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Clause 112

Control of donations to permitted participants

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

Mr. Walter: Clause 112 is incredibly short; it immediately refers to schedule 14, which is the next item

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on the selection list. It is impossible to consider clause 112 without a fairly detailed reference to schedule 14, so I apologise in advance if I stray into what might be a debate on the next schedule.

Schedule 14 states that it

"has effect for controlling donations to permitted participants other than registered parties."

When we read further into the schedule, it feels as though we are going around in a circle. Clause 112, taken with schedule 14, makes nonsense of this part of the Bill.

Part II of the schedule is headed "Controls on Donations". It states:

"A relevant donation received by a permitted participant must not be accepted by the permitted participant if . . . the person by whom the donation would be made is not, at the time of its receipt by the permitted participant, a permissible donor falling within section 48(2)."

We have referred to clause 48(2) at length in our deliberations. It states that a permissible donor is

"an individual registered in an electoral register; a company . . . registered under the Companies Act 1985 or the Companies (Northern Ireland) Order 1986, and . . . incorporated within the European Union; a registered party; a trade union . . . a friendly society . . . any other unincorporated association of two or more persons which carries on . . . activities wholly or mainly in the United Kingdom and whose main office is there".

Earlier provisions in the measure create a procedure whereby a permitted participant would not be eligible to be a permissible donor. It is okay for a foreigner, a foreign company or a foreign association to be a permitted participant in a referendum campaign, but heaven forbid that any of them should make a contribution to any other permitted participant because that would be an impermissible donation.

The Government need to reconsider clause 112 and schedule 14, because they make nonsense of this part of the Bill. They would create the ridiculous situation whereby foreigners could participate in referendum campaigns for whatever reason--earlier the Parliamentary Secretary, Privy Council Office told us that it is because of the European convention on human rights--but could not write out a cheque to other permitted participants, even if those permitted participants were themselves foreigners. We are in a tangle. I suggest to the Ministers that clause 112, and schedule 14 which hangs on it, should be reconsidered and even withdrawn.

Mr. Mike O'Brien: I have considered the points made by the hon. Member for North Dorset (Mr. Walter). The purpose of clause 112--like that of clause 111, but more so--is simply to introduce the schedule. The schedule controls donations to referendum campaign groups in much the same way that part IV of the Bill controls donations to registered parties. Those controls are important for the way in which campaigns are to be undertaken. They operate reasonably in general election campaigns and it is possible to apply them in referendum campaigns.

There is a difference between a foreign national spending money in his name and making a donation to a political party or to another player in a referendum. As my hon. Friend the Parliamentary Secretary, Privy Council Office explained, article 10 of the European convention on human rights would preclude undue restrictions on the amount that a person may spend to put forward his views. Such considerations do not apply to donations.

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We want to apply regulation and a fair degree of control where we can. Where that is not possible because of article 10, we have chosen not to do so. That seems straightforward and reasonable. We do not need to withdraw the clause or the schedule.

10.30 pm

The hon. Gentleman makes essentially a technical point about the drafting. I shall consider it further, but I do not see any other way that we could have drafted the clause. He makes a not unreasonable point, and I shall reflect on it.

Question put and agreed to.

Clause 112 ordered to stand part of the Bill.

Schedule 14 agreed to.

Clauses 113 to 117 ordered to stand part of the Bill.

Clause 118

Restriction on publication etc. of promotional material by central and local government etc.

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.

No. 55, in page 73, leave out lines 19 and 20.

No. 57, in page 73, line 20, at end add--

'(5)(a) no civil servant or agency appointed by Government acting in an official capacity shall advocate any argument for or against any particular answer to any question in a referendum.
(b) in this subsection the term "civil servant" includes any person employed as a special adviser.'.

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,

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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.

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