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Standing Committee A
Tuesday 14 January 2003
(Morning)
[Mr. Frank Cook in the Chair]
Clause 8
Combination of Gibraltar with
existing electoral region
9.25 am
Mr. William Cash (Stone): I beg to move amendment No. 40, in
clause 8, page 5, line 5, at beginning insert 'Subject to section 10,'.
Clause 8 is extremely important. It reads:
''Gibraltar is to be combined with an existing electoral region in England and Wales to form a new electoral region (''the combined region'') for the purposes of European Parliamentary elections taking place after 1st April 2004.''
Inserting the phrase ''Subject to section 10'' at the beginning of that clause draws attention to the provisions of clause 10. Subject to my attempts to have him substituted by the Secretary of State, even more so after yesterday's debate on criminal justice, under clause 10
''The Lord Chancellor may by order . . . specify the existing electoral region to be combined with Gibraltar to form the combined region; and . . . make provision establishing the combined region.''
That is the essence of the point that I want to make and I have quite a lot to say about the manner in which clauses 10 and 11 and the supplementary arrangements set up under clause 12 will interact. In a nutshell, the effect of this apparently innocuous amendment would be to provide a more efficacious manner in which to combine Gibraltar with the existing electoral region.
One thing that has come to my notice has caused me a great deal of concern and I ask the Minister to give the House of Commons, let alone the Committee, an explanation. According to the reports—this may be of some satisfaction to the Government qua Government—up until June 2002 when the Home Office was dealing with the matter, things were proceeding in an extremely orderly fashion. Admittedly, there were serious disputes about the question of a referendum. Foreign Office Ministers were making all sorts of statements and there were counter-statements from Gibraltar. We know the history of that. The bottom line is that it was about whether the people of Gibraltar should be allowed to have their say on the extremely vexed question of relations with Spain.
I am not privy to what goes on behind the scenes in the Government; I can only put the most perceptive interpretation on it that I can, based on the information that I receive. The Minister may be able to explain why, when the Lord Chancellor's Department took over the arrangements, everything suddenly went completely off course, by which I mean that there was no further consultation. The Minister may say that she and the Minister for Europe had
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meetings in December, but despite everything that the Government have said about pre-legislative scrutiny, the reality is that, at that point, everything went silent. There was no further consultation and, as I understand it, Gibraltar was not consulted about the proposals in the Bill at all. That seems unbelievable.
We are talking about citizens who will be voting in a combined region and whose democratic rights will be affected by the manner in which the arrangements operate. There is an established system of government in Gibraltar through the House of Assembly. There is a vast tradition of loyalty to this country, extending back to Rooke's famous taking of Gibraltar in 1702—I am sure that someone will correct me if I am wrong.
Paul Farrelly (Newcastle-under-Lyme): 1704.
Mr. Cash: 1704—the same year as Blenheim.
The fact is that, against that background, the people of Gibraltar, the Chief Minister and others in that territory are simply being snubbed—that is the only word that one can use. Let us imagine that a Bill was introduced that affected people in a similar fashion, but that was outside the domain of the foreign policy questions tied up with Gibraltar and Spain. I would imagine that if there were already an established electorate and an established form of government, it would be inconceivable for there to be no discussions. I may be entirely wrong: that may be how things have been going on for centuries.
I await with interest what the hon. Member for Somerton and Frome (Mr. Heath) has to say, but first let me give a direct example. Were not the ex-colonies, when they were brought to independence with the wind of change, consulted extensively about the manner in which they were to be governed? I expect the answer to be yes. I think it inconceivable that they were suddenly presented with a Bill that said, ''This is the way, and you're going to have to accept it.''
There is an important constitutional question in this regard, because after all the Lord Chancellor has been given, or has taken to himself—I am not quite sure about the relationship between master and pupil in these matters—a huge number of additional responsibilities relating to constitutional affairs. If he falls at the first hurdle, which is to consult properly people whose democratic rights are affected, that is just another accumulated mortal sin.
Mr. David Heath (Somerton and Frome): I am most grateful to the hon. Gentleman: he raises an important point and it will be interesting to hear what the Minister says about the lack of consultation between the Lord Chancellor's Department and the Government of Gibraltar. He may be interested to know that there were no consultations with that Government before the beginning of last year, either. That is outlined in a memorandum from Mr. Caruana to the Foreign Affairs Committee that is included in its first report of the Session 2001–02, which states:
''No proposals have yet been put to the Gibraltar Government as to the manner and timing of the enfranchisement.''
There was a very short window of opportunity for the Gibraltar Government to comment.
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Mr. Cash: Without disrespect to the hon. Gentleman's colleagues, I must say that there seems to be symmetry in our approach to these seminal questions. We look at what is happening and why and arrive at a similar conclusion about the manner in which these constitutional issues are dealt with. I am most grateful to him for drawing attention to the matter, as I did not appreciate that the situation was so bad. As I said on Second Reading, it raises all sorts of questions about the panjandrums of the 21st century, who are very ready to criticise the United Kingdom's conduct in the 19th century and before. The Committee will have heard of Niall Ferguson's book, which is recommended reading for many people. Treating the people of Gibraltar, and the elected Government and Chief Minister in this manner is inexcusable.
People outside this Room will be more than interested to know the Minister's response. The Minister has a way of not replying to any of my questions. She has a brief, which she sticks to religiously, but there are some important questions that need answers. They must not be ignored because we are in the confines of this Committee. These are important matters that affect the manner in which the Government treat the people of Gibraltar. Some prominent, distinguished and vociferous members of the hon. Lady's party feel intensely about Gibraltar. They should hear the truth about what happened and we will press for that so that the situation can be remedied.
I made a similar point at the start of our proceedings when it appeared that the Electoral Commission had not been consulted on the Bill's proposals on boundary commissions and so on. The lack of consultation is astonishing coming from a Government who apparently put such a high premium on pre-legislative scrutiny, the openness of government and freedom of information. By any standards, there is a whiff of hypocrisy about it. I should like answers to my questions.
Against that background, we have an indication of the rationale and the thinking behind the Government's authoritarian approach. The Minister may say that the Government are doing Gibraltar a great service and providing them with the opportunity to vote in elections for the European Parliament. There are other territories whose view would be that if they were to allow themselves to be drawn into elections, other things might follow that they would find disagreeable. I refer in general terms to the imperial ambitions of the European Commission and all that goes with the Convention and so on. I have already made the point in this Committee, in the Standing Committee on the Convention, on the Floor of the House and in the Scrutiny Committee that I have reason to believe from documents that I have seen that places such as Gibraltar, not to mention the Isle of Man, Jersey and Guernsey, are unquestionably in the sights of the European Union's imperial adjutants. I have seen provisions that clearly show that, despite superficial protestations that it will not happen or even that they could not do anything about it, they will be swept into a broader European Union
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without the necessary consultation and on a similar basis to what is taking place here. That is the problem.
The Denise Matthews case was the real reason why all this happened. If the Minister says that the hon. Gentleman should not speak about that case, because it was his Government who declined to do the right thing at the time and give her a vote, I agree. There is no virtue in trying to cover up past mistakes, of which there have been many. Indeed, all parties have made mistakes over an extended period. The European Court of Human Rights' ruling that the United Kingdom's failure to enfranchise Gibraltar for elections to the European Parliament constituted a violation of article 3 of the second protocol was about one essential point—that article 3 requires elections to be by universal suffrage.
As I said on Second Reading, the Prime Minister no doubt found himself between the Rock and a hard place. On the one hand, there is his so-called visionary attitude towards European integration, which he said only at the beginning of January was political, as if it could ever have been anything else. I should love to be able to enlarge on that, Mr. Cook, but I shall not do so. On the other hand, there is the fact that the European Court of Human Rights had ruled that electors in Gibraltar had an absolute right to be combined with the United Kingdom for the purpose of the European elections. There is an apparent element of contradiction there. In view of the way in which those discussions went and the background to the referendum dispute, when 98 or 99 per cent. of the people of Gibraltar expressed their views on a referendum, it would not be helpful or wise for this or any Minister, or any member of the Committee, assuming that it was possible to stir them from their silence, to suggest that the Government had somehow done the people of Gibraltar a good turn. They have not. In those circumstances it will be more than interesting to hear what the Minister says about the way in which all that happened.
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