Arrangement of Business
Debate between Lord Jopling and Lord Purvis of Tweed
Lord Purvis of Tweed (LD)
My Lords, in Questions, the noble Earl, Lord Howe, gave the impression that the only business we would be expected to consider after Prorogation—and presumably after debate on the then Queen’s Speech—is a withdrawal Bill. But there is currently a great deal of legislation that needs to be completed, including, as the Government themselves have said, the Trade Bill. As the then Minister said in March:
“This Bill is essential to providing continuity and certainty for UK businesses as we leave the EU”.—[Official Report, 6/3/19; col. 615.]
Can the Chief Whip give clarity as to what the status of this legislation is, because some of it may not be able to be carried over into a new Session after Prorogation? If legislation such as the Trade Bill is essential for British businesses that require legal cover to conduct business with European enterprises and European businesses which currently conduct business within the UK, they will have no legal cover because we will not have time for the Commons to consider Lords amendments of the Trade Bill that this House passed with large majorities.
Lord Jopling (Con)
My Lords, I repeat and warmly support the nice things that have been said about the Chief Whip, but will he consult with his colleagues in the Whips’ Office in another place in regard to the threats which have been scattered around to some Members of the other place of taking away the whip and their possibilities of standing as Conservative candidates? Will he remind his colleagues that, in the early 1970s when we joined the Common Market, as it was then—I was a member of the Whips’ Office at the time—we had more than 30 Members of the Conservative Party who either voted regularly against the Government or abstained and that there was never any thought whatever of taking the whip away from them or tinkering about with their ability to be readopted by their constituencies? Will he tell his colleagues that many of us find these threats arrogant, inept and totally unacceptable in the historic traditions of the Conservative Party?