European Union (Notification of Withdrawal) Bill

Debate between Caroline Flint and Kit Malthouse

3rd reading: House of Commons & Committee: 3rd sitting: House of Commons & Report stage: House of Commons
Wednesday 8th February 2017 Commons Chamber

[Kit Malthouse]

No, I must finish now.

I therefore encourage Members to look at these new clauses and amendments and decide whether we would be putting good, enforceable law on to the statute book by accepting them. I suggest that, in most cases, we would not, so I urge Members to vote with the Government.

[Caroline Flint (Don Valley) (Lab)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your stewardship, Mr Howarth. I listened carefully to the contribution from the hon. Member for North West Hampshire (Kit Malthouse). I believe that it is part of our job in the House of Commons to raise questions about important decisions that affect all our lives and, through the use of amendments and other means, to open up the discussion and seek answers from the Government of the day. That is important in the debates that we will have today and in the future. The Government have refused on numerous occasions to accept contributions from those on my own Front Bench and others, but they have then gone away and thought about the issues and decided, “Maybe there’s something in that.” We seem to be pushing at the Government, although they do not want to accept some of the amendments, some of which I have put my name to. Part of the purpose of having these debates in the public arena is to hold the Government to account and make them look again at the important subjects that are being raised at the moment and that will, I have no doubt, be raised in the next two years and beyond.