House of Commons Hansard Debates for 21 Feb 1992

Mr. Taylor : I am grateful for that intervention, which underlines my concern about referendums being a good way of doing things. I am grateful for the hon. Gentleman's help in furthering my argument. At Maastricht, we further developed something on which we were already clearly set. We have broadened the debate by showing that we can move towards ever- closer union with the peoples of Europe without being solely constrained within the treaty of Rome and the institutions set up under it. But the principle of our co-operation within the European Community, the principle that we are a stronger nation through that co-operation and the principle that the European Community and European union are a strong defence of the interests of ourselves and European partners in a difficult world, were decided when we joined in the 1970s. It is not a question that can be put to the British people at each stage of the fulfilment of that path. The original question was put, and I should like to ensure that, under our presidency later this year, the nature, development and character of the Community are heavily influenced by a Conservative Government so that the things for which I stand are better reflected than they would be if the Labour party were in charge of the country. That is the real debate and question before the House.

12.15 pm

Mr. George Robertson (Hamilton) : The House listened with proper attention to the hon. Member for Aldridge-Brownhills (Mr. Shepherd), who moved the Second Reading eloquently, passionately and with conviction. Having heard him in similar debates, I know that that is characteristic of him.

As the hon. Gentleman argued with that passion, the right hon. Member for Finchley (Mrs. Thatcher) sat two rows behind him. I wondered why she found it impossible to include him in her Government, especially given some of the Ministers whom she included. I pay him the compliment that he would have been much better than many of those whom she preferred, but the right hon. Lady has not stayed long enough to express a view on the Bill, so we shall watch the Division list with considerable interest.

The House should not be charmed or captivated by the arguments that the hon. Member for Aldridge-Brownhills advanced, however passionately he did so. I do not believe that the House should support the Bill and I shall explain why.

The subject had a higher profile when the hon. Member chose it for his private Member's Bill. It had the celebrity backing of the right hon. Member for Finchley, of, rather surprisingly, the right hon. Member for Yeovil (Mr. Ashdown) and of my right hon. Friend the Member for Chesterfield (Mr. Benn)--a fairly glittering array of supporters, not all of whom are in the House today to support it. Things have moved on slightly, although the arguments still exist. It was interesting to see the hon. Member for Esher (Mr. Taylor), surrounded by his hon. Friends, use the most technical description. I recall the old story of being surrounded by one's enemies and looking across at

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one's opponents, but differences exist on both sides. The subject divides the country, but not as widely as people suggest, and certainly there are passionate views within the parties. The hon. and learned Member for Montgomery (Mr. Carlile) does not reflect the entire view of the Liberal Democratic party. Its spokesman on European affairs made it clear that he did not agree with the idea of a referendum on the Maastricht treaty. But the issues are important and this is a valuable debate, especially as most hon. Members who are in the Chamber populate European debates, as I have for many years.

One aspect of this continuing debate that worries me is the view that what is wrong with the European Community, the European Communities Act 1972, the European Communities (Amendment) Act 1986 and what undoubtedly will be European Communities further amendment Act in the new Parliament is that we shall be told what to do by foreigners. In the article that he wrote in The Guardian the hon. Member for Aldridge-Brownhills said :

"The search for consent that is particular to Britain can be gainsaid by a combination of other nations who neither share our language, common law or common public opinion."

It is as if the cultural difference between those on the continent who might outvote us in terms of qualified majority voting and ourselves was the real root of the objection to the pooling of sovereignty to which the hon. Gentleman is so violently opposed. However, I do not associate him with the ideas of others. The hon. Member for Stockport (Mr. Favell) said that he could speak with conviction because he was half German. He said that the Germans never go to a picnic without wanting to run it. Even the comments of my hon. Friend the Member for Bolsover (Mr. Skinner) in the context of other peoples and other nations might have been found objectionable not only to the House or to his party but perhaps to the law itself. I worry that we may be considering the issue in terms of this country versus other nations, as distinct from other people. The Bill is not about the principle of referendums. The hon. Member for Aldridge- Brownhills made that clear at the beginning. It is a Bill about treaties and relates specifically to the treaty negotiated and signed at Maastricht. We are not holding a generalised debate about the benefits of a referendum on specific subjects--we are talking about the Maastricht treaty and it is to Maastricht that we must look.

The question to be decided is only whether a referendum is the appropriate way to take a decision on the Maastricht treaty or whether that decision is more properly to be taken by Parliament itself. Consequential legislation will be necessary for the treaty and we are told that it can only come and will only come in the new Parliament after the general election. Therefore, the next Parliament will have the decisive say on whether this country will subscribe to the treaty signed on behalf of Her Majesty by the Foreign Secretary and the Financial Secretary to the Treasury two weeks ago in the Dutch town of Maastricht.

Clearly, the treaty is significant. It is far reaching and has wide implications but it is not, contrary to what the hon. Member for Aldridge- Brownhills said, irrevocable and irreversible. No treaty can be or will be.

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Mr. Cash : The hon. Gentleman has made a most outrageous statement, which shows that he has not read the protocol on the transition to the third stage. It refers clearly and unequivocally to

"the irreversible character of the Community's movement to the third stage of Economic and Monetary Union."

Furthermore, it states that whether or not we

"fulfil the necessary conditions for the adoption of a single currency",

all member states shall carry out these obligations and no member states

"shall prevent the entering into the third stage."

It continues that that stage will be entered into irrevocably on 1 January 1999. So what on earth is the hon. Gentleman talking about?

Mr. Robertson : If the hon. Gentleman wishes to make the political point about why it was signed, he will no doubt direct that question to the Minister who will inevitably participate in the debate. However, despite the political declaration and the treaty commitment involved, there is no obligation on this or any Government to continue within any treaty if they do not desire to do so. Greenland has already opted out of the European Community as a whole, so there is no irrevocable commitment involved other than in the political context of signing the treaty and giving the political commitment to proceed with whatever has been entered into. Any future Parliament will be in a position to revoke this or any other treaty. Instead of dancing around on the head of a constitutional pin, we must get down to the fine points.

Sir Teddy Taylor rose --

Mr. Robertson : I intend to deal with a number of issues. I know that the hon. Gentleman--

Sir Teddy Taylor : Tell the truth about Greenland.

Mr. Robertson : Greenland left the European Community. They decided to do so and were allowed to do so.

So far in this debate we have spoken of the constitutional purity of this country. I worry about being able to represent my constituents, whether it be in Scotland, the United Kingdom or Europe. In the context of the way in which this country is run, it is extremely important that we ensure that we are able to do so, but how are we to ensure within United Kingdom laws that that will have a firm place? How can we wholly regulate the air that we breathe? We no longer live in a country which is finite or which has complete integrity over the air that can waft across the channel. If it proved nothing else, the explosion of Chernobyl showed how vulnerable and interdependent we are on the continent of Europe.

What sovereignty does this country still have over the money markets which in many ways determine the economic environment in which we live? What real power does the Chancellor of the Exchequer have over interest rate policy in a European Community where there are dominant economies? What absolute sovereignty have we over environmental pollution, over the water we drink and over our beaches? What total and absolute sovereignty are we defending over the activities of multinational companies?

Mr. Shore : My hon. Friend is talking the most arrant nonsense. It is simple propaganda. He knows perfectly well that if we were not in the exchange rate mechanism

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now, we would have a real choice about not only interest rates but exchange rates. The idea that that is not true is quite misleading.

Mr. Robertson : My right hon. Friend is entitled to his opinion. If it is his opinion that we would have absolute control over our interest rate policy if we were outside the ERM, I beg to differ. The United States and Japan have control over their interest rate policies, and if we had an economy as strong as those of the United States and of Japan, we would have more control over ours than we do. It is a fantasy that there is an economic sovereignty out there that we can simply leap to if we leave the ERM or the embrace of the European Community. We cannot go in that direction. One of the signal features about those who preach against development of the European Community and further integration with Europe is that they do not provide a sensible alternative for Britain outside the way in which we are going.

Rev. Ian Paisley (Antrim, North) : I am listening carefully to the hon. Gentleman, but I find it hard to reconcile what he is saying about the powers of the Front Bench with what the leader of his party is telling us about the Prime Minister and his responsibility for the recession that we are in. The two do not square up.

Mr. Robertson : Of course they square up, because although we live in an interdependent European economy, individual Governments can take measures to relieve the plight of their population. The recession in this country is not nearly as bad as it is in the other countries of the European Community and a major responsibility for that lies in the hands of those in this Government who have controlled our economic policy for the past 13 years. They cannot get away with excusing the iniquities from which our people suffer on the ground that it is all due to world economic conditions.

There is no constitutional blockage to the holding of referendums, and I am not suggesting that there should be. We have had four referendums so far, and I played a part in two of them. I did not play a part in the one in Northern Ireland or the one in Wales, but in 1975 I played a part in the referendum on the European Community in which the result was a 2 : 1 majority in favour of continued membership. However, this debate, like the many other debates in the intervening period, shows that the referendum did not end the arguments.

In 1979, there was a referendum on the Scotland Bill, which resulted in a majority in favour of change. Because of the rules that were imposed and because of the withdrawal of support by the Scottish National party, the will of the Scottish people was never put into effect, and the argument has not stopped. The debate goes on--the referendum did not resolve the issue.

When we approach the question that would be the basis of the referendum advocated by the hon. Member for Aldridge-Brownhills serious practical issues have to be addressed. What question will be put? The hon. Gentleman might have some idea, but it is not answered simply.

Mr. Favell : Will the hon. Gentleman give way?

Mr. Robertson : No, I will not give way at the moment.

Are the electorate to be given a whole copy of the treaty--the yellow document that has been waved about so much today--because if so, the purple document would

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have to go along as well. People would need to make up their minds on all the available information if they are to be asked only about the treaty. Will the question be about the principle of economic and monetary union? Although the hon. Member for Aldridge- Brownhills is more concerned about constitutional issues and the political union aspect of the treaty, others have their own interests such as the single currency and monetary union. Will the question be about the timetable to monetary union or about the United Kingdom's right to opt out?

Will the question be about the increased powers for the European Parliament, although those powers will at least give back to the representatives of the people the accountability for decisions that the European Single Act took from them and handed to the Council of Ministers? Will the question relate to the increase in qualified majority voting?

Mr. Richard Shepherd : The hon. Gentleman said that he had taken part in two referendums, including the one in which both he and I took part --that on continued membership of the Community, or the Common Market as it was then called, on the basis of the renegotiated terms. There is nothing complex about referendums. We could ask the simple question, "Do you wish to accept the Maastricht treaty?" It is the duty of the campaign to inform, to advise and to set out the argument, just as it is in every general election campaign. We shall be putting in front of the electorate complex arguments on the ERM, monetary policy and a whole range of policies. Through that educative process, listening to what the Leader of the Opposition and my right hon. Friend the Prime Minister will say, the people will make a judgment. These are highly complex issues, but the questions can be simple.

Mr. Robertson : I do not disagree with the ballot box, and the sooner that we get to it, the better it will be for the country. This Government have been running away from the ballot box for well over a year. The opportunity and the demand have been there, but the Government have had no desire to go anywhere near the ballot box. I have nothing to fear from the ballot box or from the complicated issues. I will simply put the issues and explain the complexities of the questions that might be put and then return to what I believe to be the sensible way in which to deal with questions of such seriousness and complexity.

Majority voting was not introduced by the Maastricht treaty--indeed, the increase in qualified majority voting in the Maastricht treaty was tiny in comparison to the extension of qualified majority voting that came with the Single European Act. The right hon. Member for Finchley, who graced us with a brief appearance earlier, was responsible not just for the signing of the Single European Act but for ramming the legislation through the House on a guillotine without allowing us a major debate on the points that we wanted to discuss. Is what the Maastricht treaty says on common foreign and security policy different from the general principle that we conceded when we signed the North Atlantic treaty in 1949 ? How will immigration and asylum policies be developed in a continent facing all the pressures of increased immigration that may result from the economic instability in eastern Europe ? Should there be a question

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about the social chapter opt-out that the Government have signed, which has led to our isolation on a whole series of issues ? Those are some of the complications that might be involved in the questions. Those are the difficulties which would be faced by anyone seeking to draft a question to put before the British people. The real question is whether there should be one omnibus question in one referendum or whether it should be the role of Members of Parliament to weigh up all the issues involved, to judge their effect and then to be judged, as all hon. Members are, at a subsequent election. Those who demand a referendum-- and those who associate themselves with that demand through their hostility to the European Community as a whole, which is not necessarily the view of the hon. Member for Aldridge-Brownhills--on the one hand attack Europe because it has taken power, or will seek to take power, away from the Westminster Parliament while, on the other, they happily argue for Westminster to be robbed of its crucial function of weighing up the issues on behalf of the people. That is one of our weightiest roles. Sometimes we are blinded by the visibility of the accountability of the House, believing that it is the only form of accountability that matters. Because we are part of it, and because television now takes our image into households, we may think that this is all that accountability means. We must look deep down to where the decisions are being taken and where accountability properly lies.

Surely the time has come to stop this endless and uniquely British debate on the theology of being in or getting out of Europe, or being half-in or half-out of Europe--whether we will accept this proposal or that proposal in the legislation. The real issue before the people of this country is what we must do to make the European Community work for Britain and the whole of Europe in a tough and merciless world. Only Britain spends so much of its time pulling up the plant endlessly to examine the roots. Others in the Community are going ahead, working out how to get the best deal and, often, how to get the rules adopted to suit themselves. We inevitably come in belatedly and have to accept the rules on which others have decided. The Maastricht treaty will be a step forward to a more integrated, perhaps closer and in some ways more sensible Europe. It is not perfect. We have made known our objections to what the Prime Minister negotiated at Maastricht. It is not a final step in European integration--it cannot even be described as a decisive step. The opt-out clauses that the Government negotiated will limit Britain's opportunities to influence the European Community to our benefit. The Labour party will take Europe seriously. In only six or seven weeks' time, we will join the mainstream of Europe and set about ensuring that Europe is developed in a way that will suit all the British people.

12.39 pm

The Minister of State, Foreign and Commonwealth Office (Mr. Tristan Garel-Jones) : I have a difficult task to perform because, on the onhand I want to address the points raised by my hon. Friend the Member for Aldridge-Brownhills (Mr. Shepherd) and, on the other hand, I am conscious of the fact that many of my hon. Friends have been present in the Chamber throughout the

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debate and I do not wish to detain the House at great length. As hon. Members will be aware, sometimes one is urged to do that from other quarters.

I hope that it will meet with the approval of hon. Members on both sides of the House if I first address the general question of referendums and the constitutional questions that they raise. The hon. Member for Hamilton (Mr. Robertson) was not quite accurate when he said that this debate is entirely about the Maastricht treaty. Of course, that underlies what my hon. Friend the Member for Aldridge-Brownhills is seeking to do. However, the hon. Member for Newham, South (Mr. Spearing), who shares the scepticism and reserve of my hon. Friend the Member for Aldridge-Brownhills, focused his remarks on the problems of referendums and their constitutional issues.

My hon. Friend the Member for Aldridge-Brownhills and I became hon. Members at the same time. It is not unfair to say that we have pursued different career paths over the past 10 or 15 years. However, in all honesty, I must say that I am not absolutely confident that, when our grandchildren consider our particular contributions in this place, my contribution will necessarily be more memorable than my hon. Friend's. He has a reputation in the House for being a courageous and passionate libertarian. Even though in my former guise as a quasi-parliamentary policeman he and I had a number of encounters, I gave him nothing but respect in those exchanges. The respect for the passionate way in which he introduced the debate and for the quality of his arguments is shared by Members on both sides of the House.

I am bound to say that today's debate will not be as lengthy or detailed as the debate that took place on 11 March 1975 on whether to hold a referendum on continued membership of the Community. Today's debate has provided an opportunity for the House to canter round the course a bit, but this debate will not be as lengthy or as detailed as that debate in 1975. As my hon. Friends will recall, the Conservative Opposition in those days did not support the case for a referendum then and the Conservative Government today do not support this Bill.

In reducing my remarks considerably, I should refer to the constitutional history of our country and I could quote Dicey and others at length. We have heard a great deal about the will and consent of the people and that matter concerns all hon. Members. Our vital connection to our constituents is important. Although hon. Members may not be surprised by what I am about to say, the people referred to by the hon. and learned Member for Montgomery (Mr. Carlile) may be surprised. The hon. and learned Gentleman seems to believe that scrutiny is better and the democratic deficit is closed under proportional representation.

There are arguments in favour of proportional representation, but that is not one of them. Many of our partners in the Community who have very sophisticated forms of proportional representation have not discussed such issues with the depth and passion that we have discussed them today. Indeed, in some of those countries, they have barely have been discussed at all. It may surprise people in those countries--although it will not surprise hon. Members--to learn that even while I was accompanying my right hon. Friend the Prime Minister and my right hon. Friend the Foreign Secretary in Maastricht, I had to deal with an urgent constituency case

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on the Monday by telephone. As I have said, it will come as no surprise to any hon. Member that, as we return in aircraft, my right hon. Friend the Foreign Secretary profits from our return to deal with his constituency correspondence.

Mr. Michael Spicer (Worcestershire, South) : I may be doing my right hon. Friend a great injustice, but am I right in saying that, in the past, he has been in favour of proportional representation? Do his remarks suggest that he has changed his mind?

Mr. Garel-Jones : I have never supported proportional representation, and I rather resent the supporters of proportional representation describing it as a fairer system. It is not a fairer system ; it is a different system. It has the disadvantage of facilitating entry into Parliament by smaller parties. The national hurdle that is provided by the first-past-the-post system is rather good. It is one of the reasons why extremist parties--communists, fascists and others--have always failed to achieve representation in the House. I do not put that as total rebuttal, but I do not think that the arguments are balanced. I have always favoured the first-past-the-post system, not least because of the link which is important to all of us--that umbilical cord that links us to our constituents and, through them, to the sovereignty that we collectively exercise on behalf of our constituents.

Rather than parading masses of quotations from Burke, Wilkes and others, I shall focus on the referendum that took place in 1975, to which the right hon. Member for Bethnal Green and Stepney (Mr. Shore) referred as a great battle. I call it a great defeat. It was a defeat for the House and for the Government of the day. It is worth remembering that we had that referendum because the Government of the day were split from top to bottom on the issue and were incapable of taking a decision on it. Of course my hon. Friend the Member for Aldridge-Brownhills is not proposing anything innovative. Every Parliament and every Government may, if the circumstances suit it in the background of general public opinion, call a referendum. It was interesting that, when my hon. Friend the Member for Esher (Mr. Taylor) claimed on behalf of that side of the campaign which he and, indeed, I supported at the time that we had won, four or five of my hon. Friends and four or five Opposition Members immediately rose. I shall analyse that referendum and some of the questions, problems and difficulties that arise from it.

One matter is how to make sure that the electorate is fully informed when asked to judge, in the simple yes-no, in-out way, a complex nexus of issues. That matter has also been touched upon. Hon. Members may recall that, in 1975, there were three leaflets--a "yes" leaflet, a "no" leaflet, and a Government leaflet. They were distributed by post in the last 10 days of May. A Harris poll asked voters which leaflets they had seen, which they had read from cover to cover, and which they had found of help to them in making their decision. Eighty two per cent. of voters had seen the "yes" leaflet, 73 per cent. had seen the "no" leaflet, and 71 per cent. had seen the Government leaflet. About a quarter of voters had read each leaflet from cover to cover, but only 10 per cent. of voters found that the "yes" leaflet had helped their understanding of the issue, falling to only 8 per cent. for the "no" leaflet, and a measly 6 per cent. for the Government leaflet. That shows an

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understandable reaction. People generally show little concern for the fine print of complex and, frankly, rather dry legislation. They place their trust in their elected representatives, whose job it is to ensure that the small print is not detrimental to the interests of constituents. That is the basis of parliamentary democracy. During the debate, my hon. Friend the Member for

Aldridge-Brownhills raised an important matter about the subsidiarity test. My hon. Friends may have seen that I went across the Chamber to discuss the matter with him. It would take too long to give him an adequate reply to that important point. It would probably take about 10 or 15 minutes to address why the placing of the last sentence of article 3b as a separate paragraph rather than an integral part of the second paragraph was a matter which exercised our lawyers and lawyers in the Federal Republic with whom we were working on the matter for a considerable number of months. It is an important issue, but it is a narrow matter in the treaty and if I had addressed it I would have left many of my hon. Friends unanswered. That is one illustration of the complexity

Mr. Richard Shepherd : But that is what happens in a general election.

Mr. Garel-Jones : Of course it is. That is why all general elections contain within them an element of doctor's mandate. I do not know whether the hon. Member for Newham, South or another hon. Member referred to the election in 1931. British people are very sophisticated. They know perfectly well when they vote in a general election that there are some firm policies about which they can be clear, but that there is also an element of doctor's mandate.

Mr. Shepherd : There was a specific example. When Baldwin won the election with a majority in 1931, he said that he must go to the country on tariff reform. He went specifically on that issue and lost. But it was a specific mandate. He responded to the principle in our constitutional practice of the time that one should seek a specific mandate on major constitutional or big issues. I tried to give the examples of the mandates achieved in 1832, 1910 and the early 1930s.

Mr. Garel-Jones : I was referring not to Baldwin's mandate but to Ramsay MacDonald's efforts to achieve a doctor's mandate or doctor's prescription, as it was called. In a sense, the point both reinforces my argument that such matters can be resolved in a general election and makes the point that the issues are complicated and it is difficult to reduce to a simple yes-no answer the complexity of issues not only in the Maastricht treaty but connected with our very membership of the Community.

Of course, I agree with my hon. Friend that the British electorate are extremely sophisticated and able to make their own judgments. I do not suggest for one moment that one can argue against referendums on the basis that the British people are incapable of understanding the issues and making up their minds. I simply argue that the issues are complex and that the evidence that I gave from 1975 of the way in which the leaflets were read and the opinion of their helpfulness among the public makes one pause to consider.

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We should also consider whether the 1975 referendum managed, as my hon. Friend would seek to do, to isolate the issue of EC membership from other issues in the mind of the electorate. Michael Steed writing in The Economist on 14 June 1975 set out to analyse voting patterns across the country. The yes vote varied from 70 per cent. or more in the south to 30 per cent. in the Western Isles. His conclusion was that within a small margin of error people tended to vote along party lines and broadly reflected the yes-no split within each political party.

So what was gained from the 1975 referendum? It has been plausibly argued by some that the referendum was detrimental to the country. Parliamentary life ground to a halt. Politicians took to the campaign trail and the Government were distracted from tackling the real issues. The Labour Government of the day were beset by the most appalling problems of economic mismanagement and so forth and were distracted from them, which caused commentators to feel--as the press commented--that the referendum had been a luxury that the Government and the country could ill afford. Interest in the referendum soon waned.

Mr. John Marshall (Hendon, South) rose --

Mr. Cash rose --

Mr. Garel-Jones : I must finish this point and then I shall give way. I expect that my hon. Friends are seeking to take part in the debate. I am trying to reduce my remarks to ensure that other hon. Members may have the opportunity to speak, but I shall certainly give way if I may first develop the argument.

Interest in the referendum soon waned and it was reduced almost to the status of a sideshow. Even the press showed little enthusiasm. I took the trouble to have that fact investigated. In the four weeks before polling day only 17.5 per cent. of lead stories in national daily newspapers referred to the referendum. Other issues took precedence--a railway strike, a strike at ITV, the sterling crisis, record inflation under a Labour Government and even the Bay City Rollers. On polling day that admirable organ of opinion the Daily Mail chose to lead with the news of new export orders to Saudi Arabia.

We have had one referendum and it merits analysis. The phrasing of the question caused a lot of trouble in 1975 and it was again apparent today that phrasing the question remains a matter of controversy. Even on such an apparently simple issue as in or out of the Community, could the wording of the question sufficiently affect the answer? Opinion polls were held prior to the referendum to try to find out whether that was so. At the beginning of February 1975, NOP asked a series of differently worded questions and recorded the majority of yes voters over those who would vote no for each question. For example, to the question,

"Do you accept the Government's recommendation that the United Kingdom should come out of the Common Market?"

the yes vote had a majority of 0.2 per cent. For the simple question,

"Should the United Kingdom come out of the Common Market?" the figure rose to 4.6 per cent. and for the straight choice "In/Out" the figure was 10.8 per cent. Another set of questions were asked. To the question,

"Should the United Kingdom stay in the Common Market?"

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the yes vote had a majority of 13.2 per cent.; to the question, "Do you accept the Government's recommendations that the United Kingdom should stay in the Common Market?"

the yes vote had a majority of 18.2 per cent.; to the question, "The Government recommends the acceptance of the renegotiated terms of British membership of the Common Market. Should the United Kingdom stay in the Common Market?"

it was 11.2 per cent., and finally,

"Her Majesty's Government believe that the nation's best interests would be served by accepting the favourably renegotiated terms of our continued membership of the Common Market. Should the United Kingdom stay in the Common Market?"

had a 16.2 per cent. majority for the yes option over the no option.

The hon. Member for Newham, South--I do not think that anyone in the House would accuse him of being a Euro-federalist or a

Euro-freak--sought to draw our attention to those inherent problems associated with referendums.

Mr. Gill : My right hon. Friend offers a good intellectual argument in favour of the Government's position. Does he not accept that the constituency that he should be tackling consists of all those millions of electors outside this place who will be asking themselves, "Why are the Government and our national politicians refusing to give us, the people, an opportunity to express our views on what we regard to be the most important constitutional issue of our lifetime?"

Mr. Garel-Jones : My hon. Friend places me in something of a dilemma. I do not regard myself as, and I do not think that anyone who spends any time working actively in the Community could be, what we would define as a Euro-enthusiast. Nevertheless, I broadly wish to make it work and think that it is in the interests of our country. I am tempted by my hon. Friend's proposition, because I have no doubt that, were a referendum to be held, an overwhelming majority of the British people, in the exercise of their common sense, would vote for the treaty.

Mr. Michael Carttiss (Great Yarmouth) : Will my right hon. Friend give way?

Mr. Garel-Jones : I shall give way in a moment.

My concern is much wider. Looking back on history, I shall refrain from examining the referendum on devolution in Scotland. Confident though I am that the result would reinforce my views, every time we have such a referendum it is, in a sense, an abdication of responsibility by the House and the Government of the day. This Government intend to make no such abdication of their

responsibilities ; nor do they intend to invite the House to abdicate from its responsibility.

Mr. Cash : Will my right hon. Friend give way?

Mr. Garel-Jones : I hope that my hon. Friend will understand if I do not give way because others, including my hon. Friend the Member for Southend, East (Sir T. Taylor), want to participate in the debate. I do not wish to refuse to give way, but I want to conclude my remarks so that other hon. Members can take part in the debate. The Bill is admirably brief, but I fear that, for this purpose, it may be too brief. It claims that its purpose is simply to

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"Require a national referendum as a precondition of the ratification of certain treaties."

Those treaties are narrowly defined as those relating to the establishment of the European Communities, which would further "diminish the Authority of the Queen in Parliament to regulate the affairs of the United Kingdom".

As the hon. Member for Hamilton said, every time the United Kingdom enters a treaty, our sovereignty and the rights of this House are diminished to some extent. If the Bill proceeds to its Committee stage, some hon. Members may seek to broaden its scope to include, for example, the important constitutional matters mentioned by the hon. and learned Member for Montgomery.

Mr. Harry Barnes (Derbyshire, North-East) : One of the matters to be considered in Committee, if there is to be a full and proper referendum, would be the state of the electoral register on which that referendum would take place. At present, 3 per cent. or more of the electorate is missing from the electoral register. Much has been said about the importance of constituents and how they should be responded to in referendums and parliamentary democracy. Therefore, is not there a need to do something about ensuring that the register is correct? Should not we ensure that it is correct before the next general election?

Mr. Garel-Jones : In order not to detain the House, I suggest that, should the Bill receive a Second Reading, the hon. Gentleman should ask to go on the Committee and make his point there.

Mr. John Marshall : Will my right hon. Friend give way?

Mr. Garel-Jones : Does my hon. Friend seek to take part in the debate later?

Mr. Marshall : No.

Mr. Garel-Jones : In that case, I shall conclude my remarks because some hon. Members have been in the House for the whole morning and I hope that the House will forgive me if I do not give way again. As my hon. Friend the Member for Chichester (Mr. Nelson) said, let us assume that the criterion is fulfilled and a referendum is called. Would there be a campaign to inform people of the true implications of the treaty? I am sure that my hon. Friends and those who take a different view would try to do that. How would the campaign be organised? How could a question be formulated to isolate the issue of the treaty's ratification from the other issues of the day? Asquith said that a

"referendum might be nominally and ostensibly on some particular point"

but that

"You would have the turmoil, the tumult and a large part of the expense of a general election ; and I do not believe it would be possible under these conditions, completely to segregate the particular issue on which the referendum took place, and entirely to ignore the whole of the rest of the field of politics."

Careful analysis of the previous referendum shows that despite the reneging on the responsibilities of this House, and despite the suspending of the Government for three or four weeks, the way that people voted in the end appeared to reflect not just the party splits, but the yes-no split within those parties. The referendum proposal is not only unhelpful, but it flies in the face of our

responsibilities as Members of Parliament.

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