Business of the House

Debate between Lord Foulkes of Cumnock and Viscount Ridley

Thursday 4th April 2019 Lords Chamber

[Viscount Ridley]

My Lords, I am getting quite used to losing votes today—but then, as a supporter of Newcastle United, losing never discourages me.

Right at the end of the last debate, my noble friend Lord Cormack refused to take an intervention from me; he has explained that he has to leave his place now. I was merely going to ask him, as an acknowledged constitutional expert, if he did not think that the ramming of a Bill through the House in one day would do more damage to the reputation of this House than these procedural debates we are having, which he said would damage the reputation of the House.

My amendment says that instead of trying to rush this constitutional enormity through in one go, in one day, as the noble Baroness, Lady Hayter, would like to do—and I do not think a cogent answer has been given to the question of why that should be necessary—and to do so based on a flimsy, one-vote majority in the House of Commons of 313 to 312, which is 50.08%, we should take two stages today, two on another day and the final two on a third day. That seems a reasonable way for this House to go about discussing important matters.

[Lord Foulkes of Cumnock]

I wonder if the noble Viscount has thought about the kind of image he is projecting as the fifth Viscount, a hereditary Peer, trying to subvert the elected Chamber of this Parliament.

[Viscount Ridley]

I was coming to that. If I recall rightly, earlier today the noble Lord referred to me, from a sedentary position, as a “constitutional monstrosity”. I am in this place because my great-great-grandfather was put here by Queen Victoria on the advice of Lord Salisbury. The noble Lord is here because Queen Elizabeth II put him here on the advice of Tony Blair. There is not all that much difference.

As I say, I believe it vital that we should debate this hugely important measure as freely as possible with as many attempts to get it right as we need. I express my astonishment that so many Members opposite, who normally take the view that the purpose of this House is to scrutinise legislation properly, suddenly want to abandon their principles and shove through a measure that would create a dangerous precedent for the future. This is precisely the sort of case where we need to tread with care.

We have taken three years trying to reach agreement on how to leave the European Union. We have been told again and again, both in this House and elsewhere, that we must get this right, yet now we are being asked to take a whole Bill through in a few hours—a Bill that defies everything the people asked us to do. As my noble friend Lord Forsyth said, this could lead to a slippery slope to tyranny.