Business of the House

Debate between Lord Framlingham and Lord Bilimoria

Thursday 4th April 2019 Lords Chamber

[Lord Framlingham (Con)]

My Lords, it is a great pleasure to follow the noble and learned Lord, Lord Brown, and I agree entirely with his remarks—particularly his final recommendation. The one thing of which he cannot be accused is being a member of the ERG, which is very refreshing. I shall be brief, because, as always in these debates, much has been said. However, I claim the right to say what I think on important occasions such as this.

The noble Baroness, Lady Hayter, started off by saying that unconventional times require unconventional measures. I could not disagree more. In unconventional times, you need conventional measures to keep your bearings and know where you are. Otherwise, if you are not careful, you descend into chaos. Not many days ago we had a debate in this Chamber revolving around statutory instruments, dealt with by my noble friend Lord True. I will repeat the point he made again and again: we must always draw huge difference between the great issues which we want to discuss—the things that divide us and about which we get very worked up—and the framework within which we discuss them. Today we are destroying the framework. If we do that, there is a danger of descending into chaos. Some outside this Chamber may say—the people of this country are starting to say—that it is chaos that we between us have created.

This is a momentous decision, and it needs time. It seems to be generally accepted in the country that we will rubber-stamp it; that the Bill will take a little while today, but then go through. The media treat it that way. But we cannot be seen as a pushover, a rubber stamp or a mere formality. Otherwise, as has been said by many, we have no justification to continue to exist.

In days gone by—quite a while ago, I remember, when I was a Member of the House of Commons—time used to be the Opposition’s main and legitimate weapon. Yes, it meant that things were sometimes strung out, but it also ensured scrutiny without time limit. That meant proper scrutiny in real depth; you did not make the same degree of mistakes. To cut the debate short in those days, which was rare, there was such a thing as a guillotine. Over the years, the guillotine became “programming”, which is the modern word for it. The House of Commons now guillotines things routinely, with the result that, like a sausage machine, we get half-thought-through legislation from down the Corridor, which we have to deal with by the bucketload. This is just part of the same thing. Surely we must maintain our right to correct if need be or to look carefully at what they do, and, if need be, to ask them to think again.

The Bill itself is an abuse of the parliamentary system. To ram it through in one day like this would be to compound that abuse. The truth is that it is all part of the plot to stop us leaving the European Union—I am not afraid to mention that. The noble Lord, Lord Bilimoria, just intervened on somebody in the debate; he now spends night and day working to stop us leaving the EU. I find it hard to take remarks from people in this Chamber when I know what their motives are. There has been a huge amount of dishonesty over the last two and a half years, not least from the gentleman who is burbling from the Opposition Back Benches.

[Lord Bilimoria]

Is the noble Lord accusing me of dishonesty?

[Lord Framlingham]

Not at all; on the contrary, I accuse him of honesty. He is honest all the time: he wants to stop us leaving the EU and is working night and day to stop it happening. That is what I said, and if he can deny that, I will give way to him again. I do not want to impugn; it is dangerous to get into this, as it gets very emotive, and I know that we do not want to—