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Mr. Miller: Is the hon. Gentleman arguing that, in a campaign on the euro, for example, part of Conservative party resources should be allocated to promoting the views of the hon. Member for Esher and Walton (Mr. Taylor), which contrast with the hon. Gentleman's own views?
Sir Michael Spicer: I am saying that the Bill is nonsense. I am dealing with unfairness at the moment, but I shall come to questions of logic and principle in a moment.
The leadership of the Labour party suppresses the faction led by the hon. Member for Great Grimsby (Mr. Mitchell). Many Labour Members support views that are diametrically opposite to those held by the party leadership. The fact that parties are alliances is therefore manifest throughout the House.
The same is true of other permitted participants in the referendum campaign, such as the trade unions. Some of the biggest unions--the Transport and General Workers Union, for example, and Unison--have come out against entry to the single currency. However, the established leadership of many of the unions that took part in last year's Trades Union Congress special conference on the matter clearly demonstrated its support for the project. The unions' leadership--and, therefore, the people whom one presumes would apply for the money available under the clause--is committed in one direction, but members are much less convinced. That difference was fudged at the special conference.
It is not surprising that trade union members should be so unhappy about the European question, as 69 per cent. of the entire population share their views. The same fault line runs through most of our institutions, but the Bill provides that overwhelming amounts of money will be collected by organisations whose established leaderships have settled on a particular point of view--in many cases, without the full-blooded support of their members.
The Bill is therefore manifestly unfair to the memberships of the political parties and the other organisations involved in the referendum campaign. The Conservative position is the correct one. Neill looked at the matter very carefully and his arguments are very balanced. He concluded that it would be completely wrong to use political parties as the basis for the allocation of limits on referendum expenses.
The clause throws up something even more fundamental about the Bill. It demonstrates how obsessed the Government are with trying to control spending amounts, and in a way that is unfair. The Bill is sloppy when it comes to other important aspects that it should be addressing, such as the powers of the commission to set
the question. The Government have said that they will look at such matters again, but they have displayed a sloppiness of thinking in that respect. However, that is not the case when it comes to money. The Government are absolutely obsessed about controlling expenditure in a way that could do great harm to the cause of democracy, in so far as it is represented by a referendum.
I support my right hon. and hon. Friends in that it must be right to go down the Neill path. There should be no limits on referendum campaign spending, because they are both appropriate and impossible to apply.
Mr. MacGregor:
I congratulate my right hon. Friend the Member for North-West Hampshire (Sir G. Young) on his speech in opening the debate. He expressed admirably a series of arguments that totally demolished the Government's case. I will not go into some of them in detail because, happily, he has already done so.
I agree with my right hon. Friend that, on Second Reading, the Home Secretary and the Under-Secretary of State for the Home Department, the hon. Member for North Warwickshire (Mr. O'Brien), displayed an openness of mind on the issue. They seemed to be looking to the House to come up with an alternative solution that would meet our objections. We have racked our brains; so has the Neill committee, and so, no doubt, have the Government. No one has an alternative solution except to remove limits on spending. That is the position that we have reached, and I think that it is correct, which means voting against clause 111.
As is well known to those who follow these matters, on the Neill committee I held a minority position on spending on general elections. I took the view that the Neill committee's recommendation to have a spending limit was wrong, and I briefly set out my reasons in the report. Two of those reasons are relevant to this debate. First, I believe that to have spending limits in these crucial areas of national importance is an unwarranted restriction on freedom of speech. Secondly, I believe that the practical difficulties of evasion and enforcement that apply to the general election will apply even more to referendums.
A retired party official, in giving evidence to the Neill committee, said, "Show me a limit and I'll show you how to get round it." Illustrations were given on Second Reading and again tonight on how it is possible to get round a limit. If that is true of general elections--as I think it is--it is true in spades when it comes to putting limits on referendum campaign spending. The Neill committee was unanimously against the idea.
I found it fascinating to go through all the arguments to reach a conclusion. Wryly, I sometimes thought that the arguments justified my desire not to have spending limits on the general election campaign. Leaving aside the point of principle, we all believed that the practical difficulties were such that there was no case for recommending spending limits.
Let me list some of my objections. The first is an objection of principle. Without taking sides in the euro debate, I refer to the issue of the referendum on the single currency. Clearly, that is a crucial national decision, which is, in theory, irreversible. Because of the key importance of that national debate, is it right to set a limit that is less than a company's yearly spending on
marketing detergents? It is astonishing that we cannot even spend as much as is spent on the marketing of one domestic product on that critical national decision.
The nation, not Parliament, is making the decision. In theory, it will be a permanent commitment--unlike a general election, when the nation can change its mind after four or five years. The measure is an unwarranted restriction on, and interference with, freedom of speech and debate on that crucial issue. That is the point of principle.
The practical issues point in the same direction. By and large, a general election is fought by political parties with well-established machines and structures, and expertise in matters such as electoral law. Parties have professional management and staff, who are skilled in dealing with issues such as the control of expenditure, the management of limits and related accounting problems.
That will not happen in a referendum campaign. It may happen for the political parties, but other organisations--whether official ones to which Government funding will be attached or those others listed in the Bill--will be rapidly put together. They will be united by only one thing--the side for which they are fighting in the campaign.
Those units, parties or organisations will hold different points of view. At best, they will have only six months to sort out all the complications of controlling expenditure and managing the limits. In practice, it will not be possible for them to do that. There could be many unintended, innocent breaches--especially in the early stages of the campaign.
The Neill committee dealt with that matter in paragraph 12.46 of our report, which was quoted by my right hon. Friend the Member for North-West Hampshire. The committee's case was based on a long argument, but it is succinctly put in the report. We pointed out that a referendum campaign is not like a general election; it is
The report continued:
When we discussed clause 110, I raised the issue of criminal penalties. I do not refer to the difficulty of recruiting treasurers for political parties. My point is that it will be difficult to recruit someone to take on that key role in an organisation that has been hastily brought together for one particular purpose, for only a short time. If that person does not have the machinery to control the organisation, he will be liable for criminal penalties.
Third-party groups are difficult enough to control in a general election, although that is crucial when there are expenditure limits. It will be much more difficult to control them in a referendum. There will be many little ad hoc groups. The amoeba principle has been referred to in other debates--there will be many ways to breach the limits by setting up different organisations with different names. In effect, the limit will not be properly adhered to in any case.
"more like a free-for-all. Anyone can participate. Many do. The political parties may, or may not, be the principal contestants"--
or may be only in part.
"It is often not known long in advance whether a referendum will take place."
The six-month period that will apply will come upon one suddenly. As I pointed out, those on both sides of the campaign may never have worked together before and would not have the structures to control the machine. Sometimes they might be unwilling to co-operate on expenditure. It would be impractical to undertake such a commitment. The committee summed up the point by stating:
"Adequate accounting procedures would often be impossible to put in place. The administrative apparatus required would resemble one of Heath Robinson's most outlandish contraptions--and would almost certainly not work."
It is not right to introduce an unworkable proposition, which has criminal penalties attached.
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