European Union (Withdrawal) (No. 6) Bill

Baroness Jones of Moulsecoomb Excerpts

Report stage (Hansard): House of Lords
Friday 6th September 2019 Lords Chamber

[Lord Hamilton of Epsom (Con)]

My Lords, I support my noble friend Lord Forsyth. I am rather surprised at my noble friend Lord Cormack, because he has always been a great champion of the revising powers of this Chamber. When a Bill comes before us containing a clause that is clearly a complete mistake and which the proposers did not intend to be there, surely it is our job to send it back to the Commons, which has already organised to accept Lords amendments on Monday. The Commons can then accept my noble friend Lord Forsyth’s amendment, which will go through anyway. It will not delay the Bill or make the slightest difference; in fact, it will make the Bill better than it is already. It is quite extraordinary that, when a mistake like this has been made and is widely acknowledged by everybody as such—it happened because the Bill’s proposers did not put in tellers; that seems a bit amateur but there we are, that is what they did—we are not in a position to put the Bill right and concur with the wishes of the other place, which will pass the amendment so that nothing will change in terms of timing or anything else. I cannot understand why my noble friend Lord Forsyth’s amendment is being resisted in any way.

[Baroness Jones of Moulsecoomb (GP)]

My Lords, I heard the noble Lord say that this was a mistake. I am curious as to how he knows that. Does he have some inside knowledge—not just gossip?

[Lord Hamilton of Epsom]

I have the inside knowledge that the Labour Party wanted to abstain on this and that there was no way that the amendment would have been carried had tellers been put through by the Bill’s proposers.