REFERENDUM PERIOD

HC Deb 18 December 2002 vol 396 cc965-73

Mr. Hammond

I beg to move amendment No. 47, in page 3, line 7, at end add — 'after taking account of the advice of the Electoral Commission as to the period required for the proper conduct of the referendum having regard to all relevant circumstances'.

The First Deputy Chairman

With this it will be convenient to discuss the following amendment: No. 27, in page 3, line 7, at end add— '( ) Any order issued under subsection (1) above must set a referendum period lasting not less than 30 days, excluding weekends and bank holidays.'.

Mr. Hammond

Clause 4 deals with the referendum period for the purposes of part 7 of the Political Parties, Elections and Referendums Act 2000. It says that the Secretary of State must by order determine the referendum period for a referendum held in pursuance of an order under section 1. That relates to the order that will call a referendum in a given region.

The referendum period is a significant time window that must be defined. It will have an impact on matters such as the recording of election expenses and the publication of election material, and will constrain the participants in the election, with one notable exception. The Government, masquerading inappropriately as a neutral party, will be allowed to continue publishing material and doing things that would not be permitted by other participants right up to the 29th day before the referendum is held. They will be able to use the power and the purse of the state to pursue a partisan position in the debate that the referendum will address.

Because of the Government exemption, it is doubly important that the referendum period be correctly set. The Electoral Commission has been appointed to become involved in such matters and in the conduct of a referendum in the attempt to inject impartiality and objectivity into the process, so it would be wholly appropriate for the commission to advise the Secretary of State—we do not suggest that the commission should take the decision—on the time that will be required for the proper conduct of the election. That is appropriate to ensure that the period is set in an impartial fashion that is not biased in favour of one side or the other.

We must bear in mind the fact that, whatever the referendum period, the Secretary of State and the Government will be in the unique position of being able to distribute their material unconstrained until 28 days before the referendum. It is not appropriate that the Secretary of State, who is partisan in such matters, should have the loudest voice in determining the referendum period. It is, however, entirely appropriate that the Electoral Commission should have a voice that is heard.

Mr. Edward Davey

Amendments Nos. 47 and 27 are two ways of doing a similar thing. We want to restrain the Government's power by ensuring either that someone other than the Government sets the period for the referendum—amendment No. 47 suggests the Electoral Commission—or that there is a minimum period for it. There is a danger that a Minister could push through a referendum quickly, which would stifle debate, the campaign and the very democracy that lies behind the Bill. As I am sure that that is not the Minister's intention, we tabled amendment No. 27.

Our amendment would ensure that there is a minimum period for the referendum of not less than 30 days, excluding weekends and bank holidays. That is effectively a six-week campaign. We could have gone for a four or five-week campaign, but referendum campaigns are unusual beasts. They are one-offs. Campaign organisations are not like normal political parties. They are set up purely for the purpose of fighting a particular referendum. Although those organisations might begin to get prepared before the referendum is called, they need a little longer than a normal general election or council campaign to uphold the democratic process established in the Bill.

Mr. Hammond

It has just occurred to me that the hon. Gentleman raises an interesting point. In practice, the yes campaign will not be a purely local campaign set up for each referendum; it will be a rolling campaign, based on the Campaign for the English Regions. It is the no campaign that will have a standing start and will be disadvantaged.

Mr. Davey

I am discouraged—or encouraged, perhaps—that the hon. Gentleman believes that the no campaign is so badly organised, primarily because I thought that the Conservative party was the no campaign. However, I do not want to be ruled out of order and shall return to the amendment.

I well remember the 1997 general election campaign when I was first returned to the House. That was a six-week campaign. The previous Prime Minister, John Major, must regret the fact that he let us have that campaign.

Mr. Kevan Jones

How does the six-week campaign fit with the clear and vehement opposition that the Liberal Democrats portrayed in Committee to all postal ballots?

Mr. Davey

The two things are completely different. The ballot relates to the actual vote on the ballot paper. I am talking about ensuring that there is a minimum period during which we can engage the electorate in the debate. We would be happy to discuss with the Minister whether it should be 20, 25 or 30 days. We are not theological about that. What we want to do is to ensure that the Bill stipulates a minimum period so that a referendum cannot be rushed through. The Minister keeps stressing the importance of the Bill, and we need a minimum period to allow the people of a region to engage in the debate.

10.45 pm

Mr. Swayne

I wonder whether the hon. Gentleman is aware that there is a need for a maximum length for the campaign. Has he not noticed that people are already campaigning? Indeed, the whole process of taking soundings is, in itself, a surreptitious campaign. [Interruption.] I am glad to see that there is agreement. The Minister was involving the peers in that, at least from a sedentary position, in the debate on the previous amendment. Bishops—bishops, I ask you—have been campaigning for this nonsense for months with absolutely no constraint whatsoever. Back to their vestries with them.

Mr. Davey

Well, bless my soul. One felt like saying "tally ho" to that intervention.

Matthew Green

rose—

Mr. Davey

I do not want to detain the House much longer on this relatively minor matter, but my hon. Friend wants to make a very important point, so I will let him intervene.

Matthew Green

Does my hon. Friend agree that a campaign of reasonable length, and not a very short one, will increase the chances of a reasonable turnout in the referendum, which we would all like to see? There will be time to get the messages across, and that may encourage turnout.

Mr. Davey

My hon. Friend is absolutely right. A reasonable campaign would certainly help with turnout, and the Government would like a good turnout. They are taking measures in this Bill and elsewhere to encourage people to participate democratically. I hope that the Under-Secretary is listening not only to his Whip but to the power of this argument, and that he will accept amendment No. 27 or, if not, return with his own amendment on Report.

Mr. Leslie

This is an interesting debate, but I am conscious of the hour, so I shall try to keep my remarks brief.

Clause 4 is needed because the 2000 Act does not set a technical referendum period, but leaves it to be set by the provisions of another Act; hence it appears in the Bill. The Conservative amendment would require the Secretary of State to take account of advice from the Electoral Commission before making the order setting the referendum period. Although the 2000 Act does not explicitly set out how a referendum period is to be determined, it sets a timetable for designating assistance to the official yes and no campaigns. It also sets out arrangements for the date of the poll. Taken together, those periods in effect give a standard referendum period of 10 weeks, so in general our intention would be to set that as the referendum period.

Mr. Edward Davey

I am rather concerned that suddenly the Government have turned volte face, and having criticised the Liberal Democrats for wanting more consultation and discussion, they now want to delay and extend these times, when we requested a minimum campaign of a mere six weeks.

Mr. Leslie

I am troubled by the anti-democratic tendencies of the Liberal Democrats in seeking to curtail a fair and reasonable campaign period. I believe that 10 weeks strikes the right balance, and in any case—this answers the questions asked by the hon. Member for Runnymede and Weybridge (Mr. Hammond)—it is for the Government to decide the referendum period, subject of course to parliamentary scrutiny.

Mr. Kevan Jones

Does my hon. Friend agree that 10 weeks is a good length of time to ensure that the campaign receives both the vigorous debate that we want and the maximum turnout in a region? The Liberal Democrats' view reinforces their anti-democratic stance in being opposed to all postal ballots.

Mr. Leslie

That was indeed a very worrying development among Liberal Democrat Members in the Standing Committee. Their expressed intention to turn their face against all postal ballots calls into question the very title of their political party, but we should leave that for another day.

Mr. Swayne

Will the Minister give way?

Mr. Leslie

I cannot resist the hon. Gentleman.

Mr. Swayne

The Minister is very generous. I entirely understand the argument for a 10-week campaign. It will clearly be advantageous to have such a long campaign, particularly for the no campaign because previously, of course, the Government were able to distribute information in a way that the no campaign was not, and it gave them a good start. However, why will the Minister not include in the Bill his choice of campaign length, or at least give an indication of it? As someone who questions the whole enterprise, I ask him to imagine that campaign—those 10 weeks of misery and exhaustion.

Mr. Leslie

If only I had time to detail what we learned about the hon. Gentleman in Committee and his history of fending off allegations of rigging ballots in Scotland. I know that he was given an honourable discharge—[Interruption.]

The First Deputy Chairman

Order.

Mr. Leslie

On amendment No. 47, if we are to use the expected 10-week period, what is the point of requiring the Electoral Commission to provide advice on the issue? In effect, it would be required to second-guess why the 10-week period is implicit in the Political Parties, Elections and Referendums Act. The amendment is unnecessary, but of course we are happy to discuss with the commission any practical implications of a longer or shorter campaign. However, I do not see the case for enshrining in statute the need to seek its advice on our intentions.

The hon. Member for Kingston and Surbiton (Mr. Davey) tabled a reasonably probing amendment in amendment No. 27. While in theory it is possible to shorten the designated period for an official campaign, I cannot see that there are circumstances that would lead us to set a referendum period significantly shorter than the 10-week period I mentioned earlier. We would not wish to do so, and even if we did and went for a period of less than 10 weeks, an order would have to be introduced, debated and receive assent in both Houses. No doubt, tough questions would have to be answered then.

Mr. Hilton Dawson (Lancaster and Wyre)

In looking at the referendum period, will my hon. Friend consider the paucity of the Opposition's argument against regional government, particularly in the north-west of England? Can we be spared the ordeal of having to campaign too long against the Opposition's absurd posturing, particularly as some hon. Members are inclined to use the privileges of the House to attack people outside it?

Mr. Leslie

I suspect that there is a longer story to be told, but I tend to agree with my hon. Friend. Amendment No. 27 is unlikely to have much practical effect and, together with amendment No. 47, is unnecessary. I therefore urge the hon. Members for Runnymede and Weybridge and for Kingston and Surbiton not to press them further.

Mr. Hammond

We have had an interesting debate. I am not sure that I followed the intervention of the hon. Member for Lancaster and Wyre (Mr. Dawson), but generally I am never quite sure that I do. My hon. Friend the Member for New Forest, West (Mr. Swayne) was indeed the culprit in the case to which the Minister referred, lest hon. Members fear that any outside party was being impugned.

The Government are once again giving themselves extraordinary power and, in this case, do not even want to take advice. In our debate on clause 1 we did not get a chance to talk about the amendment that would delete subsection (9). I know that you would not want me to cover that ground now, Mrs. Heal. Effectively, however, as the Bill stands, once the Government see how the land lies, they have the power in a run-up to the referendum to cancel it. If, a couple of weeks from a referendum, things are looking a bit iffy, the Secretary of State, under clause 1(9), can simply call it off, which is an extraordinarily flexible power. At the other end of the process, he has complete flexibility in setting when the referendum period should begin.

The Minister told us that he would normally expect that period to last 10 weeks. The initial and understandable reaction of my hon. Friend the Member for New Forest, West was that that is a long time. However, we must bear in mind the fact that the Government, until the referendum period begins, will have free reign to distribute literature and information supporting their position and the case for elected regional assemblies without the no campaign being able to respond and distribute counter-information.

Perhaps 10 weeks is the right period. I am happy to concede to the Minister that that may be about right, but why does he not write it into the Bill? The unconstrained power of the Secretary of State to determine the start of the period, the end of the period and, having called a referendum, whether to let it go ahead or not, under the terms of clause 1(9), seems an excessive amount of discretion for the Secretary of State to have.

I invite the Minister to consider the impact on local government and other institutions in the region while such a campaign is going on. There will be serious disruption.

Mr. Swayne

Does my hon. Friend consider that it would be helpful to the Committee if the Minister gave an indication of the circumstances under which it would be proper to have a campaign of less than the 10 weeks that he suggested, and the circumstances under which it would be proper for the campaign to last longer than that?

Mr. Hammond

I am sure that that would have been helpful to the Committee. If the Minister wanted to intervene on me, I should be happy to take such an intervention.

To return to the point about the disruptive effect of the campaign, that will be the final straw in the long disruption created by the whole process: the Secretary of State's consultation, then—most disruptive of all—the boundary committee's work, the jockeying for position, and the political battles that will be fought between districts and counties over the various combinations of unitary authority solutions that might or might not be proposed. All that will be a huge distraction from the issue that really matters to the people of this country—the delivery of good quality public services. That is what they want their local authorities to focus on. That is what they want their county councils, unitary councils and metropolitan borough councils to focus on.

That is what people would like the Government to focus on, instead of diverting their attention time and again to the pet project of some Minister or other and leaving the public to look in dismay at the innumerable broken promises and missed targets that represent the Government's abysmal failure to improve the delivery of public services, especially in those parts of the country that have suffered a further squeeze as a result of the Minister's appalling recent local government settlement.

My hon. Friend the Member for New Forest, West raised the important question of the circumstances in which it might be appropriate for the Minister to propose a period longer than 10 weeks or shorter than 10 weeks. The Minister could speculate endlessly on different scenarios that might or might not arise in relation to any particular referendum. [Interruption.] No, I am sorry to disappoint the Minister; I shall not speculate endlessly on those scenarios. I do not need to, because I have proposed the solution: that the Electoral Commission should advise the Secretary of State of the appropriate referendum period, taking into account all the relevant factors.

The Electoral Commission, working from the Minister's preferred period of 10 weeks, and the period of approximately 10 weeks implied in the Political Parties, Elections and Referendums Act 2000, would be able to consider any particular circumstances in relation to the particular regional referendum in question, to decide whether there were any circumstances that called for a shorter period or, conversely, a longer period.

Mr. Swayne

I entirely agree with my hon. Friend that his proposal is the best way of solving the problem. None the less, while it would not be possible for the Minister to speculate endlessly about the circumstances that might apply in respect of a shorter or longer period, he might at least give us the benefit of his speculation for five minutes.

11 pm

Mr. Hammond

I would be most willing to take a short intervention from the Minister, but he does not seem willing to confide to the Committee his innermost thoughts.

My proposal would ensure that, having taken into account any particular and pertinent circumstances in a region, the Electoral Commission would give its advice to the Secretary of State. I can inform the Committee that during the Standing Committee deliberations, we ascertained that the Electoral Commission has clearly stated that it will always be its intention to place in the public domain advice that it gives to the Secretary of State in connection with the Bill, principally by placing it on its website. That is significant because, as the Bill stands, the Secretary of State will take a decision on his own in accordance with criteria that will be invisible to the watching public and Members of the House. He will do so on the basis of information and advice provided to him by the Electoral Commission, which will be available to members of the public to analyse, so the decision that he takes will be capable of being scrutinised in the light of that advice. While I do not suggest that that is a likely outcome—indeed, I would not advocate such a scenario and I hope that it does not come to that, as I for one am anxious not to increase the litigious tendency of our society—it would, at least in theory, ensure that the Secretary of State's decision was practically capable of judicial review where he had not taken the advice of the Electoral Commission or where his decision was clearly at odds with the advice that it had given.

Mr. Leslie

rose—

Mr. Hammond

I am delighted to see that the Minister at last wishes to intervene. Perhaps he will share with the Committee his thoughts about the circumstances in which a longer or shorter period might be appropriate.

Mr. Leslie

I can certainly share my view about having a longer or shorter period, as I believe in making all contributions as short as possible. The hon. Gentleman is clearly stringing out his contribution to make it as long as possible, so that we will go to the wire on the very last occasion when we will have to sit until this hour on a Wednesday. I think that it is important that we note that point.

Mr. Hammond

It is important that we note what the Minister has said. I am prepared to make a small bet with him that this will not be the last time when we are debating in the Chamber at 11 o'clock on a Wednesday, because I suspect that the Government will find that in their rush to get legislation through the House, they may occasionally have to ask some of their long-suffering Back Benchers to stay a little longer in future than they think they have been promised. However, time will tell.

The problem with this debate, as the Minister knows, is not only the overall timetable, but the intermediate guillotines, which have meant that although the rather small issue with which the amendments deal has perhaps had adequate time for debate, discussion of some of the very significant issues that had to be dealt with earlier in the evening was curtailed and at least two major groups of amendments were not debated. That is a disgrace.

Having listened to what the Minister said and having—I hope—made my views well known to the Committee, I shall not seek to press the amendment to a Division. I say to the Minister, however, that when we have studied the precise implications of a longer or shorter period, we will return to the issue on Report, possibly by tabling an amendment seeking directly to constrain the Secretary of State's flexibility, rather than simply to pass the issue over to the Electoral Commission for advice. I beg to ask leave to withdraw the amendment.

Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.

Question proposed, That the clause stand part of the Bill.

Mr. Swayne

I have one question for the Minister on clause stand part. Will he explain the status of the order and tell us what opportunities will be afforded to us for its scrutiny?

Mr. Leslie

It is a statutory instrument. The clause is self-explanatory.

Question put and agreed to.

Clause 4 ordered to stand part of the Bill.

Bill (Clauses 1 to 4) reported, without amendment; to lie upon the Table.