Business of the House

Angela Eagle Excerpts

Monday 10th December 2018 Commons Chamber

[Andrea Leadsom]

My hon. Friend will recall that the Attorney General answered significant questions and wrote a large document setting out the whole legal position on the withdrawal agreement. Should there be significant changes, I think that the Attorney General would certainly set out the legal position on those changes but, in direct response to my hon. Friend, he will appreciate that the terms of the Humble Address he refers to were met with the production of the Attorney General’s advice.

[Ms Angela Eagle (Wallasey) (Lab)]

The Leader of the House was extremely coy in her answers to the questions from the right hon. Member for Putney (Justine Greening) and my hon. Friend the Member for Leeds West (Rachel Reeves) about whether the amendment to the motion that we were discussing—before the Government decided to pull it today—which was passed ahead of the debate and which replaced the neutral and unamendable motion that the Government were planning to put to this House, would be replaced with one that was amendable. She has been asked twice now, and she has been very coy and not forthcoming in her responses. Will she now confirm—and not just read out the phrase she has read out twice already—that when we resume this debate, the Government’s motion will not be neutral and will be amendable, and that the Government will accept the spirit of the vote we had before we began the debate?

[Andrea Leadsom]

I repeat to the hon. Lady that any business of the House motion brought forward will be amendable.