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The Parliamentary Secretary, Cabinet Office (Kevin Foster)
It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mrs Main. I thank my hon. Friend the Member for Sutton and Cheam (Paul Scully) for opening the debate on behalf of the Petitions Committee and for speaking to the petitions that are before the House, which more than 1.7 million people have signed.
It has been quite an interesting debate and I have enjoyed sitting here listening to all of it. I have heard many passionate speeches with statements about not wanting to silence voters, about there being no mandate and no majority, about the Government not having a mandate, and about voters being silenced. If Members have those concerns, there is an opportunity to do something about it later this evening—have a general election and ask the country and electorate to make the decision about who they want to govern the country. It is somewhat telling that it is the Opposition who are likely to block that, although I hope, after some of the speeches we have heard today, that Opposition Members will get into the Aye Lobby this evening to vote for a general election. I hope they will vote for their constituents to have the loudest say of all—their vote in a general election.
Kevin Foster
Briefly, and then I will answer the hon. Gentleman’s other question.
Martin Whitfield
I am grateful for the Minister’s indication that he is seeking debate. On the off-chance of tonight’s vote being unsuccessful, would he consider revoking the Prorogation motion so that we could have the debate here?
Kevin Foster
No. The reasons for the Prorogation have been set out. To the arguments of those who have been shouting “Stop the coup!” and “Defend democracy!” but then do not want to have a general election, it must be said that I cannot think of any example of a coup in history where a free and fair general election was offered immediately afterward. That argument is absolute nonsense.
Coming on to the more serious question that the hon. Member for East Lothian (Martin Whitfield) asked, he decided to raise a bit of a scare story about what would happen for an EU citizen coming to our border on 1 November. Luckily, he can visit the Government website; it is being promoted now and he can have a good read of it afterward. There is a section on crossing the border after Brexit and another section on EU citizens moving to the UK after Brexit, which would have answered his question.
However, the hon. Gentleman will be pleased to know that, as people come across the border on 1 November, which was the example he gave, nothing will change. They will still be able to use e-gates if they are travelling on a biometric passport, and will not face routine intentions testing. The website also goes on to say that those coming here between 31 October this year and 31 December next year will be able to move to the UK and live, study, work and access benefits and services as they do now. Bluntly, a simple Google search would have revealed all that interesting information, and I certainly encourage people who have queries to look on that website.
It has been pointed out in the debate that these petitions are clearly distinct from one another in what they ask of the Government. The first, from March 2019, calls on the Government to advise Her Majesty to prorogue Parliament. The second, launched last month, calls on the Government not to prorogue or dissolve Parliament unless and until the Government either revoke article 50 or seek a further extension. Like so much in Brexit, that makes it a debate where we cannot please everyone. In responding to these petitions, I will begin by setting out the process for proroguing Parliament, before turning to the specifics of the points made in the petitions.
Jeremy Lefroy
May I gently point out that there might be a way to please everyone, which is to prorogue for a shorter time, as I have suggested? A Prorogation for two or three weeks would be in accordance with previous precedent and allow the Queen’s Speech to be prepared while, at the same time, hon. Members would have more time to discuss all those matters. That is in addition to the international crises that may occur during this time. We are talking about more than five weeks here.
Kevin Foster
I always have great respect for my hon. Friend, but the Government have set out the period of Prorogation and the reason for it, which is the Queen’s Speech. I can reassure people that we will still be sitting for three weeks before the scheduled exit date and, as we have seen over recent days, it does not take long, if the House is minded, to pass a particular piece of legislation. There will still be ample and adequate time to debate Brexit and, as many would reflect on, we have certainly not been short of opportunities to do so over the past year.
Justin Madders
Can Minister indicate how many days the Government intend to schedule for debate of the withdrawal agreement Bill, assuming that we have one?
Kevin Foster
Of course, any discussion of the number of days will be a matter for the usual channels when and if a deal is agreed. Unlike my hon. Friend the Member for Stafford (Jeremy Lefroy), the hon. Member for Ellesmere Port and Neston (Justin Madders) likes to shout, “No to no deal!”, but he regularly voted no to a deal earlier this year.
Prorogation is the normal end to a parliamentary Session. It remains a matter for the Prime Minister to advise the sovereign on, as it is a prerogative power. That has not changed since the Labour party was in Government. It is for the Government to determine the length of a parliamentary Session and to advise the Queen on the date for the state opening of Parliament. The state opening is marked by the Queen’s Speech, which sets out the programme of legislation the Government intend to pursue in the forthcoming parliamentary Session.
Normally, each parliamentary Session runs for a period of 12 months before Parliament is prorogued. The current parliamentary Session is an exception to the ordinary 12 months, as was touched on during the debate, with the last state opening of Parliament having taken place more than two years ago, on 21 June 2017. This has been the longest parliamentary Session for almost 400 years, far in excess of any of the others.
Kevin Foster
The Prime Minister set out in his statement on 2 September 2019 the many reasons why we want to have the Queen’s Speech on the date when we will be having it. The Government have committed to recruiting another 20,000 police officers, improving both national health service and schools funding, and completing 20 new hospital upgrades. It is to progress the Government’s agenda on these and many other fronts that the Prime Minister has sought to commence a new Session of Parliament with a Queen’s Speech on 14 October.
As I have touched on already, if Opposition Members are confident in their argument, they will have the chance tonight to take that debate out to the whole country, to go and face their constituents and explain their position on this subject. If many of them are thinking of voting no this evening, that will be a rather interesting contrast.
Kevin Foster
I will not give way for now; I will make progress.
Interestingly, senior Opposition MPs have been calling for a Queen’s Speech. The shadow Leader of the House has called for a new Session and a Queen’s Speech five times in five months, while the Shadow Chancellor called for a new session back in May. As I have said, the Government want to bring forward a strong domestic legislative agenda, and ending the parliamentary Session and bringing forward a Queen’s Speech is the legal and necessary way to deliver that.
It is worth pointing out, though, that the larger petition asks that Parliament is not dissolved. Parliament is only dissolved before a general election. The effect of a dissolution is that all business comes to an end and every seat in the House of Commons is vacated until a general election is held. The Prime Minister has been clear that an election should take place ahead of the European Council on 17 to 18 October. That would allow the Prime Minister, elected by the British people—either my right hon. Friend the Member for Uxbridge and South Ruislip (Boris Johnson) or the right hon. Member for Islington North (Jeremy Corbyn)—to go to that European Council and for a newly elected Parliament to be in a position to consider what is agreed, and hopefully to pass the withdrawal agreement Bill.
Colleagues will be aware that, as I have referred to several times, a motion for an early general election will be debated later today. They will have the opportunity to give a voice to their constituents, who they have repeatedly claimed in this debate will be silenced. They can give them the most powerful voice they have in this country—their vote in a general election. I look forward to seeing many of those hon. Members in the Aye Lobby. I hope that nobody will make what are, in some ways, contradictory arguments by shouting about defending democracy and stopping a coup, and then vote no on the biggest exercise of democracy that we can have in this country—a general election.
The Government’s position remains clear: we will not revoke article 50 or seek a further, pointless extension. The UK will leave the European Union on 31 October. I point out to some Opposition Members that there is no automatic right to extensions. An extension is not a solution in itself. After three years, merely kicking the can will not solve the problem.
The 17.4 million who voted to leave the EU represent the largest mandate ever given for any UK Government to deliver. Both main parties pledged to respect that result in the 2017 election, and now we must deliver on that pledge. The Prime Minister believes that Parliament must have time to consider further the UK’s withdrawal from the European Union, and to hold the Government to account. Parliament has sat ahead of the European Council and will sit for three weeks prior to exit day. That means there will be ample time to debate the UK’s leaving the EU in the coming weeks, on both sides of the summit on 17 October—ideally, with a mandate from the British people to resolve this matter.
The Government would prefer to leave the EU with a deal, and we are working in an energetic and determined way to achieve that. The Government are very willing to sit down with the Commission and EU member states to talk about what needs to be done to achieve that. If it is not possible to reach a deal, we will have to leave with no deal. The Government are preparing for that outcome, and further delay will only increase the sense of distrust that many in the public feel and the uncertainty that is so damaging to our economy.
We take note of all of the points that have been raised in the debate today, but the decision to prorogue Parliament is one for the Government, because Prorogation is a prerogative Act of the Crown, exercised on the advice of Ministers. Therefore, in responding to both of these petitions, I must be clear: it is for the Government to determine when is the appropriate time to bring about an end to a parliamentary Session and bring forward a Queen’s Speech.
The Queen’s Speech and the debate that follows form one of the great set-pieces of the parliamentary calendar, where the Government are rightly scrutinised and held to account. The decision to prorogue Parliament is one for the Government of the day to make, as it always has been. We have set out our reasons for doing so—to ensure that a fresh, new domestic legislative agenda is put before Parliament.
There are those who, in recent weeks, have claimed that they wanted to stop a coup, to defend democracy and to give people a say. Tonight, they have the chance to do just that, and to give the electorate the chance to pass its own judgment. If they do not, many voters across the country will conclude that those comments were as hollow as their pledges to respect the people’s vote in the referendum in 2016.