Oral Answers to Questions Debate
Full Debate: Read Full DebateAndy Slaughter
Main Page: Andy Slaughter (Labour - Hammersmith and Chiswick)Department Debates - View all Andy Slaughter's debates with the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs
(1 year, 7 months ago)
Commons ChamberLast month, the Attorney General told the Justice Committee:
“It is particularly important that they”—
Government lawyers—
“work to keep the Government acting properly and within the rule of law”.
The House of Lords Constitution Committee found in January that the Government had
“twice knowingly introduced legislation in Parliament which would…undermine the rule of law: the United Kingdom Internal Market Bill and the Northern Ireland Protocol Bill.”
This Illegal Migration Bill, even before the Attorney General’s own Back Benchers are finished with it, is a further example of that. When will her
“first duty…as an officer of the court”—
those are her words—trump her loyalty to a lawbreaking Government?
My first duty is to the court and to the rule of law. I have absolutely no hesitation about restating that as often as the hon. Gentleman wishes me to; it is something that I believe very deeply, and I know that the Solicitor General agrees. Our advice on the Illegal Migration Bill is not something that we are able to share with the House. The use of the section 19(1)(b) statement is, as I have explained, unusual, but not unprecedented and certainly not improper.