Brexit: Date of Exit

Baroness Smith of Basildon Excerpts

Thursday 14th March 2019 Lords Chamber

Tabled by

[Baroness Smith of Basildon]

To ask Her Majesty’s Government, in the light of the resolutions of the House of Commons to reject both the negotiated withdrawal agreement titled Agreement on the withdrawal of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland from the European Union and the European Atomic Energy Community and leaving the European Union without a negotiated withdrawal agreement, what steps they will take to amend the date of exit as set out in the EU (Withdrawal) Act 2018.

[Baroness Smith of Basildon (Lab)]

I beg leave to ask a Question of which I have given private notice.

[The Minister of State, Department for Exiting the European Union (Lord Callanan) (Con)]

The Government have today deposited in the Libraries of both Houses a document making clear the necessary steps required to extend Article 50. The position of the House of Commons with regards to an extension of Article 50 will not be clear until the conclusion of the debate this afternoon.

[Baroness Smith of Basildon]

My Lords, we are back to that parallel universe I referred to a few minutes ago. I ask the Minister about a no-deal Brexit and his answer is about the extension of Article 50.

This has been an extraordinary parliamentary week. On Tuesday, the Prime Minister was again defeated on her unchanged agreement with the EU. Last night, MPs rejected leaving the EU without a deal, and the Prime Minister has now to accept that she does not have the full support of her Government, or even her Cabinet. This House has also emphatically rejected no deal. Yet, in an extraordinary, intransigent speech which followed the defeat in the Commons, Mrs May appeared to want to ignore Parliament.

We are spending a great deal of time, energy and money—millions, if not billions of pounds—on preparing for a no-deal failure. One parliamentary recess has already been cancelled, and there is serious talk of longer, later and more sittings—including on Saturdays. There are even reports that the Prime Minister intends to run down the clock further to try and get her twice-rejected deal through. She is acting like the cruel parent who, when the child will not eat its dinner, serves up the same plate of cold food day after day until they are forced to accept the unwanted, the unpalatable and the dangerous.

My question, which I would have expected the noble Baroness the Leader of the House to answer, but which I put to the Minister, is: in order to give effect to what Parliament has now agreed, and to end this dreadful waste of resources and the irresponsibility that goes with it, when will the Government bring forward the necessary legislation to prevent a no-deal exit?

[Lord Callanan]

As the noble Baroness is well aware, since I have repeated it many times in this House—noble Lords will groan and roll their eyes—the legal position, until it is changed, is that we leave on 29 March. The Government have said that if the House of Commons wishes to vote for an extension, we will table the necessary affirmative SI, but we cannot do that until it has been agreed by the EU Council. We cannot just unilaterally extend Article 50; it has to be agreed with the Council. We will do that if an extension is agreed by the House of Commons and by the European Council.