Article 50

Chris Leslie Excerpts

Tuesday 24th January 2017 Commons Chamber

[Mr Davis]

My hon. Friend is as right as ever.

[Chris Leslie (Nottingham East) (Lab/Co-op)]

The Secretary of State can see the phenomenal interest in the House in this issue, and he should not be afraid of scrutiny. My hon. Friend the Member for Bishop Auckland (Helen Goodman) asked how many days he would commit to proper scrutiny on the Floor of the House of all the issues surrounding article 50. Can he accept that this Bill is more important than the Bills on the Lisbon treaty and the Maastricht treaty, and that any attempt to curtail the opportunities for this House to scrutinise the issues would betray the Government’s fear of proper debate?

[Mr Davis]

Let me say two things to the hon. Gentleman. I do not think that I have ever run away from scrutiny. I have spent more time at the Dispatch Box than any other Secretary of State in the last five months. In terms of what he says about the importance of the Bill, of course it is important, and indeed I want as much time as we can possibly get for it to be discussed; but that is a matter, as I said, for the usual channels to discuss.

Many people who see the Bill as incredibly important—perhaps more than it really is—are seeing it as some sort of point of no return. The point of no return was passed on 23 June last year. This is simply carrying out the instructions of the British people. We will do so under the full scrutiny of Parliament and under the authorisation of Parliament, and we will give time for that; but do not conflate that with the whole process of the negotiation. It will take much, much more time than was given to Lisbon, because that number of pieces of primary legislation will take more time.