Business of the House

Lord Cormack Excerpts

Thursday 4th April 2019 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Noakes]

The point remains that the Bill was processed with the full agreement of the usual channels. The fact that it was not supported by all Members of the House is irrelevant. The usual channels arrange for the orderly business in this place.

[Lord Cormack (Con)]

Is it not also the case that we are not having a day? It will be around 8 pm or 9 pm before we get on to Second Reading because we will have my noble friend Lord Forsyth’s Motion, as well as a Statement. This is crazy.

[Baroness Noakes]

I completely agree with my noble friend, which is why it is important to understand the implications of this. If, as I suspect, a number of amendments to the Bill will be tabled after Second Reading—of course, they cannot be tabled until then—the Public Bill Office will require considerable time in which to manage them. It will arrange for them to be printed, then noble Lords will obviously need to have sight of and consider them, as well as consider whether there are any appropriate groupings of them. This is not a rapid process, so we then come up against the issue of what time this will all happen. I have absolutely no idea.

--- Later in debate ---

[Baroness Noakes]

I am drawing to a close. Anybody can make a comment once I have moved my amendment. I remind the House that my amendment is there because the Prime Minister has already indicated her intention to ask for a delay. It is unnecessary, undesirable and unprecedented to apply exceptional procedures. I beg to move.

[Lord Cormack]

My Lords, I shall speak very briefly. I really feel that we are not doing this House any great favours today. We have had an orchestrated series of speeches from the ERG and its friends. That does not represent the view of the entire Conservative Party on these Benches, although I am bound to say that, as I listened to some of the speeches, I felt enormous sympathy for my honourable friend Nick Boles. We are at a critical juncture in our nation’s history. It is deeply regrettable that we have this Bill before us. It is not a perfect Bill, but at the time when it was thought up and brought forward the Prime Minister had not made her recent welcome move. I sincerely hope that she will be successful. I know many honourable and noble friends in my party take a counter view, but I think it is desperately important that we hold the interests of our country first, second, third and last.

It is terribly important that we do not carry on with this procedural nonsense, because that is what it is. We have a Bill and at this rate we are not going to get to Second Reading.

[Viscount Ridley]

My Lords—

[Lord Cormack]

No, I will not give way—I will in a minute. My noble friend has the next amendment and doubtless he too will speak at some length: I hope it will not be the half-hour or 20 minutes we have just had, because that is far too long. It is really important that we get on to the Bill. We have four more amendments, I think, after this one; then we have a Statement; and then we have my noble friend Lord Forsyth’s important debate—although it is not as urgent as the business that will then be before your Lordships’ House. I wish we could approach this in a consensual, adult manner and do two things. First, I hope my noble friend Lord Forsyth will be willing to have his reports debated next week. There will be plenty of time. The first week of our Recess has been cancelled—I make no complaints about it. Therefore, he has plenty of time and it would be a very good idea.

Secondly, I think that we should have Second Reading today—here, I agree with my noble friend Lady Noakes—and move on, not on Monday but tomorrow. The House has met on Fridays before. The other place is not meeting tomorrow, so there would be no delay whatever in the parliamentary process if we took Report tomorrow. I really think we have to be sensible and I ask noble friends in all parts of the House who were there to remember that April day almost exactly 37 years ago when the House met on a Saturday. That was the most dire of emergencies and both Houses met on the Saturday after the Falklands invasion. So there is nothing sacrosanct about any day other than Sunday as far as your Lordships’ House is concerned. In the war I believe there was one Sitting on a Sunday, but that is beside the point. I urge both Front Benches to talk seriously about this. It does nobody’s cause any service, whether they are a supporter or an opponent of the Bill, to be going bleary-eyed through the Lobbies at 2 am, 3 am, 4 am, 5 am or 6 am. It does no service to anyone.

I have two hopes, and I shall not say any more during the debate today. That may please my noble friends but at least I do not blether on as long as some of them do. I hope that we can heal the bitterness to which my noble friend Lord Empey referred a few hours ago. I hope also that we can make genuine progress on this Bill. I beg my noble friends who have amendments to come to withdraw them, to hold their fire and to make their speeches in the main debate, which I hope we will get on to very soon, and I hope that we can finish the Bill tomorrow. That would make abundant sense, both here and outside.

[Lord Warner]

My Lords, I wish I thought that the Members sitting around the noble Lord who has just spoken would take any notice of his message but, having listened for more than four hours to a set of procedural issues that have nothing to do with the Bill we are supposed to be discussing today, I suggest to the House that we put the question.