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Mr. Eric Pickles (Brentwood and Ongar) (Con):
Where is the Bill?
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Mr. Jenkin: Where is the Bill, as my hon. Friend asks? Unfortunately and predictably, the Government's so-called information campaign is about giving out anything but clear answers to all the questions that I have raised.
The Government are spending millions of pounds of taxpayers' money on an information campaign that does almost nothing to give the public real information on what the powers will be. It does nothing to inform them of the real costs, or to allay the confusion that surrounds every aspect of the debate. That campaign is not just a total waste of taxpayers' money; it is clearly intended to distort public opinion ahead of those referendums.
We have taken counsel's opinion on the question of compliance with the guidelines in respect of the Government's information campaign. Not only does that campaign fail to inform the public; we are advised that the "Your Say" leaflets produced earlier this year are clearly intended to promote a yes vote in a referendum. They are therefore in breach of the Government's own guidelines on the work of the Government Information and Communication Service. [Hon. Members: "Take them to court, then."] Unfortunately, this is not a legally enforceable matter. The guidelines are not statute, so they are not enforceable by a court of law. The basic conventions of those guidelines state that activities of the GICS
"should be objective and explanatory, not tendentious or polemical; should not be, or be liable to misrepresentation as being, party political".
"The emphasis is on the factual basis and exposition of Government policies rather than on partisan argument."
I have in front of me a copy of the "Your Say" leaflet for Yorkshire and Humber. Those on the front cover with their thumbs up are smiling, and those with their thumbs down are straight-faced. It hardly seems logical for people to smile at the thought of paying a new regional council tax. However, that point is not explained in the leaflet.
Kali Mountford: Will the hon. Gentleman give way?
Mr. Jenkin: If the hon. Lady will allow me, I will finish this point. If we look inside the leaflet, we find a series of questions:
"Will the elected assembly make a real difference to your life?"
The unequivocal answer given is yes. The next question is:
"Would it represent the whole region?"
The answer given is yes. A further question is:
"Would the assembly work for the whole region, not just the cities?"
The answer given is yes. Another question is:
"Would an elected assembly work well with local government?"
The answer given is yes. And finally:
"Will elected regional assemblies reduce bureaucracy?"
The answer given is yes.
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The Government's guidelines on the GICS state that the Government must ensure that
"the presentation of arguments and counter-arguments take account of the need to avoid criticism that public funds are being used to disseminate party political propaganda".
Where are the counter-arguments?
Mr. Jenkin: If the right hon. Gentleman will answer that question, I will give way to him.
Mr. Raynsford: I am very grateful to the hon. Gentleman for giving way. Perhaps I can give the counter-argument that he himself will have read from the counsel opinion to which he referred. When asked to give an opinion as to whether the leaflets were tendentious and pursued party political grounds, the learned counsel whom the Conservative party consulted said:
"In my opinion, however, the leaflets do not play on any association between the Labour party and the benefits of regional assemblies nor advocate the policy in favour of regional assemblies on party political grounds."
Will the hon. Gentleman now withdraw?
Mr. Jenkin: No, I will not; I will continue, because the right hon. Gentleman did not answer my question. Where are the counter-arguments? The Government still have no idea what the constituencies of assembly members would be. Is the right hon. Gentleman not aware that people in Middlesbrough and Teesside fear that an assembly for the north-east would be dominated by Tyneside? Is he not aware that people in Northumberland fear that metropolitan interests would dominate the rural agenda? The Government's assurances that an assembly would represent the whole region are clearly polemical and tendentious.
As for regional assemblies reducing bureaucracy, we need only look to the London assembly, the Welsh Assembly or the Scottish Parliament. The Scottish Parliament employs more officials per head of population than any other Parliament in the world. The number of press officers has more than doubled since devolution—from 30 to 72; the number of Ministers has increased from four to 12; and the number of special advisers has increased from two to 11. In the three English regions, two thirds of the population of each region currently live under single-tier local government, so a regional assembly would certainly represent an extra tier of bureaucracy—of paid politicians and bureaucrats. This hardly matches the claim that elected assemblies will reduce bureaucracy. The Government have failed to spell out the arguments in favour of regional assemblies as advanced in these leaflets, and the arguments against.
However, there is a subtle but highly significant distinction to be made between official Government policy—that regional assemblies should be established in those regions where the people have voted in favour of an assembly at a referendum—and the Government's intended outcome, which is a party political position: that people in the three northern regions vote yes in the referendums.
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I sent our legal advice—from the leading chambers in this field—to the Cabinet Secretary, which is why the Minister has a copy. Today, I received Sir Andrew Turnbull's reply, which the Minister will also doubtless have. In it, Sir Andrew disputes counsel's opinion, from which the Minister has just quoted. Sir Andrew wrote:
"The suggestion that such explanation should eschew the fact that the Government is in favour of regional assemblies seems rather artificial."
That is not a very strong statement. He continues:
"However, contrary to what seems to be suggested at paragraph 25 of the opinion, we do not consider there is a requirement for Government publicity to explain both the case in favour of regional assemblies and the case against it."
If I may, I shall quote again from the guidance that the Cabinet Office is meant to enforce:
"In such cases, subject matter, presentation and handling are again crucial, particularly when publicity deals with issues on which there is no consensus."
There is no consensus. It continues:
"The presentation of arguments and counter-arguments take account of the need to avoid criticism that public funds are being used to disseminate party political propaganda."
Nothing could be clearer than that. That is the point of the opinion with which the Government disagree, so it is invidious and misl—I am sorry; I should not use the word that I was about to use. It is invidious and not correct for the Minister to claim the opinion in support of his position. It is clearly a criticism of the Government's position.
Mr. Jenkin: The right hon. Gentleman will have time to reply in due course. I am sure that he is going to take a little snippet out of the opinion, but the fact is that he should explain why it was necessary for Sir Andrew Turnbull to dispute the legal opinion with which he was presented.
How all that contrasts with the scrupulous way in which Donald Dewar approached the Scottish referendum in 1997! Nothing better demonstrates how Labour is at the heart of the corruption of our constitution. Sadly, there is no legal redress here, but it serves to underline how desperate the Government are to try to fix the results of these referendums.
Lately, I have seen the new TV adverts, and they are even more biased than anything yet seen. If the Government believed in truth, fairness and properly informed debate, they would halt the information campaign now—but there is no hope of that.
The latest twist in the web of confusion is over the conduct of the ballot itself. The Electoral Commission is due to deliver its report and recommendations on the recent all-postal pilots in September. However, in last week's debate, the Under-Secretary of State for Constitutional Affairs, the hon. Member for Shipley (Mr. Leslie) announced that if the Electoral Commission were to conclude that all-postal voting
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was unsafe, the referendums would have to be postponed. Yesterday, the Minister for Local and Regional Government was reported as saying:
"If there were to be a delay it would mean putting the thing back beyond a General Election."
How convenient that would be for the Government. He added:
"If there were to be a suggestion that some new regulations were required, then a delay would take place."
That is what he said. That, Mr. Deputy Speaker, seems like a foregone conclusion.
Last year, reporting on the pilot schemes at the June elections, the Electoral Commission recommended changes to the legislation such as individual voter registration and an extension of police powers to arrest people at any location on reasonable suspicion of impersonation. That would require changes to legislation. After the postal pilots earlier this month, it is inconceivable that the commission would not issue similar, if not more stringent, recommendations in the report later this year.
We know that the Electoral Commission would prefer the Government to wait until its report is published before laying the orders for the referendum in Parliament, although the Minister has sought to deny that. However, my hon. Friend the Member for Gosport (Mr. Viggers), representing the Speaker's Committee on the Electoral Commission, stated quite clearly earlier this week:
"The commission believes that there would be benefit in Parliament having available to it the Electoral Commission's evaluation reports on the June pilot before taking a decision on whether to approve the orders specifying the form of the referendum."—[Official Report, 28 June 2004; Vol. 423, c. 16.]
Yet again, the Government have ignored the advice of the very commission that they set up to advise them. However, to appease their critics, they have thrown open the question of whether the referendums will actually take place at all.
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