Spending Round 2019

Debate between Lord Cormack and Lord Davies of Stamford

Wednesday 25th September 2019 Lords Chamber

[Lord Cormack]

You have not heard what I have to say yet!

As I was listening to the noble Lord, Lord Liddle, I could not help but remember a speech that I heard at my first State Opening of Parliament way back in 1970. The Address was moved by the then John Nott, later Sir John Nott, and he made a remark that has always stuck in my mind: he said that the real poor of the 20th century are those without hope. You can repeat that statement and advance the century, because it is still those who have no hope—who do not feel that they have a future—who are the real poor. I very much hope that the various promises made in this document, unsubstantiated in some ways as it is, can be carried forward and expanded.

I really want to talk about something else, because this is an extraordinarily artificial debate. The noble Lord, Lord Davies of Stamford, hit the nail on the head in his opening remarks. Here we are, back from a brief September session that was, it turns out, illegally brought to a close. I am very glad that, like the Leader of the Opposition, I boycotted what turns out to have been not the Prorogation ceremony. We are now in the middle of a constitutional crisis, the like of which this country has not seen for a very long time indeed. I am not sure I would go back to 1789, with the noble Lord, Lord Davies—

[Lord Davies of Stamford]

I said 1689.

[Lord Cormack]

The noble Lord actually said 1789, but we will not bandy this across the Chamber. One could say that 1911-12 was a great constitutional crisis. However one looks at it, and whatever one’s views of the decision that was unanimously reached yesterday, I do not think that anybody can deny that this is a great constitutional crisis. I pay tribute to the Justices of the Supreme Court. I think that they did indeed act without fear or favour; they were not taking sides on the Brexit issue. They were ruling—and I say this with some feeling of embarrassment and shame—on the conduct of a Conservative Prime Minister who should not have played fast and loose with Parliament and who should not have sent us packing on 9 September, having himself even said that he might keep us here until 12 September. I believe that the matters we have been discussing today, in an unsatisfactory form, through Statements and now this debate, illustrate the fact that there is indeed an agenda that would have kept us more than busy for most of the five weeks. Now we still do not know what is going to happen. I imagine that there will be a short and perfectly proper Prorogation in a couple of weeks, followed by a state opening and a Queen’s Speech on 14 October. However, we do not even know for certain whether that is going to happen. We have an extraordinary situation: a Government who are in a significant minority and discussing financial plans and promises that they do not know whether they will be able to discharge.

No one wishes the Prime Minister greater success in reaching a deal than I do. As I made public on many occasions, I would have accepted the deal that Prime Minister May achieved, all those months ago. I very much hope that we can have a deal and that we can be out on 31 October, much as I will greatly regret that, because this long saga has to be brought to a close. The fact is that Parliament has now decreed—rightly, in my view; I strongly supported the Benn Act, as it is now called—that we should not leave without a deal. What I have been concerned about this afternoon, in answers to two Statements delivered by my noble friend Lord Callanan, is that he has not come absolutely clean, by saying what will happen if, on 31 October, the deal has not been concluded. I hope that the Leader of the House will be able to do so in a few moments’ time. Parliament has decreed that it should be concluded before we come out. Having had one constitutional crisis because of the way in which the generally accepted rules of Prorogation were neglected, we do not want another crisis because an Act passed in Parliament through both Houses is ignored. I hope that, tonight or before we rise tomorrow—though we are of course back next week—we will have a clear and unequivocal statement. I would appeal to the Prime Minister, though I do not suppose that he will necessarily read—