"I note very carefully what the hon. Lady says. I have opposed the Cabinet’s withdrawal agreement and political declaration twice because I think the backstop is a fundamental problem with the agreement. After the last couple of weeks of votes in the House and the Government’s response to them, I …..." Lord Harper - View Speech
"The right hon. Gentleman is confirming that. I think that at Labour conferences compositing is a verb. There is an implicit assumption that, by gluing the motions together, we will automatically add up all the numbers and somehow magically majorities will pop out of them, but I just do not …..." Lord Harper - View Speech
"No, I fundamentally disagree, for this reason. I will give the hon. Lady a couple of examples. First, I suspect that there are many people—I do not know this, but it is my assumption—who supported the Cabinet’s withdrawal agreement and political declaration who, if we attached a referendum to it, …..." Lord Harper - View Speech
"My hon. Friend makes a good point. I note from the indicative votes on Monday that, again, the motion on a confirmatory vote was supported by fewer people than the Cabinet’s withdrawal agreement and did not achieve a majority...." Lord Harper - View Speech
"Indeed, but given that a number of Members of this House have made it quite clear that they do not want to deliver the result of the last referendum, I am not sure that a fair choice would be presented to the public or that they would be given the …..." Lord Harper - View Speech
"As Government Chief Whip, I had responsibility for managing the pairing system, so it is a matter of some regret to me to listen to the hon. Member for East Dunbartonshire (Jo Swinson), as I have done previously, and talk about her experiences and how she and other Members lost …..." Lord Harper - View Speech
"The hon. Lady’s experience just confirms what I have thought for many years about 38 Degrees and the way it campaigns against Members. I have always found that robust pushback and setting out the facts to my constituents have been very helpful. I take her point seriously. I would caution …..." Lord Harper - View Speech
"As a member of the Public Bill Committee, I listened carefully to what the Parliamentary Secretary, Cabinet Office, my hon. Friend the Member for Norwich North (Chloe Smith), said. She did not say that the Government would never bring forward the money resolution. She said that she thought it appropriate …..." Lord Harper - View Speech
"The hon. Lady says that 600 is an arbitrary number, but so is 650. However, there is an important difference: 600 is not an arbitrary number; it is the number that Parliament put into law for a boundary review that it legislated for in 2011. Is it not right that …..." Lord Harper - View Speech