Privilege (Withdrawal Agreement: Legal Advice)

Michael Fabricant Excerpts

Tuesday 4th December 2018 Commons Chamber

[Robert Courts]

My hon. Friend makes an excellent point. In the middle of a negotiation, in any discussion that by necessity is high profile and tense, any disclosure of advice that might undermine a negotiator is clearly to be regretted. The Commission will have its legal advice, and we might like to see it, but there is a good reason why we cannot see it and why the Commission should not be able to see ours.

The Government are approaching this matter in a better way than the Opposition’s motion because, as hon. Members have mentioned, they have used an archaic procedure. It was not designed to deal with this situation. [Interruption.] I hear an hon. Member say the whole House is archaic. The whole House is old and historic and flexible, but this procedure has not been used for many years and is not designed for a matter of such sensitivity. It is designed for the production of documents, not legal advice

[Michael Fabricant (Lichfield) (Con)]

What does my hon. Friend think the Director of Public Prosecutions, say, might think if he were asked to give private legal advice that would then be made public?

[Robert Courts]

That is an excellent point.

--- Later in debate ---

[Andrew Bowie]

I am not here to debate these issues; I am here to point out the rank hypocrisy of SNP Members in putting their names to a motion demanding that this Government publish legal advice when they themselves have not done so on countless occasions, including, as my hon. Friend the Member for Monmouth (David T. C. Davies) pointed out, recently when the Scottish Government’s Brexit Minister refused to publish their own legal advice for their continuity Bill. So I ask SNP Members what has changed: have they changed their minds on this, and do they believe now that it is in the interests of the country and of all Governments at every level—from here at Westminster to Holyrood to Cardiff to Belfast—to publish legal advice in full? If so, that is quite a change from where they were six years ago, and quite a change from where they were even six weeks ago, and it would lead to some interesting questions on the Floor of the Scottish Parliament.

[Michael Fabricant]

It seems to me that both the SNP and the former Director of Public Prosecutions are arguing that if Parliament passes a motion, even if it might not be in the public interest, the Government have to comply with that motion. Does it follow that if Parliament were to pass a motion that MI5 or MI6 were to open their files and make them public, the Government should naturally do that?