European Union (Withdrawal) Acts

Christopher Chope Excerpts

Saturday 19th October 2019 Commons Chamber

[Mr Speaker]

It is not for me to advise people on their travel plans, but I take seriously what the shadow Secretary of State for Health and Social Care has just said on that extremely important matter, about which not merely thousands or tens of thousands, but hundreds of thousands or, indeed, millions of people feel very strongly. If people who may not have regular interaction with or cause to pay visits to the House intend to visit the House, it would be most unfortunate if they were inconvenienced and disadvantaged with very little notice and without explanation, let alone apology. I cannot think that that conduces to the better reputation of the House. People will have to make their own judgment about whether to come, and the hon. Gentleman will doubtless offer them his advice, but I think I have given colleagues an indication of my unhappiness with the procedure that has been adopted by representatives of the Executive branch. I will bear colleagues’ concerns in mind in ruling on this matter on Monday.

[Sir Christopher Chope (Christchurch) (Con)]

Further to that point of order, Mr Speaker. Do you think that this issue should be referred to the Procedure Committee? It always used to be a convention that we had decent notice of business. That convention has been in a sense undermined by, for example, the recent practice of debates following applications under Standing Order No. 24 taking place immediately after the application has been granted, rather than on the following day, which gives people notice. We have some dangerous precedents for business being changed at short notice to the detriment of Members of this House and to members of the public who might want to attend our proceedings. If the matter was referred to the Procedure Committee, it may be able to recommend some tightening of Standing Orders so that this sort of situation did not arise again.

While I am on my feet, it looks as though, from what the Leader of the House said in his point of order, a motion has been put down for Monday under section 13(1)(b) of the European Union (Withdrawal) Act 2018, but it will not fall under section 1(1)(a) of the European Union (Withdrawal) (No. 2) Act 2019. The motions we debated today covered two different Acts and two different provisions, but I understand that the motion down for debate on Monday relates only to the 2018 Act, so it seems—I hope that you will be able to consider this over the weekend—that it cannot be regarded as the same issue that we dealt with today. I hope that you will be able to take such matters into account.

[Mr Speaker]

I certainly will reflect on that point and the other points that the hon. Gentleman has made, and I take his points in the constructive spirit in which he has made them. He speaks as someone who has of course been a distinguished ornament of the Procedure Committee over a period. Is the hon. Gentleman currently gracing the Committee with his presence?

[Sir Christopher Chope]

Yes. If you can put it that way, I am, and I can say that I first had the privilege of joining the Procedure Committee back in 1984, when it was graced with the presence of the right hon. Enoch Powell and many other distinguished Members of this place.

[Mr Speaker]

I know quite a lot of things about the hon. Gentleman, but I did not know that. I am now better informed, so I recognise that his service on that Committee dates back a long way.

I take very seriously what the hon. Gentleman says, and I accept the point he makes about the unpredictability spawned by the, in my view, justified decisions in relation to Standing Order No. 24 applications for debates. Nevertheless, it is a fact that that has inevitably produced a degree of unpredictability in the business.

The only point I would make, and which I think is fair to make in this context, is that when we are dealing with applications under Standing Order No. 24, there is an established process provided for by the Standing Orders, and it is understood by colleagues that an application can be heard only if the Speaker agrees to hear it, and can therefore proceed, if the Speaker hears and approves it, only if the requisite threshold of support has been attained in the House.

By contrast, in this particular case, a representative of the Executive is seeking to change the business not on the basis of a voted-for proposition but on the basis of what some people might regard as an act of Executive fiat. That does seem to me to put it in a somewhat different and perhaps inferior category.