Lord Grocott
Main Page: Lord Grocott (Labour - Life peer)Department Debates - View all Lord Grocott's debates with the Leader of the House
(8 years, 1 month ago)
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Baroness Evans of Bowes Park
My Lords, please, this is not helping. We know that this is an important issue but we get Questions on it nearly every day. It does not look good for the House. It is the turn of the Liberal Democrats.
Baroness Goldie
My party believes implicitly in parliamentary sovereignty and my party believes in holding Parliament with due respect. I do not see any conflict in holding that position and in the actions already taken by the United Kingdom Government. I might observe to the noble Baroness that the intervening events from the manifesto, to which her colleague the noble Lord, Lord Tyler, referred, are that the Conservatives published another manifesto to prepare for the 2015 general election. There was no reference in that to the royal prerogative and, interestingly, the Conservatives won a majority to form a Government—not a privilege afforded to the noble Baroness’s party.
Lord Grocott
My Lords, the noble Lord, Lord Tyler, referred to the importance of what he described as “political integrity”. Does the noble Baroness agree that it is clearly a matter of political integrity—when this House and the Commons, both without dissent, voted to have a referendum to determine whether we should remain in the European Union or leave it—that Parliament should abide by and act on that decision?
Baroness Goldie
I thank the noble Lord opposite for, frankly, a very sensible and welcome interjection that gets to the heart of the issue. There is an electoral mandate here. There is an obligation on government to implement that mandate.