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Mr. Bercow: I am trying intently to follow the logic of the hon. Gentleman's argument. Is he saying that Ministers should be restricted in terms of their use of Government facilities and resources during the 28-day period of a referendum campaign, but that their political advisers should not be so restricted? That is an extraordinary proposition.
Mr. Stunell: It would be extraordinary if it were advanced, but I am not advancing it. Nothing in the Bill, or in precedent, prevents Ministers, in their party political role, from advocating a particular outcome during a referendum campaign. I do not see what point the hon. Gentleman is making, but if he concentrates even more intently on my argument, I am sure that he will be with me in the end.
The Government have a case to answer on the issue of constraining the output of public bodies. Press notices are certainly a weak link. I also think that we should consider whether the 28-day moratorium should be extended, and I would like to hear the Minister's view.
Dr. Julian Lewis:
I was fortunate enough to be on the Standing Committee that dealt with other parts of the Bill. I congratulate the Government on having reserved the most controversial parts for the Floor of the House.
Mr. Tipping:
The hon. Gentleman should be praising his hon. Friends on the Opposition Front Bench.
Dr. Lewis:
I am delighted. That accords far better with my thesis, which is that the Government's proposals are incredibly unfair--which is why I thought it strange that they were willing to give this part of the Bill a wider and more public airing. Now that I have been informed that my hon. Friends on the Opposition Front Bench are responsible, I am even happier to congratulate them on taking the opportunity to bring these abuses more clearly to the attention of the public.
I am astonished at the difference in the atmosphere-- the difference between the relative consensus on uncontroversial matters in the Standing Committee, and what is being proposed here. I well remember when the Home Secretary himself, on July 1997 in the House, compared Neill's recommendations with the Government's proposed responses to them. The one issue on which I felt it incumbent on me to intervene at the time was this very question of the 28-day limit on Government propaganda in favour of one side of the argument on a future referendum issue.
Clearly, the Neill committee was recommending that the Government should keep their nose out of referendum campaigns. Equally clearly, the Government want to observe only the tiniest part of the letter of that
recommendation, while wholly ignoring the spirit of it. In any future referendum, whatever the topic, while Labour are in government, they intend to be able to spend as much public money as they like for weeks and months leading up to the crucial vote and to stop doing so a mere 28 days before the votes are cast. If it is wrong that Governments should be able to spend a great deal of public money during the last 28 days, it is equally wrong that they should be able to spend great quantities of public money for significantly longer periods, up to that tiny window of abstention just before the vote is cast.
Equally, as my hon. Friend the Member for Beaconsfield (Mr. Grieve) points out, why should it be the case that, throughout even that 28-day period, when even the Government are prepared to be a little abstemious in the amount of propaganda that they pump out to try to skew the referendum result, they are still entitled to put the words "press notice" on any further propaganda that they wish to issue, exploiting the loophole in the clause to persist pumping out their message right up to polling day, as far as I can see?
The point has been made: just as the use of public money to pump out literature is wrong, so the use of public money to pay civil servants to do the Government's partisan campaigning is wrong. I am concerned about the way in which the Government are trying to turn what was meant to be the cleaning-up of partisan distortions of referendum campaigns into something that is of advantage to the Government of the day.
Mr. Hayes:
Contrary to the suggestion from the hon. Member for Hazel Grove (Mr. Stunell), is not the debate a fine opportunity to tighten up and straighten out the business of special advisers, about whom there is growing concern in terms of their political involvement? That would apply to a Government of any political persuasion. Is not the debate an ideal opportunity to assuage those concerns and fears by defining more clearly their role and limiting their involvement in such a political process?
Dr. Lewis:
It is not only that. The point has been well made by the Conservative Front-Bench team that the matter will affect any future Government. It is like the introduction of a new weapon into warfare, even if it is only political warfare: people should realise what it will be like when that weapon is turned on them and the roles are reversed.
One day, roles will be reversed. I hope still to be in this place when that happens. I will remember the current debate and how the Government have conducted themselves when we hear the squeals of outrage from Labour Members on the Opposition Benches as we seek in government to exploit the very loopholes that they are wrongly building into the Bill. Rather than have such tit-for-tat abuse of the system, such mutual rejection of the spirit of the Neill proposals, I appeal to the Minister to observe on the Floor of the House the same spirit of compromise, consensus and fairness that he has observed elsewhere and at least to promise that, if we do not divide the Committee tonight, he will revisit the matter on Report and introduce more satisfactory proposals.
Mr. Paterson:
I am grateful to you, Mr. Martin, for calling me in what is an important debate.
If the clause stands, we will have an intolerable situation, given the extraordinary increase in the number of special advisers, whose main role is to pump out Government propaganda.
Mr. Nicholas Winterton:
Party propaganda.
Mr. Paterson:
Exactly. They are pumping out party propaganda and Government propaganda--which, in a referendum, as my hon. Friend the Member for West Worcestershire (Sir M. Spicer) said, will be the same thing. The Government will not initiate a referendum campaign if they do not want to win it.
Before Christmas, I tabled a parliamentary question on the number of special advisers, and was told that, since the Government came to power, an extra 68 have been hired. However, in a previous debate, my hon. Friend the Member for Chichester (Mr. Tyrie) corrected me on that figure, and said that the number of additional advisers had risen to 77, who are costing the taxpayer an extra £1.8 million annually. In total, Government special advisers are costing the taxpayer about £3.9 million. As I said in an earlier intervention, their travel alone costs £500,000.
Special advisers are there not for nothing, but to put across the Government point of view. How much are the Government spending on publicity? Perhaps we should examine the three Departments that would be affected in a referendum campaign. Since May 1997, total publicity spending by the Foreign and Commonwealth Office has been £5,933,637, of which £44,067.39 has been specifically dedicated to spending on press releases. What about websites? The Department spent £554,097 on them. The Department spent £4,818,211 on something called "extra publicity". What is that? Did it have something to do with press releases? A cool £464,628 was spent on media advertising.
The Minister will have to tell us how that money for publicity is being spent. He will also have to tell us how the clause will operate. It would be intolerable if the sums that I have described were spent legally in a referendum by the Government, whereas--as clause 118 currently provides--those who oppose the Government in that contest would not have access to such funds.
Last year, the Scotland Office conducted a referendum. Since May 1999, its total spending on publicity has been £3.4 million--of which £119,000 was spent on press releases--whereas it has spent £808,000 on websites and £2.5 million on media advertising. Those are enormous sums, and they are at the disposal of politically dedicated outsiders who were brought in by the Government with only one purpose: to propagate the Government's point of view. That is what they will be doing in a referendum if clause 118 is not amended.
Mr. Bercow:
Does my hon. Friend agree that any Government reckless enough to want permanently to abandon the national currency of an independent nation is inevitably prepared to resort to virtually any and every
Mr. Paterson:
As usual, my hon. Friend makes the most pertinent observation. The Government already, before a referendum, have the material means in their hands--they have taken on the personnel and have extraordinarily large sums--to propagate their own point of view. When the campaign comes, they will have not only the motive, but the means to put forward their view. Those who are opposed to the Government's position in the referendum will not only be short of means, but will be prevented, by an unamended clause 118, from competing with the Government.
11.15 pm
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