Business of the House

Lord Lawson of Blaby Excerpts

Thursday 4th April 2019 Lords Chamber

[Lord Newby (LD)]

My Lords, I shall begin by responding to the noble Lord, Lord Baker, who very helpfully quoted Mill at me. I absolutely agree that democracy requires the exercise of free speech. It also requires the following of rules and the exercise of its powers with responsibility. We have just heard a 30-minute speech. It may have been an excellent speech, and I am sure that if I now speak for 30 minutes it will be an excellent speech as well, but if I speak for 30 minutes, and all my colleagues speak for 30 minutes, we will never get to the substance of today’s debate. Therefore, your Lordships will be pleased to know that I do not intend to speak for 30 minutes—25 should be enough.

The burden of all these amendments is that the House is being expected to follow unprecedented procedures. Is this surprising? We are in extraordinary, unprecedented times. We are in a national crisis the like of which has not occurred in my lifetime. It is a national crisis which consists in no small part of the fact that there has been a collapse of government. The Prime Minister, after seven hours in Cabinet, addressed the nation to say that she would like the leader of the Opposition to tell her what to do and that, if she did not like that, she would go to the House of Commons and ask it to tell her what to do within hours of having to put something to the European Council next week in order to prevent no-deal Brexit. This collapse of government is unprecedented, and it would be slightly surprising if Parliament did not respond to it by taking unprecedented measures to fill the vacuum where normally one finds government. The third unprecedented point, which is unprecedented in human history, is that unless we prevent a no-deal Brexit at the end of next week, this country will be the first democracy ever to have agreed to make itself poorer, less secure and less influential. Therefore, it is unprecedented and needs dealing with in unprecedented ways.

The key element which means that it is necessary to deal with this Bill today is just how little time there is. We are talking about a very few days before the Prime Minister has to write to the European Council, hopefully with some view about why we should have a further extension. As of this minute, the only thing that can be written in that letter about why we are doing it is because we cannot think of what we want. I hope that by close of business on Monday we will be a bit further forward on that, but, if this House blocks this Bill, as the noble Lord, Lord Owen, whom I do not always agree with, said earlier, how would that be perceived? How would it be perceived if we were to agree with the noble Lord, Lord True, that we could not possibly deal with this until a Select Committee had dealt with it? At a time of national crisis, I think that the world would think that your Lordships had lost a sense of proportion.

The other argument that has been made against the Bill, including by the noble Baroness the Leader of the House, is that it is unnecessary because of a commitment made by the Prime Minister. However, it is a sign of the confidence that the Commons has in the Prime Minister that it does not think that that is enough. It thinks—and I agree—that, unless we have something like this Bill, there is absolutely no assurance that the Prime Minister will come forward with the necessary guarantee.

Finally, I have two points to make about the amount of time that we have to debate the Bill. First, we will have longer to debate the Bill, the less time we waste on these procedural Motions. Secondly, I look forward to the debates that we shall have later. I look forward to the Second Reading and to debating amendments in Committee and on Report. I have brought my toothbrush. It will not be the first time that I have spent all night in your Lordships’ House, and many of my colleagues have done the same. We are here at the service—says he very pompously—of the country to debate this issue for as long as the noble Lord, Lord Forsyth, and his colleagues want to debate it. No doubt we will hear the same arguments time and time again but, if that is what the noble Lord wants, I shall, as always, look forward to hearing them and will be in my place to listen to them, however long it takes.

[Lord Lawson of Blaby (Con)]

My Lords, the noble Lord the leader of the Liberal Democrats will be glad to know that I shall be brief. I will address myself to the main point embedded in what he said. To begin with, this is a most appalling day. I have served in Parliament for 45 years and there has never been an instance of constitutional vandalism of the scale that we are witnessing today and at the present time more generally.

I am on the record as having long been concerned that in this country we do not have a written constitution. The reason that we do not have a written constitution is not that there is anything bad about written constitutions interpreted by the appropriate courts and safeguarded by the courts; it is our history. If one looks across the world, one sees that written constitutions come into being only when there is a historical discontinuity. For example, when a colony of the United Kingdom is given self-government, it equips itself with a written constitution—although ironically, or worse than ironically, it seems that the majority of the Members of this House do not believe that we are capable of self-government. A written constitution also comes into being following a bloody revolution and frequently after defeat in wartime. We have been blessed uniquely in this country in not suffering these historical discontinuities, and that is why, uniquely, we do not have a written constitution and have to rely on respect for the procedures of Parliament. However, we pay a price for not having a written constitution. We pay a price for having had a reasonably trouble-free history, unlike the rest of the world, and that price has become evident today and in recent days.

The main point made by the noble Lord the leader of the Liberal Democrats is that the issues surrounding Brexit are so important that it is necessary and right to tear up the constitution. However, the reverse is the case: the more important the issue, the more important it is that the constitution and the conventions are respected. As there is a really important substantive issue of a constitutional nature lying behind this, the more important it is that we respect the constitution and do not engage in this vandalism. I respect the fact that views differ on the length of this debate but I think that everybody agrees that this is a very important issue, including the noble Lord, who said so himself.

[Viscount Ridley]

Can my noble friend address this point? The problem that the Bill is trying to address is a disagreement between the Government and Parliament and between Parliament and the country. The idea that you resolve such a thing by ramming something through an unelected House in one day is surely a constitutional monstrosity of an even greater kind.

[Lord Lawson of Blaby]

My noble friend makes a very strong point. I am deeply concerned at the growing rift between Parliament and the people, with the refusal to accept the people’s judgment, whether you agree with it or not. A very clear judgment was made in the referendum. There is a real danger that undesirable but very often understandable insurrectionary forces will feel that they cannot trust the British Parliament or the British constitution, and a very ugly situation could well arise. Therefore, my noble friend is absolutely right.

[Baroness Deech (CB)]

My Lords, I had not planned to speak, but I am literally moved to tell your Lordships what my feelings are. I have spent 55 years teaching and studying law, including constitutional law. If you want to know how effective I am, I have had in my lectures the noble Baroness, Lady Chakrabarti, the former Prime Minister Tony Blair and the noble Lord, Lord Pannick. The point about studying law—and probably many people in this House practise or have practised as lawyers—is that you internalise respect for the rule of law.

The noble Lord, Lord Lawson, explained about us not having a written constitution. Our constitution works only because of trust. Why do we accept the authority of the Lord Speaker, whoever he or she may be? Why do we accept the rulings of the clerks, disguised as they are in their wigs? It is because we trust them and because this has gone on for centuries. It is not a question of personalities; it is a question of the role that people fill. Each Session we take an oath, standing by the Dispatch Box, to be loyal to the Queen and, implicitly, to uphold the law. Why do judges not interfere with the proceedings of Parliament? There is no question of anyone challenging this law if it goes through today because the judges accept that Parliament deserves their trust. We trust the judges and they trust Parliament, and if that breaks down, the whole system breaks down. Not only is the constitution being damaged and trashed today but we have been subjected to gagging orders. I am speaking now because I think that, if I wait another five minutes, there will be another Motion to stop us talking.