Oral Answers to Questions

Caroline Lucas Excerpts

Wednesday 21st November 2018 Commons Chamber

[The Prime Minister]

I am very happy to welcome my right hon. Friend’s constituent Debbie Pritchard, and I hope she will consider standing for Parliament. We talk about diversity in relation to getting more women into Parliament, but my right hon. Friend is right that we also need to ensure that we have people in this Chamber from a wide variety of backgrounds and with a wide variety of experience, because that is the way to get better decisions made in this Chamber. I am pleased that the Conservative party has been taking action through the bursary scheme and through its work to support disabled people into politics and to encourage people from a wide range of backgrounds and with a wide range of experience to stand for Parliament and represent constituents in this Chamber.

[Caroline Lucas (Brighton, Pavilion) (Green)]

Q3. The Prime Minister has just repeated that voting down her deal risks there being no Brexit at all. Does she recognise that, far from being a risk, recent polls show that, actually, a vast majority of people would like no Brexit at all in order to save jobs, protect the environment and ensure our standing in the world? Will she acknowledge that the will of the people can change and that the will of the people has changed? Does she therefore think that the way forward is a people’s vote, or does she think democracy ended on 23 June 2016?

[The Prime Minister]

The hon. Lady’s claim in relation to democracy is absolutely ridiculous. This Parliament gave people the right to choose whether to remain in the European Union or to leave the European Union. People exercised that vote, and we saw numbers of people voting that we had not seen before. It was a great exercise in democracy in this country, and I believe it gave this Parliament an instruction. We should ensure that we leave the European Union, as the people voted.