Brexit: Parliamentary Processes

Lord Forsyth of Drumlean Excerpts

Thursday 3rd October 2019 Lords Chamber

[Lord Callanan]

The great thing about this proposal is that it has attracted support from across the sector, including, I am delighted to say, from a number of Labour MPs who take quite a constructive approach to wanting to deliver on the referendum result. It looks as though we have a majority assembled for this provision, but we still have a lot of hard negotiating to do. We will endeavour to bring back a proposal that will enjoy widespread support across all communities and all parties.

[Lord Forsyth of Drumlean (Con)]

Does the Minister agree that there is an irony in this Question, which calls on the Prime Minister to comply with the provisions of the European Union (Withdrawal) (No.2) Act? Section 1(4) of that Act says that we should apply for an extension,

“in order to debate and pass a Bill to implement the agreement between the United Kingdom and the European Union under Article 50(2)”,

requiring the Prime Minister to give an undertaking that he can pass an agreement which has been consistently rejected by the House of Commons because of Labour going through particular Division Lobbies.

[Lord Callanan]

My noble friend makes a sensible point. It appears to many of us that this Bill was designed to try to undermine the UK’s negotiating position. It was interesting that we had six hours of debate on EU withdrawal yesterday and nobody—either from the Labour Front Bench, where we had two speakers, or the numerous speakers from the Labour Back Bench—but nobody had anything to say on Labour’s position on this, because, of course, its position is ridiculous. Its position is that it wants to go to the European Union, negotiate a new deal, come back and then vote against it. What a shabby Opposition they have become.