European Union (Withdrawal) (No. 6) Bill

Lord Rooker Excerpts

2nd reading (Hansard): House of Lords
Thursday 5th September 2019 Lords Chamber

Moved by

[Lord Rooker]

That the Bill be now read a second time.

[Lord Rooker (Lab)]

My Lords, I move this Motion on behalf of the elected House. I am not here to debate leave, remain or Brexit. The Bill is about how Brexit is carried through so that the UK does not leave without a deal and that, once a deal is there to be voted on, we will leave, if the House of Commons agrees, via its meaningful vote.

Of course, this House does not have a meaningful vote. The Bill has come from the elected Commons but this is not a normal situation. The timetable has been forced on Parliament by the Prime Minister. Our role is not necessarily to rubber-stamp the elected Commons but, given the Prime Minister’s Prorogation timetable, the House has no real time to amend the Bill without jettisoning it as a whole—it is too risky. This is not the preferred way to scrutinise. It has been forced on the House. In this respect, I much regret that the Leader of the Lords saw fit to be part of the Privy Council’s forcing an early close-down of Parliament. Knowing the sensitivity of being the Leader of the House, she should, I believe, have declined that invitation. There are plenty of privy counsellors around to choose for the task.

It is not the case that it must be certain privy counsellors. In 2005, for the Prorogation Privy Council, there were three privy counsellors present at Windsor. None of them was from the House of Commons; two were Ministers from the Lords, of which I was one, and another was a member of neither the Government nor the House of Commons. There are plenty of privy counsellors. The Leader of the House did not have to accept that invitation; it has dragged this House into the issue of closing down Parliament early when it was not necessary. We need to consider what is sent to the Lords and the context in which it is sent. There is a clear breakdown of trust in the Commons, which is under extreme pressure. It has now decided, as it did earlier in the year, to try to take some responsibility for and control of the decision on a no-deal Brexit. To coin a phrase, the Commons has acted to stop a no-deal Brexit by any means necessary. We have gone past the stage where many of the public thought that no deal meant not leaving—the Operation Yellowhammer papers have made that clear to everyone concerned.

I always preface my presentations for the Peers in Schools programme by saying that we have two Houses of Parliament, but they are not equal. The role of the Lords is to scrutinise and sometimes to ask the Commons to think again, but knowing that the Commons always has the last word. But we are not in normal times. As I said earlier, the Prime Minister’s timetable means that we are in no real position, whatever the business arrangements for Monday, to ask the Commons to think again on this Bill. It almost amounts to a national emergency in legislative terms. We need to treat the Commons with respect as it tries to achieve the objective. It alone has the legal and political responsibility for the meaningful vote. It is as divided as the nation, but it has sent us a Bill.

We should now, as far as the Prorogation timetable allows, operate the conventions to give the Commons the last word. The conventions are in play as never before —we saw that yesterday. Indeed, the conventions are being changed. A convention breached requires what we might see as an unconventional approach, hence the business Motion and hence effectively timetabling consideration of this Bill.

When I was young and out of order, my mother used to call me Jeffrey, rather than Jeff, and often told me, “two wrongs don’t make a right”. Today I have to ask: if the wrongs are not two but more, many more—eight, nine, or a dozen at least—what do we do? We have the early closing down of Parliament, misleading on the negotiation, ignoring purdah rules, spending without the OBR, attempting to leave come what may, refusing to publish the consequences of leaving for the poor, failing to table amendments to the withdrawal agreement, attacking Dublin, running the clock down, leaving UK citizens high and dry in the EU and EU citizens in the UK in limbo, and putting the union in peril. That, to me, is a massive breach of the conventions that we should be operating under, which has caused this reality with this Bill. It is an unconventional response to the breaching of the conventions. I commend it to the House.

--- Later in debate ---

[Lord Rooker]

My Lords, I am very grateful to everybody who has contributed. I am merely the messenger for the elected House because we are dealing with unique legislation from the elected Commons to try to deal with the uncertainties. I appreciate that my noble and learned friend Lord Goldsmith and the noble Lord, Lord Callanan, are probably the only two Members who have spelled out that while the purpose of the Bill is to stop us crashing out without a deal, it contains a mechanism for any Prime Minister who can pack the Commons to take us out without a deal. That is in the conditions in Clause 1. I have no doubt that that will be raised in Committee.

I have two brief points. I have picked up from the debate that it would be a very high level of political immaturity for leaders in the other place to buy an election before 1 November. It is quite clear that trust has broken down. It would be absolutely barmy.

My final point—and I am sorry that it is a bit of a domestic policy issue—is that this is a Private Member’s Bill. It is bit like the Cooper-Letwin Bill in April. At that time, because the Bill was a Private Member’s Bill, the Government Front Bench, who basically regulate the Chamber when things break down, went on strike. They removed themselves and it caused a degree of chaos in our administration. Today, we have had a Second Reading without a speaker’s list, and it has gone great because everyone could see that there was enough time to get in to speak. We have a day on this tomorrow. After the events of April, as the Member in charge of the Bill, I complained to the Procedure Committee that when a Private Member’s Bill that the Government do not agree with is in the House and the Front Bench go on strike, the power to regulate should be given to the chair so that the chair could say “That is wrong” or “This is wrong”. I have had no acknowledgement or reply from the Procedure Committee. My complaint has just been dismissed.

We are going into Committee and Report tomorrow and I have no idea about any amendments being tabled. I do not want any chaos deliberately caused by the Front Bench abdicating their responsibilities if help with regulation is needed. It is quite clear. Earlier today there were three hours when there was hardly anybody on the Front Bench. Nobody took any notice of any breaches of procedure, and there were quite a few—only one was picked up, by my noble friend. I hope that, tomorrow, the Government will live up to their responsibilities. Irrespective of whether they agree with the policy or the legislation, the Government Front Bench have the power to regulate the House. If they are not prepared to exercise it, they should give it to the chair for the day. I beg to move.

[Lord Mackay of Clashfern]

I think the noble Lord said that there would not be time in the Commons to deal with amendments and that therefore, on the whole, he would prefer not to have any. Did I pick that up correctly, or is that wrong? I would like to see the purpose referred to in Clause 1(4) in the letter.