Arrangement of Business

Lord Newby Excerpts

Monday 18th March 2019 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Smith of Basildon (Lab)]

My Lords, I thank the Chief Whip for his statement. It is rare that we hear him speak for so long; perhaps we shall hear more from him in due course.

I am grateful for the statement. My noble friend Lord McAvoy and I welcome the rescheduling of the important economic debate for the Chamber rather than the Moses Room, as my noble friend Lord Foulkes raised last week. However, it is a sign of how this Government’s handling of Brexit has dominated the political landscape and crowded out everything else.

I am sure that I am not the only Member of this House who finds it quite incredible that here we are, just eight sitting days from the Government’s self-imposed deadline for exit day, and the Prime Minister is still clinging on to her discredited deal as the best the UK can get. She appears determined to batter MPs into submission to agree it. At least the Government are now seeking an extension to Article 50. If the Prime Minister’s deal is not agreed by MPs, any extension must be used to produce a different outcome and not just to rehash the same rejected deal.

To return to the point I made a few months ago in Questions, the Prime Minister’s latest wheeze is apparently to offer a “Stormont lock”, in effect giving her friends in the DUP a veto on UK-wide future regulation if they vote with her on the deal. Yet again, it is a short-term fix with no thought for the wider impact, including the constitutional implications for the other devolved Administrations. We know that there are special circumstances relating to the Irish border, but this seems like political expediency designed to suit the Conservative Party and the DUP, especially given the Government’s failure to get the Northern Ireland Executive up and running again.

I asked last week when the Government would give legislative effect to the decision by the House of Commons to reject no deal. The Minister, the noble Lord, Lord Callanan, declined to answer. The problem is that the only reason that we are still dealing with no-deal Sis—there are relatively few left to deal with—is the Government’s incompetence. The Prime Minister clings to her belief that to threaten us with a crash-out disaster is an ingenious strategy.

I take the point made by the Chief Whip that he must prepare for all outcomes. Should Mrs May’s belligerence mean that we still crash out, these regulations will be needed. It is to the Government’s shame that we will not know until Thursday whether there will be an extension to Article 50. Many of us find it ludicrous that, with all that we could be doing, with all the issues that this country needs to address and resolve, Parliament has had to spend time rushing through contingency arrangements when even the impartial Civil Service has been clear with Ministers that 29 March is unachievable. On a point of clarification, I thought that the point made by the noble Lord, Lord Finkelstein, was that he did not trust the Government not to crash out without a deal.

There were questions that were not answered in the Chief Whip’s statement. I would be grateful if he could address them, because your Lordships’ House has struggled to get an answer to them. First, we have been told that the Government will table all necessary legislation for a no-deal Brexit. What are those Bills and where are they? Can the Chief Whip list them today for the convenience of the House?

Secondly, should an extension to Article 50 be granted, what legislation will be required to give effect to it? My understanding is that there will need to be an SI to change the exit day. Will that be it or is anything else required?

Thirdly, as I asked last week and did not get an answer, when will the Government bring forward legislation, whether by SI or in another form, to give effect to the House of Commons’ rejection of no deal as an option?

The Minister will recall that I asked last week whether the Government were considering Saturday sittings. The noble Lord, Lord Callanan, was unable to answer then; can the Chief Whip do so today?

[Lord Newby (LD)]

My Lords, the truth is that the Government Chief Whip has put a brave face on a farce. The position is that the Commons decided last week that it would press for a rejection of no deal and an extension of Article 50. It has been perfectly clear all along that any such reasonable request would be accepted by the European Council at the end of this week, so the only basis on which the Government are pursuing these no-deal SIs is that they simply have no faith in their own ability to enact what the Commons has asked them to do and what the EU has said it is prepared to do.

I want to ask about the disappearing primary legislation relating to Brexit. Even if the Government were to get their deal through, there are a number of pieces of primary legislation that they say will be necessary at the point we leave the EU, particularly the immigration, Agriculture and Fisheries Bills. None yet has a scheduled date for Report in the House of Commons, which I assume means that they cannot come to this House on the planned schedule until after Easter. There will then be about eight weeks until 30 June, which is the point at which the Government say they wish their extension to come to an end and, presumably, leave the EU. May I have an assurance from the noble Lord that these pieces of primary legislation, which are deemed necessary—indeed, essential—by the Government, will be brought to your Lordships’ House, if the Government succeed in getting their deal through, in a timely manner, so that we do not have the same kind of farcical rush we have been expected to endure on other matters?

I also want to ask the Minister to deny the rumours that have been swirling around the House in recent days that the Government plan to curtail the Easter Recess and that, just as in February, noble Lords will be expected to be in Parliament, business or not, when they are currently planning to be away. Finally, given all the uncertainty surrounding the Government at the moment, will the Chief Whip give the House an undertaking that, in the light of what happens at the weekend, he will return to the House next Monday and explain what is going on?

[Lord Foulkes of Cumnock (Lab Co-op)]

My Lords, I genuinely thank the Government Chief Whip for listening sympathetically and agreeing to the specific suggestion I made last Thursday. I hope this will create a precedent.