(5 years, 1 month ago)
Commons ChamberUrgent Questions are proposed each morning by backbench MPs, and up to two may be selected each day by the Speaker. Chosen Urgent Questions are announced 30 minutes before Parliament sits each day.
Each Urgent Question requires a Government Minister to give a response on the debate topic.
This information is provided by Parallel Parliament and does not comprise part of the offical record
I completely agree. This House’s actions are bringing it into discredit. It is abandoning almost all reasonable precedent. The time has come for a general election, and to resist it is immoral, unparliamentary and undemocratic, but that is the decision that the Opposition have taken. Let us wait and see what the electorate make of it, but I hope they will understand that the Government are trying to fulfil the mandate of those 17.4 million people. We will never cease until we succeed.
It is reassuring to see that we are indeed carrying on where we left off. As a senior lawyer, does the Attorney General agree that any attempt to describe the considered, unanimous and unambiguous decision of the Supreme Court as a constitutional coup is nothing more than constitutional bull?
I am not sure I could have put that language in a parliamentary way. The Supreme Court’s decision was legitimate, perfectly reasonable and proper. We should be proud of our judiciary and proud of its independence in all jurisdictions—I apply that to the inner house, the outer house, the divisional court. Lawyers will disagree on some of those complex and fundamental principles, and that is what has happened here.
(5 years, 9 months ago)
Commons ChamberIn relation to the United Kingdom’s withdrawal from the European Union, my priority is to support the delivery of the Government’s objectives. That includes giving legal and constitutional advice within the Government on our international negotiations and treaty obligations, the programme of domestic legislation to implement the consequences of exit, and of course supporting preparations for future international co-operation between the law officers departments and with prosecution and other criminal justice officers.
The Government won that case, as the hon. Gentleman quite knows. The truth is that it has gone back to the Scottish Parliament, and the system is working. It is the purpose of the referral system to delineate and demarcate the proper boundaries between the devolved Governments and Westminster. That is what the Supreme Court decided. As to the cost, I am happy to write to the hon. Gentleman if he would like me to do so.
In December a ferry contract was awarded to Seaborne Freight without competitive tender, due to extreme urgency, but the Government have known for years about the possibility of no deal. Will he release the legal advice that permitted the Department for Transport to proceed under regulation 32?
As the hon. Gentleman well knows, that is not a subject within my ministerial responsibility. The legal advice inside any Department is a matter for that Department; it does not come automatically to the Attorney General. There is an important principle of confidentiality and privilege associated with legal advice, which I hope the House will not lose. The matter that he has raised is not a matter for me; it is a matter for the Secretary of State.