European Union (Notification of Withdrawal) Bill

Debate between Patrick Grady and Jacob Rees-Mogg

Committee: 2nd sitting: House of Commons
Tuesday 7th February 2017 Commons Chamber

[Patrick Grady]

Indeed—

[Mr Rees-Mogg]

rose—

[Patrick Grady]

Does the hon. Gentleman welcome the fact that UKRep will probably have to get bigger? Does he welcome more UK bureaucrats in Brussels?

[Mr Rees-Mogg]

I hope that UKRep will be very slim. The hon. Gentleman is surely now suggesting the most pointless of all his impact assessments, because the Department for Exiting the European Union will cease to exist at the end of the process, and therefore having an impact assessment on what it might do before the process has ended is otiose beyond measure.

[Patrick Grady]

I am afraid that the hon. Gentleman has clearly not read the amendment. The amendment calls for the Foreign Secretary to publish an impact assessment that will include, but not exclusively, his relationships with the Department for Exiting the European Union.

Amendment 72—perhaps the right hon. Member for Chingford and Woodford Green (Mr Duncan Smith) will want to intervene on this—calls on the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions to publish an impact assessment on his responsibilities. The Scottish Government are seeking to give people in Scotland reassurances that they are allowed live and work here.

--- Later in debate ---

[Patrick Grady]

That is an interesting point. The hon. Lady is sitting where a couple of other Members are accustomed to sit on Friday afternoons, and we have watched them rise and talk out private Member’s Bill after private Member’s Bill. So I will not hear Members of the Conservative party complaining about the legitimate use of the procedures of the House. We have tabled amendments. We went up to the Table Office and lodged amendments in precise accordance with the rules of the House, and we have every right to stand here and explain to the House the importance of our amendments.

[Mr Rees-Mogg]

rose—

[Patrick Grady]

If the hon. Gentleman wants to talk to me about my amendments, I will be happy to listen to him.

[Mr Rees-Mogg]

I entirely agree with the hon. Gentleman. He is completely right to use the procedures of the House as they allow, and, if he carries on like this, he will reach the heights attained by my hon. Friend the Member for Shipley (Philip Davies). [Interruption.]

[Patrick Grady]

I hope I am not hearing applause from Conservative Members, because that would be a breach of order.

It is important that we consider our amendment about BEIS, because the vote to leave the EU has plunged the business and energy sectors into further uncertainty.

European Union (Notification of Withdrawal) Bill

Debate between Patrick Grady and Jacob Rees-Mogg

Tuesday 31st January 2017 Commons Chamber

[Mr Rees-Mogg]

My right hon. Friend is absolutely right. The judgment is completely clear that the Sewel convention is a political convention that it is not within the field of the judiciary to rule on. The judges say that they

“are neither the parents nor the guardians of”

the Sewel convention, but they also make it clear that by legislation this Parliament can do anything within the United Kingdom on behalf of the British people.

We need to go back to the beginning. Where does this parliamentary sovereignty come from? We are back to the debates of the 17th century. Parliamentary sovereignty in this country was thought to come either via the King from God or to Parliament via the people. That is where referendums so rightly come in, because the sovereignty we exercise is not sovereignty in a vacuum. It is not sovereignty that has descended on us from on high; it builds up from underneath. The people of the United Kingdom have an absolute right to determine how they are governed, and on 23 June—

[Patrick Grady]

rose—