Business of the House

Debate between Liz Saville Roberts and Jacob Rees-Mogg

Thursday 24th October 2019 Commons Chamber

[Mr Rees-Mogg]

My right hon. Friend is right to raise that issue. I note that he had a commitment from a previous Secretary of State for Defence. If he is concerned that that commitment has not been fully delivered upon, I would be grateful if he brought it to my attention, so that it may be followed up. His points are good ones, and I will ensure that they are passed on.

[Liz Saville Roberts (Dwyfor Meirionnydd) (PC)]

The report of the Commission on Justice in Wales, chaired by former Lord Chief Justice Thomas, is published today. The Commission unanimously concludes that the people of Wales are let down by the present justice system and calls for a separate judiciary and control over legal aid, policing, prisons and probation. Can the Leader of the House find time for this House to debate how Westminster fails to serve Wales with justice?

[Mr Rees-Mogg]

I am a great believer in the United Kingdom, and Wales gets enormous benefits from being a part of the United Kingdom—a very significant part of it. The first half of my surname gives away an element of Welsh antecedence, which is one of the reasons I am so much in favour of the Welsh connection. For a specific debate of that kind, a suitable route is the Backbench Business Committee, but the right hon. Lady and I disagree fundamentally on the place of Wales in the United Kingdom, which is probably more at the heart of this than anything else.

Business of the House (Saturday 19 October)

Debate between Liz Saville Roberts and Jacob Rees-Mogg

Thursday 17th October 2019 Commons Chamber

[Mr Rees-Mogg]

Not all the facilities will be open, but there will be sufficient facilities to ensure the culinary comfort of Members if they get a little bit peckish during the course of the day.

The Government have made quite remarkable progress in these negotiations, which will be reported to the House. This is a really inspiring negotiating triumph that the Prime Minister has achieved. The papers have been made available as early as possible, to be as courteous and helpful to the House as possible. The debate date is set by the European Union (Withdrawal) (No. 2) Act.

It is remarkable how far we have come, when everybody said it was impossible. In 85 days, the undemocratic backstop has been removed. At the end of the transition period—that is to say, on 31 December 2020—we will no longer be under the imperial yoke of the European Union. We will be able to implement our own free trade deals. We will be able to set our own regulations. We will be in charge of our own laws. It is an incredible achievement and so much better than where we were at Easter.

[Liz Saville Roberts (Dwyfor Meirionnydd) (PC)]

Surely the right hon. Gentleman agrees with me that, as elected representatives, we would be failing in our duty to our constituents if we were to vote on a deal that would impact on their futures and the futures of their children without foresight of that likely impact. Can he therefore commit that he we will do everything in his power to ensure that impact assessments are published and available for Members to see before Saturday?

[Mr Rees-Mogg]

The right hon. Lady raises an interesting question. There are any number of impact assessments that people have made, but let me give her my assessment of what will happen when we leave the European Union: it will be a golden age for the United Kingdom when we are free of the heavy yoke of the European Union, which has bowed us down for generations and made us less competitive, less efficient and higher-cost. All of that will be gone, and we will be singing hallelujahs.

United Kingdom’s Withdrawal from the European Union

Debate between Liz Saville Roberts and Jacob Rees-Mogg

Friday 29th March 2019 Commons Chamber

[Liz Saville Roberts (Dwyfor Meirionnydd) (PC)]

It is an honour to follow the hon. Member for Taunton Deane (Rebecca Pow). Another day, another Brexit vote, which is not quite the Brexit vote that we need and does not quite have the numbers that it needs to win. It does not quite give constituents, companies or our four countries the certainty that they require, yet here we are again.

The British state is beset with a Tory Westminster Government behaving like Olympian gods, as if our constituents, many of whom have livelihoods that depend on our relationship with Europe, and we were mere pawns in their chess game. They insist on bringing forward meaningful vote after vote after vote, knowing that they produce absolutely nothing, but pretend that they are doing something. This is nothing more than deceit, duplicity and deception from a Government acting in desperation. Then the Prime Minister has the audacity to go on national television and blame us, Members of this House, for her failure as Head of State to govern.

We are ensnared in a morass of procedural minutiae, with twists and turns of byzantine complexity—a six-volume Gibbon’s “Decline and Fall of the British Empire”—played out in painfully tedious slow-motion in what used to be held in respect as the mother of Parliaments. We cannot discuss the failure of this House without turning to the Benches on this side. We were helpfully reminded this week—everyone was reminded—that Labour is “not a remain party”, and don’t we know it. If the Labour party had done its sole job and opposed any of the disastrous moves by the Government, not simply closed its eyes and wished upon its negotiation-free Brexit, we would now have a clear way forward and we would not be clinging to the whims of the European Reform Group and the intransigence of the Democratic Unionist party. Alas, as long as we stick to this archaic, dysfunctional Westminster system, we are stuck with Her Majesty’s Opposition, complicit with Her Majesty’s Government.

[Mr Jacob Rees-Mogg (North East Somerset) (Con)]

The right hon. Lady mentioned the ERG. If Her Majesty’s Government had followed the whims of the ERG we would be in a much better position today.

[Liz Saville Roberts]

The ERG does what suits it best and, as we see, many of its members are allowed to change their opinion. If only the people of the nations of the United Kingdom were allowed as much.

I would say to Labour that if Wales leaves Europe because of Labour Members, Labour fiefdom in Wales is at an end. If Labour abandons the interests of Wales, Wales will abandon Labour. This House, at the behest of both the Brexiteering Unionist parties has so far failed to make any decisions about our future relationship with the European Union. The blame is at their door. We have suggested ways forward to marshal decision making, with my hon. Friend the Member for Carmarthen East and Dinefwr (Jonathan Edwards) suggesting indicative votes using an alternative voting system to decide how we proceed. That was first raised weeks upon weeks ago, long before the Government lost their first meaningful vote. If the Prime Minister had pulled her fingers out of her ears and listened to anyone other than the privileged elite of the ERG and the DUP—the elite of the Brexiteers—we could have used the last two and a half months to make some progress, to decide what the House thinks is the best way forward and to simply get on with it.

It cannot be said often enough: how often is the Prime Minister going to game democracy for her own purposes? How many ERGers will switch their votes and their previous principles on the most spurious of thin reasons? Will they not open their eyes and see that representative parliamentary democracy in this place has stalled? If it is good enough for the Tories to have multiple shots, how do they have the nerve to argue that the people are somehow unworthy of a final-say referendum? Bring on a people’s vote—our salvation in public democracy.

To close, we are where we are because of this tin-eared, time-wasting and timorous British Government, who are hell bent on putting their own interests before the interests of farmers, factory workers and families across the UK. If this is the best the Commons can cobble together, we are in serious trouble. Britain is broken, and Westminster is simply not working. The people of Wales deserve better than this failed empire of a Union. The timbers of this ship of state are rotten, and we in Wales must look to Europe and to ourselves for salvation.