Brexit: Negotiations

Baroness Smith of Newnham Excerpts

Thursday 7th September 2017 Grand Committee

[Baroness Smith of Newnham (LD)]

My Lords, like other Members, I thank the noble Lord, Lord Dykes, for tabling this Question for Short Debate and for opening it in such a lively and engaging way. It may have been slightly more hyperbolic and with rather more adjectives than some Members would use, but there was a very clear sense of the passion with which he wanted to make his case.

It is commonplace to say that this is a timely debate. In some ways this week feels the least timely time to have this debate, because after months of famine, when we have had no reporting and there has been no opportunity to scrutinise, we have had a Statement from the Secretary of State finally reporting back on rounds two and three of the negotiations—kindly repeated by the noble Baroness, Lady Anelay—and a whole set of position papers. All of a sudden there seems to be a little bit of activity and a debate next week on the position papers. But then we have another recess and finally only in October do we begin to get down to the serious business of scrutinising what is going on.

The referendum was in June last year; it will be more than 15 months since the referendum before Parliament can properly scrutinise what the Government are doing. It will be more than six months since the Prime Minister triggered Article 50. She then held an unnecessary general election. When the election was called, I asked the then Minister of State, the noble Lord, Lord Bridges, what the Government had done to work out how much time had been lost for parliamentary engagement on Brexit thanks to the election. Needless to say, there was no answer. I suspect that the Prime Minister had not been thinking about that when she triggered the election.

Come October it will be six months since the other place has had any Select Committees. In July the Labour Party nominated members for various committees. The Conservative Party voted only this week. As of last night, the Brexit committee still had not had its membership confirmed. Six months after the triggering of Article 50 there has been no opportunity for the House of Commons to do any proper scrutiny work in committee. Even if the Secretary of State did not have other activities in Edinburgh—perhaps he was going to see Nicola Sturgeon at the same time; maybe he was doing his duty and talking to the devolved Administrations—a key role in Parliament, as the noble Lord, Lord Jay, pointed out, is that of committees. Clearly, your Lordships’ House’s EU Select Committee is crucial, but the Commons committees matter as well. They had all begun to work on particular reports before the election; all that work is gone.

The Secretary of State has said he wants to report back as soon as possible after the negotiations have happened and yet, so far, he has reported back only once, despite the options to come during the Recess, as we have heard from my noble friend Lord Teverson and the noble Lord, Lord Jay of Ewelme. The Government have suggested that they wanted to update Parliament and there will be ample opportunity for both Houses to debate the key issues arising from Brexit.

The White Paper also said Parliament has a “critical role” to play in the process of leaving the European Union. At times it feels that Her Majesty’s Government, and in particular the Prime Minister, do not believe that Parliament should have a critical role at all—critical either in being important or ever challenging anything the Government say. The role of scrutiny, and of Parliament, is surely to hold the Government to account, to ask questions and to raise issues, in order that we can make the right decisions and help the Government make the right decision. Whatever one thinks about the result of last year’s referendum, it is surely part of giving control back to Parliament that Parliament scrutinises the Government. The idea that, somehow, anybody challenging the Government and wanting to amend legislation is going against the will of the people is surely a fundamental misunderstanding of democracy.