Business of the House

Debate between Baroness Wheatcroft and Lord Framlingham

Wednesday 4th September 2019 Lords Chamber

[Lord Framlingham]

My Lords, I will speak to this amendment on behalf of my noble friend Lord True. It is to do with how binding or otherwise manifestos are. Before I begin, I will respond to the noble Lord who asked whether we were—or someone was—suggesting that ex-Cabinet Ministers could be trying to harm the Government’s programme. I respectfully remind your Lordships that the Member of Parliament who was the Chancellor of the Exchequer just a few weeks ago is now the principal saboteur of the Government’s programme. I think that speaks for itself.

[Baroness Wheatcroft (Con)]

I am grateful to my noble friend for giving way. I cannot quite believe that I heard him refer to the former Chancellor of the Exchequer as a saboteur. Would he like to withdraw that slight against somebody who worked extremely hard as Chancellor of the Exchequer and restored the finances of this country?

[Lord Framlingham]

I understand that debates such as this do raise emotions. I feel particularly strongly about it. Perhaps “saboteur” is an ill-chosen word, but I am talking about somebody who for three years pretended to be working towards a sensible Brexit while—we now know—all the time doing exactly the opposite.

[Baroness Wheatcroft]

That is absolutely untrue. There is no evidence for that at all. Again I ask: will my noble friend withdraw his remark? As far as I am aware, the Chancellor of the Exchequer was working very hard to secure a deal. He is now working to ensure that this country does not leave the EU with a very damaging no-deal Brexit.

--- Later in debate ---

[Lord Framlingham]

I assure the noble Lord that I will take a copy of the Companion with me when I go home. I am talking about the guillotine Motion and all that relates to it. The guillotine is what we are talking about now. We are about to introduce an extraordinary measure; I do not know why the House is so relaxed about it. We will come on to the essence of guillotines later, but I am talking about manifestos at the moment. The idea that the House of Lords should introduce a guillotine is quite ridiculous.

I was making the point that the Northern Ireland Bill was used to bend normal rules. To try to force the Government to report to the House of Commons in the period leading up to 31 October, the Opposition sought to table an amendment in the House of Commons. The Speaker did not allow it, so, taking advantage of our lenient rules on tabling amendments, they persuaded someone here to table it. It was duly passed in our House, where the Opposition, in this case, have a guaranteed majority. When it arrived back in the Commons, it was then deemed to be within the scope of the Bill. The Opposition promptly tabled their own amendment and it was passed. Finally, it was passed again by us. What a crafty and very sad way of circumventing our normal proceedings.

I will briefly read a quote relating to that from a Member of the other Place responsible for it. I will not name him in case I am in error again. He said, as they were trying to do this:

“Would my right hon. and learned Friend first agree that the reason that Mr Speaker quite rightly did not select new clause 14 is that it would not have been within the scope of the Bill as unamended, but that, if amended by my right hon. and learned Friend’s amendments, new clause 14 would probably be brought into scope? Secondly, does he agree that their lordships in the other place take a rather wider view of scope than is typically taken here, and therefore there is ample reason to suppose that, given the majorities we know to exist in the House of Lords, new clause 14 in some form is actually likely to be added to the package and therefore to be operative?”.


His colleague said:

“Yes, I do agree. That is certainly one of the reasons this should go to the other place”.—[Official Report, Commons, 9/7/19; cols. 243-44.]


There you are: that is how we are used and abused when it is appropriate.

[Baroness Wheatcroft]

The noble Lord referred to a crafty way of subverting the processes of the House. Would he agree that the sort of filibustering we are watching this evening seems a very crafty way to subvert the Bill we wish to get to?

[Lord Framlingham]

No, I do not agree with that at all. I am just getting on with it as fast as I can. I am not trying to filibuster.