Baroness Ludford
Main Page: Baroness Ludford (Liberal Democrat - Life peer)Department Debates - View all Baroness Ludford's debates with the Leader of the House
(8 years, 2 months ago)
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The Lord Privy Seal (Baroness Evans of Bowes Park) (Con)
My Lords, the noble Lord, Lord Pearson, has been attempting to get in. He will have a short question, then we will try to get a couple more questions in.
Baroness Goldie
My Lords, I can only reiterate what I have already said. The most important and overriding feature about all this is the voice of the electorate. The electorate has spoken and the Government have an obligation to attend to the will of the electorate.
Baroness Evans of Bowes Park
My Lords, please, this is not helping. We know that this is an important issue but we get Questions on it nearly every day. It does not look good for the House. It is the turn of the Liberal Democrats.
Baroness Ludford
Will the Minister please clarify whether the Conservatives still believe in parliamentary sovereignty, or in the radical left notion of popular sovereignty? The terms that the noble Baroness has just used about the instruction from the vote in the referendum, and statement from the noble Lord, Lord Ahmad, that both Houses should respect the will of the people, speak of popular, not parliamentary, sovereignty. Do the Conservatives still believe in parliamentary sovereignty?
Baroness Goldie
My party believes implicitly in parliamentary sovereignty and my party believes in holding Parliament with due respect. I do not see any conflict in holding that position and in the actions already taken by the United Kingdom Government. I might observe to the noble Baroness that the intervening events from the manifesto, to which her colleague the noble Lord, Lord Tyler, referred, are that the Conservatives published another manifesto to prepare for the 2015 general election. There was no reference in that to the royal prerogative and, interestingly, the Conservatives won a majority to form a Government—not a privilege afforded to the noble Baroness’s party.