Business of the House

Baroness Deech Excerpts

Thursday 4th April 2019 Lords Chamber

[Lord Lawson of Blaby]

My noble friend makes a very strong point. I am deeply concerned at the growing rift between Parliament and the people, with the refusal to accept the people’s judgment, whether you agree with it or not. A very clear judgment was made in the referendum. There is a real danger that undesirable but very often understandable insurrectionary forces will feel that they cannot trust the British Parliament or the British constitution, and a very ugly situation could well arise. Therefore, my noble friend is absolutely right.

[Baroness Deech (CB)]

My Lords, I had not planned to speak, but I am literally moved to tell your Lordships what my feelings are. I have spent 55 years teaching and studying law, including constitutional law. If you want to know how effective I am, I have had in my lectures the noble Baroness, Lady Chakrabarti, the former Prime Minister Tony Blair and the noble Lord, Lord Pannick. The point about studying law—and probably many people in this House practise or have practised as lawyers—is that you internalise respect for the rule of law.

The noble Lord, Lord Lawson, explained about us not having a written constitution. Our constitution works only because of trust. Why do we accept the authority of the Lord Speaker, whoever he or she may be? Why do we accept the rulings of the clerks, disguised as they are in their wigs? It is because we trust them and because this has gone on for centuries. It is not a question of personalities; it is a question of the role that people fill. Each Session we take an oath, standing by the Dispatch Box, to be loyal to the Queen and, implicitly, to uphold the law. Why do judges not interfere with the proceedings of Parliament? There is no question of anyone challenging this law if it goes through today because the judges accept that Parliament deserves their trust. We trust the judges and they trust Parliament, and if that breaks down, the whole system breaks down. Not only is the constitution being damaged and trashed today but we have been subjected to gagging orders. I am speaking now because I think that, if I wait another five minutes, there will be another Motion to stop us talking.

[Lord Hannay of Chiswick (CB)]

I am grateful to my noble friend for giving way. Can she categorise in terms of respect for constitutional convention and order a Government who are defeated in the House of Commons by 230 votes and just carry on, then have another vote on the same thing and are defeated by 180 votes and then carry on? Is that not a little odd in terms of practice?

[Baroness Deech]

It is unusual but it is not unconstitutional, because it lies in the power of the House of Commons to put an end to that situation, if it wishes to, by getting rid of the Prime Minister or passing the withdrawal agreement. We are suffering from a lack of trust that is about to come upon us, as I said. The constitutional damage may be irreversible.

I will add that there has been a lot of loose talk about sovereignty and Parliament taking control. We do not have our sovereignty; we gave it up in part when we joined the EU, and we will not recover it until we leave. At the moment we are like prisoners rattling the cage while outside the warders have the keys. We can debate all we like here, but we can see from this Bill that the EU 27 will tell us what to do. What is the point of delay, and of advising this and that, when they have said that they will not alter the withdrawal agreement, and the power lies with them?

I am sorry to say that I blame this breakdown in respect of the constitution in part on the EU. The effect of the EU has been to preside over judicial corruption across Europe; to preside over financial mismanagement and a lack of accountability in Brussels; to allow creeping right-wing extremism across Europe; to allow the appointment of Juncker when we did not want it; and to accept the appointment of Selmayr, apparently breaking all the rules that there are. This disregard for the constitution and for the rules that the EU itself lays down, which are flagrantly disobeyed by Poland, Hungary and others, is now lapping around our ankles.

Unless we uphold the constitution by following every little bit of our rules today—albeit that this might require people to be brief in their remarks, as I will be—the damage will be incredible. People out there who respect us, who respect the law, who do not need to be whipped into submission or coerced and who obey the police and the rule of law will wonder why they too have internalised the legal system if we cannot do so. We have to believe in our own legal system and our own procedure.

[Baroness Smith of Newnham (LD)]

My Lords, I have considerable sympathy with the amendments, but the reason why I will not be supporting any of them is precisely that we are in a position where the Government have failed to deal with the Brexit referendum. The constitutional problem started there, and to suggest that we should not deal with procedures today is misguided. We have to deal with the crisis that is developing in this country. We need to get this legislation through and work with the House of Commons in order to try to resolve the constitutional mess that was caused by the referendum in the first place.