Business of the House

Lord McLoughlin Excerpts

Wednesday 27th March 2019 Commons Chamber

[Sir Oliver Letwin]

The hon. Lady has raised a very serious and important point. I think we should make that commitment, because people need an opportunity to see what rules of play will obtain on Monday and an opportunity to table amendments, and to consider, in the light of that, how to proceed. I believe that, if we are talking about tomorrow, Thursday—because the House is not currently due to sit on Friday—the sitting will be curtailed at approximately 5.30 pm, after the Adjournment debate. I therefore think—assuming that the House does not sit on Friday—that we should make a commitment to lay the Business of the House motion for Monday by 3.30 pm tomorrow, so that people have two hours in which to look at it and table amendments if they see fit.

Incidentally, I agree with the hon. Lady—it was part of the burden of what I was saying to my right hon. and learned Friend the Member for Rushcliffe (Mr Clarke)—that there is ample scope for thinking now, and in the succeeding hours, including tomorrow morning, about possible methods of voting on Monday to encourage, or even to ensure, some further convergence to reach a majority in favour of some alternative.

[Sir Patrick McLoughlin (Derbyshire Dales) (Con)]

Colleagues argue that there is no precedent for events of this kind. There will in future be precedents for such events. That is the way in which parliamentary rules have developed over many centuries.

Will my right hon. Friend now address the point that we do not yet know and will not know for another hour and six minutes: exactly what motions will we be voting on? We are expected to vote on them at 7 o’clock. Will he ensure that in future the House is given a proper choice, rather than the choice that is put by the Chair?

[Sir Oliver Letwin]

I am grateful to my right hon. Friend for his observation about precedents. As a former Chief Whip, he knows very well how these things happen. It is indeed the case that our constitution has evolved through a series of adjustments, and there will be a precedent in this instance. I hope, incidentally—because I am not actually a revolutionary—that it will not be taken as a precedent for events like this to take place every day of the week. I profoundly hope that our successors in the House will not for many decades face an emergency of the kind that we are currently facing, because this is not a way of proceeding that I think any of us would like our country to face in the future.

As for my right hon. Friend’s point about the motions, I am much more confident than his question suggested that you, Mr Speaker, will select a full range of motions representing a full range of views, and that there will be ample opportunity for people, genuinely and openly, to support the positions that they wish to support and object to the positions to which they object. I think we shall see that when you make your selection, Mr Speaker, because I know that your intention has been—as has mine, and, I think, that of the House as a whole—to use this as a genuine opportunity for people to come together on the basis of looking at a full range of options and having every sensible choice available to them.