Clause 8 - Provision of information to voters
Regional Assemblies (Preparations) Bill
11:45 am
Mr Philip Hammond (Runnymede and Weybridge, Conservative)
I beg to move amendment No. 29, in
clause 8, page 4, line 20, leave out subsection (4) and insert
'No Minister of the Crown may make any order under section 109(6) of the 2000 Act in respect of a referendum held pursuant to section 1 above'.
We now turn to the issue of information disseminated to voters, and the specification of the various days in relation to the referendum period under the 2000 Act. Subsection (3) of clause 8 defines the term ''appropriate day'' in relation to the referendum period as being the 43rd day of that period, if applications had been made under section 109 of the 2000 Act, and the 29th day of that period if no such applications had been made. That is fine; I have no problem with it. However, subsection (4) gives a Minister carte blanche to define any other day as the appropriate day—next Tuesday fortnight, the day after the Deputy Prime Minister's wife's birthday, or any other day.
That seems to be wrong in principle. It provides too much ministerial discretion. No doubt hon. Members who served on the Committee that considered the Political Parties, Elections and Referendums Bill spent many hours, days and perhaps nights—that was in the good old days—discussing the Bill's details. Its purpose was, among other things, to set down procedures for the conduct of referendums, which are clearly going to become a more important and regular feature of our democracy, so that there was an objective set of rules and a framework for that.
If referendums are to be a regular feature, each should not be subject to manipulation by the Government of the day, seeking to get the result that they want. That is why legislation must contain provisions on, for example, the appropriate day. This is a small example of a wider tendency in this Bill and in many others to set out a scenario but then insert a clause that gives a Minister power to override the legislation that Parliament has considered in depth, and substitute any other provision that he might feel like. That will be done by order, and so be subject to debate, but that debate will be a short one in a Standing Committee on a statutory instrument. That will not be adequate—it will certainly not give the comprehensive opportunity for debate afforded by the principal consideration of a Bill's details in Standing Committee. This Committee must make a stand now and reject parts of the Bill that give Ministers power to override other provisions in the Bill and make different arrangements.
We are discussing a referendum in which, as we all understand, the Government will not be a neutral party. The Government are a protagonist in this debate. They will already have a huge advantage over those campaigning on the opposite side because, although there will be restrictions throughout the referendum period on what the campaigns can do, the Government will be unrestricted until 28 days before the referendum. That is a huge imbalance in the arrangements, which I understand is likely to be tested in the courts in due course in relation to the Human Rights Act 1998 and the European convention on human rights. As the law appears to stand at the moment, however, the Government will already have a huge advantage. They must not be allowed to enshrine that advantage further by manipulating the definition of the appropriate date to the disadvantage of one side of the argument.
That could work to the disadvantage of one side of the argument because the no campaign will not have the benefit of the Government's information dissemination capability, which continues until the 28th day before the referendum, whereas the yes campaign, although also constrained by a change in the appropriate day, will effectively be underwritten by the Government's information campaign.