Military Action Overseas: Parliamentary Approval

Wera Hobhouse Excerpts

Tuesday 17th April 2018 Commons Chamber

[Mr Rees-Mogg]

The Executive are being held to account today. The Prime Minister spent six hours yesterday being held to account in this House and a further hour today.

[Wera Hobhouse (Bath) (LD)]

rose—

[Mr Rees-Mogg]

I give way to the hon. Lady—my neighbour.

[Wera Hobhouse]

I am very grateful to my neighbour for giving way. Surely this debate is about not a collective decision on the action that has been taken and on putting the armed forces at risk, but a process that we in this House are collectively happy with and agreed on. Clearly the fact that we are having this debate means that there is not a collective agreement about the process.

[Mr Rees-Mogg]

The hon. Lady is absolutely right, as the Leader of the Opposition was earlier, to say that today’s debate is about process. What I am trying to say is that the process is established, has been established for centuries and is highly effective. The Executive are only the Executive as long as they command the confidence of this House. It would have been open to the Opposition, instead of going for a Standing Order No. 24 debate, to have asked for a vote of confidence in Her Majesty’s Government. I think that that would have been the right thing to do, having listened carefully to the Leader of the Opposition’s speech. The Opposition fundamentally do not have confidence—or their leadership does not—in the making of this decision. We would then have seen whether this House had confidence in the Executive to make the decisions that are the legitimate business of the Executive.