understand the thrust of what he is saying, we are not yet satisfied nor, I think, are we likely to be satisfied as the matter stands. Subject to that, I beg to ask leave to withdraw the amendment.