LORDS AMENDMENT (Hansard, 20 July 1978)

§ Lord McCLUSKEY
My Lords, I beg to move that this House doth not insist on their Amendment No. 109 to which the Commons have disagreed for the Reason numbered 110. In the light of an observation which fell from 603 the noble Lord, Lord Strathcona and Mount Royal, a moment or two ago, this is the only matter which was discussed in another place at such a late hour that it was not reported in the Official Report (Hansard) until today. The other matters, discussed on the 7th July and on Monday and Tuesday, were all available earlier.
The discussion on this matter in the other place is illuminating. Members of the other place, while pleading the cause of fair play, realised and acknowledged that as a matter of everyday practice Ministers promote Government policy on their official travels, and that the expenditure involved in providing an official car, which loomed so large at an earlier stage, is really quite minute. Moreover, if a Minister makes an official tour covering many engagements and many speeches on a variety of subjects, how does one identify the parts of it attributable to devolution? Your Lordships will find that in column 431 the honourable and learned gentleman Mr. Brittan acknowledged, in response to a question asked him by Mr. Sillars, that the Government were indeed entitled to campaign for their policy. He said, when asked that question: The answer, of course, is, Yes". On the substance, I think that is all we are talking about. The Government have made it perfectly clear that what Members have called the Government propaganda machine is not going to be pressed into service. The Government are not going to issue leaflets or buy television time, or anything of that sort. There is a technical objection as well, which again was acknowledged in the other place by, among others, Sir David Renton. Speakers from the Opposition Front and Back-Benches in the other place recognised that the Amendment is technically defective. It is drafted in terms of charges on the Consolidated Fund, whereas the Bill, as will be seen from Clause 76, places the expenses of the referendum on Votes. The Government are being asked to draft a provision which prevents particular expenditure from being carried on a Vote. How can that be done? How could the Scotland Bill prevent Parliament from voting money in the future by the usual Approproation Act procedure? But that is what we are being asked to do. Opponents of the Bill have perhaps become a 604 little obsessed by a misplaced fear that the Government will promote a propaganda campaign, and have overlooked what appear to be the elementary rules of Supply in another place. This Amendment is not acceptable to the Government. I think that if your Lordships read carefully the debate in another place it will be seen that that was widely realised at the end of that debate, and I accordingly beg to move.

Lord CAMPBELL of CROY
My Lords, I think that this Amendment has served its purpose by enabling the whole question of the holding of a referendum to be discussed in another place because there was very little time for this to be discussed when the Bill was before the other place before it came to your Lordships' House. By the Amendments which we put down as probing Amendments in the early stages of this Bill, and then by this one, which was later passed, we were able to elicit from the Government, both in this House and in another place, their ideas as to how the referendum would be held. As there has been only one in this country and the conditions were entirely different, as has been accepted—in that case the Government were providing funds and services to both sides in the controversy—naturally we have been concerned to know what were the Government intentions on this point. What we now know is that there will be an Order-in-Council coming before both Houses of Parliament which will lay down the conditions for the referendum in good time before polling day, and we know now roughly what to expect in that Order-in-Council. So while this Amendment may have defects in it, I think it has enabled discussions in both Houses of Parliament on this subject which was previously shrouded in mystery.

§ Lord MONSON
My Lords, as it is generally agreed by responsible political commentators and by long-standing Members of the Labour Party like the noble Lord, Lord Wigg, that the sole purpose of this particular Bill is to improve the Labour Party's chances in the forthcoming General Election, is it not only right and proper that Ministers' 605 expenses incurred during the referendum campaign, should the referendum take place before the next General Election, should be set off against their allowable Election expenses?