Business of the House

Earl Attlee Excerpts

Thursday 4th April 2019 Lords Chamber

[Viscount Ridley]

From opinion polls, and that is the best evidence we have.

As I said, one can be in favour or against the proposition that we should leave the European Union, or that we should leave it with or without a deal. I am acutely aware that, as we have seen in the past five minutes, most in this echo chamber of remain are wholly against it and are absolutely out of touch with people all over the country. However, we cannot deny that it is a matter of solemn importance, and, if the Bill goes through in the fashion proposed today, without proper debate and scrutiny, a lot of people out there may be very angry. They will be angry with us not because we spent a lot of time talking about procedure; they will be angry because we rammed through something without proper scrutiny and debate. I say again that the integrity of the constitution is the key point.

I am no historian, but I know that, for good reasons, we have arrived over the centuries at the delicate balance of powers we have in this complicated democracy. One of the key points is that all government Ministers are answerable in Parliament. Who is accountable in Parliament for the Bill that we will be asked to pass today? Will it be Sir Oliver Letwin, Yvette Cooper, Hilary Benn or Mr Bercow himself? They cannot be dragged to the Dispatch Box in the same way that a Minister can be, and they are not represented in this House by a junior Minister—unless the noble Baroness, Lady Hayter, is now Sir Oliver Letwin’s junior Minister; I am sure she would be very good at it.

As my noble friend Lord Forsyth said, from the way Sir Oliver was talking in the Commons last night, in a shockingly disrespectful way towards this House, it certainly sounds as though this is the way he sees it. I remind noble Lords that he said:

“My hon. Friend may also wish to know, although I fear that it will also be of no comfort to him, that there is overwhelming support in the House of Lords for this measure”.


How dare he say that in advance of us even seeing the Bill? He went on to say that,

“we therefore anticipate that it will, in all probability … pass through the House of Lords very rapidly”.

He took the House for granted, and I hope that irritates noble Lords as much as it irritates me. He went on:

“To that end, the House of Lords has in fact already passed a motion that provides for the expeditious consideration of exactly this form of Bill”.—[Official Report, Commons, 3/4/19; col. 1067.]


Noble Lords will see how precedent works: suddenly, something we did in January comes back to haunt us. He went on:

“My sense, for what it is worth, is that although the House of Lords procedures are arcane and it is impossible to determine from the outside the time that will be taken, there is very substantial support for the Bill there”.—[Official Report, Commons, 3/4/19; col. 1071.]


Thus we are dismissed with a wave of President Letwin’s hand.

My time is nearly up. Let me end by saying that I find it peculiar that so many in this House urgently wish to rule out leaving the European Union without a withdrawal agreement, but show none of the same urgency and determination to rule out not leaving the European Union at all.

[Earl Attlee (Con)]

My Lords, my anxiety about going into Committee on the Bill today is that we will be doing so without the benefit of political commentators writing in broadsheet newspapers, without watching important television programmes and, most importantly, without taking account of academic constitutional experts. We will be sailing blind.

[Viscount Trenchard (Con)]

My Lords, I should like to speak in favour of the amendment in the name of my noble friend Lord Ridley. I had wanted to speak in favour of the two previous amendments but, because of the closure Motions, I was unable to do so.

I strongly agree with my noble friend that this House will not bring itself into disrepute in the country at large by using all the manoeuvres and powers available to it to prevent this Bill being passed by your Lordships today. The Bill has been passed improperly in another place, which has usurped powers reserved to the Executive in a way that is quite unforgivable when this country faces a difficult situation involving negotiations with the European Union and time is running out.

The Bill is designed to remove from the Prime Minister the ability to exercise the royal prerogative powers remaining to her to resist instructions by the European Union with regard to her request for an extension. She should be entitled to refuse a very bad deal. The European Union is likely to agree to her request for an extension—even for a long extension, God forbid. There is a huge majority in the country for bringing this matter to a conclusion as soon as possible. Any agreement with the European Union that resulted in a delay of another year or two years would be unwelcome, with ensuing costs to business, continuing uncertainty and the inability to make investment decisions that provide jobs for people. That is already happening—this situation is already costing companies more than might have been the case. Companies have got ready for no deal. I did not want no deal; I wanted a sensible, agreed deal—a Canada-plus-type deal.

I shall not, however, speak about Brexit now, as this is a procedural debate. It is quite proper for your Lordships’ House to have a procedural debate in circumstances where the House of Commons has broken its conventions, even on a matter of huge constitutional importance.

Furthermore, I am not sure that the Motion in the name of the noble Baroness, Lady Hayter, is right. It says,

“further to the resolution of the House of 28 January that Her Majesty’s Government should provide sufficient time for this House”,

but it then goes on to contradict that. As I understand it, Her Majesty’s Government did not provide the time; the time was stolen by the noble Baroness and her associates, just as the time was stolen in the House of Commons.

We are seeing a complete breakdown in the rules by which our parliamentary democracy operates. In those circumstances, it is not correct for noble Lords opposite to suggest that this House will bring itself into disrepute or be regarded as overstepping the mark. This House is defending the majority of the people who want what they voted for to be delivered, and the Bill is designed to prevent that. It is quite improper for proper debate on the Bill to be truncated in the way proposed by the noble Baroness, Lady Hayter, and I strongly support the amendment of my noble friend Lord Ridley. It is a reasonable amendment: it suggests that we debate the Bill over three days, taking one or two stages on each day. That is quite a reasonable compromise, and I very much hope that your Lordships will support it.