Leaving the European Union

Lord Campbell of Pittenweem Excerpts

Wednesday 22nd May 2019 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Evans of Bowes Park]

People have not seen the withdrawal Bill yet. It is being published on Friday, so I urge the noble Lord and colleagues down in the other place to wait, look at it, reflect, and understand that we need the Bill in order to leave the EU, whatever you wish the future relationship with the EU to be. I would ask everyone to look at the Bill and consider it, and then the vote will be brought forward at Second Reading. I hope that we will then see the Bill begin to pass, and we can then move on, as everyone here has said, to the future relationship with the EU.

[Lord Campbell of Pittenweem (LD)]

My Lords, I begin by expressing my admiration for the Leader of the House, first, for her loyalty to the Prime Minister and, secondly, for her courage under fire. But is not the fate of these proposals to be found in the rather brutal headline of the national newspaper which used to be regarded as the house magazine of the Conservative Party—namely, “Desperate, deluded, doomed”?

[Baroness Evans of Bowes Park]

I am grateful to the noble Lord for what I think are his kind words—I shall take them as that anyway. As I said, I believe that we want to leave the EU in an orderly and smooth manner. This deal is the way to do that, and that is why I continue to stand here and defend it in the face of fire from all sides. However, the British people made a decision, we are determined to deliver it, we have made a further offer to MPs to consider it and I hope that, in a couple of weeks’ time, they will vote for the Second Reading of the withdrawal Bill.