This is not the United States of America, and the people of Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland have a vote as members of the UK—and long may they remain so.
We will need clear and straightforward messages, because, as is obvious from the debate so far, there will be myriad voices in the referendum campaign, and the options will not be easy for the man in the street to
understand. However, I share the concerns of my right hon. Friend the Member for North Shropshire (Mr Paterson) about the purdah. When I was Secretary of State for Wales, I ran a successful referendum on more devolution of powers to Wales, but I remained strictly neutral, because I thought that that was the right way to behave, and indeed it was a successful referendum and nobody felt that I had slanted it from my position as Secretary of State.
It is also important that the necessary intricacies of article 50 of the treaty on European Union be spelt out to people. On both sides of the argument, we need to know what would govern the processes and negotiations of unilateral withdrawal. However, the terms of engagement in and around the referendum period with other European institutions must also be made clear. For example, do the Front-Bench team know what plans any of the devolved Governments within the UK have for spending money on this referendum, or indeed what plans the European Commission or other European institutions have? I think we might find money being spent from other directions that will slant the results of the referendum.
I do not share the views of the right hon. Member for Gordon (Alex Salmond) on the franchise for 16-year-olds. I was at a school in my constituency when I expressed that opinion, and I thought I would be out of kilter with what they thought, but—surprisingly—many of those young people told me they would not be confident about making the decisions necessary in a general election or referendum campaign. I would, therefore, like the franchise to remain as it is.
We have been a member of the EU for many years, but for the past couple of decades it has been clear that the British public have fallen out of love with it. It is also clear, however, that we cannot stop being European—and nor do many want to stop. I hear from people that they want to reverse the feeling of impotence that has developed over the increasingly centralised European decision-making process. Specifically, they want a fair deal in Europe without disproportionate and disadvantaging regulatory costs. At a time when we are heralding devolution so widely at home, we need to see this principle applied firmly to our EU relationship.
The Bill is about an internal process and, as such, does not constitute the real substance of this debate, but before we can get on with putting our renegotiated position into a shop window for people to examine, we need to pass the Bill so that people know that the process will be fair and not loaded in favour of our remaining in an institution that has seemed to load so many processes in its own favour over recent years.
2.47 pm