Business of the House

Debate between Lord Warner and Lord Cormack

Thursday 4th April 2019 Lords Chamber

[Lord Cormack]

No, I will not give way—I will in a minute. My noble friend has the next amendment and doubtless he too will speak at some length: I hope it will not be the half-hour or 20 minutes we have just had, because that is far too long. It is really important that we get on to the Bill. We have four more amendments, I think, after this one; then we have a Statement; and then we have my noble friend Lord Forsyth’s important debate—although it is not as urgent as the business that will then be before your Lordships’ House. I wish we could approach this in a consensual, adult manner and do two things. First, I hope my noble friend Lord Forsyth will be willing to have his reports debated next week. There will be plenty of time. The first week of our Recess has been cancelled—I make no complaints about it. Therefore, he has plenty of time and it would be a very good idea.

Secondly, I think that we should have Second Reading today—here, I agree with my noble friend Lady Noakes—and move on, not on Monday but tomorrow. The House has met on Fridays before. The other place is not meeting tomorrow, so there would be no delay whatever in the parliamentary process if we took Report tomorrow. I really think we have to be sensible and I ask noble friends in all parts of the House who were there to remember that April day almost exactly 37 years ago when the House met on a Saturday. That was the most dire of emergencies and both Houses met on the Saturday after the Falklands invasion. So there is nothing sacrosanct about any day other than Sunday as far as your Lordships’ House is concerned. In the war I believe there was one Sitting on a Sunday, but that is beside the point. I urge both Front Benches to talk seriously about this. It does nobody’s cause any service, whether they are a supporter or an opponent of the Bill, to be going bleary-eyed through the Lobbies at 2 am, 3 am, 4 am, 5 am or 6 am. It does no service to anyone.

I have two hopes, and I shall not say any more during the debate today. That may please my noble friends but at least I do not blether on as long as some of them do. I hope that we can heal the bitterness to which my noble friend Lord Empey referred a few hours ago. I hope also that we can make genuine progress on this Bill. I beg my noble friends who have amendments to come to withdraw them, to hold their fire and to make their speeches in the main debate, which I hope we will get on to very soon, and I hope that we can finish the Bill tomorrow. That would make abundant sense, both here and outside.

[Lord Warner]

My Lords, I wish I thought that the Members sitting around the noble Lord who has just spoken would take any notice of his message but, having listened for more than four hours to a set of procedural issues that have nothing to do with the Bill we are supposed to be discussing today, I suggest to the House that we put the question.

European Union (Withdrawal) Act 2018 (Exit Day) (Amendment) Regulations 2019

Debate between Lord Warner and Lord Cormack

Wednesday 27th March 2019 Lords Chamber

[Lord Warner (CB)]

My Lords—

[Lord Cormack]

My Lords—

[Lord Forsyth of Drumlean]

I will give way in a second. There has been a conspiracy where Members of both Houses have sought from the beginning to frustrate what 17.4 million people voted for. I agree entirely with my noble friend Lord Robathan that this has done huge damage to Parliament and people’s trust in politics. In this unelected House, some Members glory in the fact that they have been able to undermine what a huge majority in the House of Commons voted for in asking us to accept our fate of being told what to do for the next two years against what people voted for in a democratic vote.

--- Later in debate ---

[Lord Cormack]

My Lords, I do hope that we can lower the temperature a bit. Although I happen to believe that our duty is to save Brexit and to try to unite the country, I am one of those who deeply regretted the result of the referendum, and I have always made that plain. Along with colleagues, I tried to make the Bill better last year by supporting the amendment proposed by my noble friend the Duke of Wellington. However, I accept that we are indeed—in those infamous words—where we are, and I believe that it would be wrong to have a second referendum. We have to try to make Brexit work, difficult as I know it will be. I am utterly convinced that no deal would be a disaster for the country, and I have made that plain time and time again.

I am one of those in my party—and there are a number in the other place—who have said repeatedly that, although the deal is not perfect, you cannot retain all the benefits of membership when you leave an institution, and the Prime Minister’s deal is as good as we are likely to get. I very much hope, even now, that it will prevail and that we can move on to the next phase. We are not even at the end of the beginning; we are at the beginning of the beginning. A great deal has to follow on, and I would like us to get on with it.

The Prime Minister has shown enormous resilience and great courage. I believe that her judgment has frequently been wrong, but she has exercised her patriotism in a perfectly reasonable way. She will now step down, as we heard from the noble Viscount, Lord Waverley, a few moments ago, and that is the right decision. It is now incumbent on the other place to try to choose someone who will be able to infuse some of the spirit of a Government of national unity.

The future is not in strident, right-wing Toryism. I joined the party 63 years ago—the year of Suez. I have never, until the last year, felt ashamed, but the party has split in a fractious and factious way that has not served the interests of the country. I hope that all my colleagues who accept that Brexit has to come to pass will now reach out and that there will be an attempt across the Floor—because we know that the Labour Party is also split on this issue—to find some common factors and come together. The strife that has existed since referendum day has not served any useful purpose.

I have always been something of a student of the English Civil War, and I have begun to understand it over the last two years. The time has now come for peaceful progress. I trust that what has happened in another place today will lead to the acceptance of the Prime Minister’s deal and we can then go forward.

[Lord Warner]

I thought that we were discussing the statutory instrument, but this is rapidly turning into an angst and confessional session for the Conservative Party. I wonder whether we might move rather more promptly to the Front Bench to reply on behalf of the Government.

Care Bill [HL]

Debate between Lord Warner and Lord Cormack

Wednesday 9th October 2013 Lords Chamber

[Lord Cormack]

If this is explicit for the National Health Service, why can local authorities not be treated in precisely the same way?

[Lord Warner]

I am trying to help the Minister. If he does agree to provide the assurances sought by noble Lords to look again, could he see whether if he moved in the direction they suggest, he would be discriminating against humanists?