Business of the House

Charles Walker Excerpts

Wednesday 3rd April 2019 Commons Chamber

[Mr Speaker]

The hon. Lady shakes her head, and that satisfies me. I think that we will leave it there.

[Mr Charles Walker (Broxbourne) (Con)]

On a point of order, Mr Speaker. The order of the day is brevity. I say that very gently to my right hon. Friend the Member for West Dorset (Sir Oliver Letwin), who has now been speaking for 35 minutes.

[Mr Speaker]

That is true, although, in fairness to the right hon. Gentleman, he has been solicitous at every turn in taking interventions from colleagues, the effect of which, as they know, has been to lengthen his oration. I call the right hon. Gentleman to respond to the intervention from the hon. Member for Mid Bedfordshire (Ms Dorries).

--- Later in debate ---

[Wera Hobhouse (Bath) (LD)]

I rise to support the motion, but I want to speak in particular to amendment (a), standing in the name of the right hon. Member for Leeds Central (Hilary Benn).

We know that a good majority of Members in this House oppose a no-deal Brexit. In my relatively short time here in Parliament, I have understood our flexibility and that we can, at a pinch, do anything. We can revoke article 50, agree to a people’s vote or, with the motion from the right hon. Member for Normanton, Pontefract and Castleford (Yvette Cooper), ask the EU for a long extension. We will not crash out just by accident. If we do, it will be because of our active consent. It is our choice. I therefore want to address the question of what this House wants. That is the whole purpose of the indicative voting process. [Interruption.] If Members will forgive me, I will expand a little on the indicative voting process.

We know that every proposal so far has been defeated, some of them very narrowly. It is also true that neither the customs union nor the people’s vote achieved an overall majority in this House, which would be about 320 votes. It is my belief that we are just halfway through the indicative vote process. Many compelling options have not yet been proposed or voted on. The people’s vote proposal cannot stand alone. A new referendum always needs two choices.

[Mr Charles Walker]

Is the hon. Lady speaking to the business motion or to the main debate now?

[Wera Hobhouse]

Maybe the hon. Gentleman was talking—a lot of people were—but I have just indicated that I am talking to amendment (a), because I fear that today will be the last opportunity to talk about indicative votes. That is why I am talking about that now.

What would be on the other half of the ballot paper? It is not for me to say what Brexit choice would be on the ballot paper, but it can clearly be the Prime Minister’s deal, a customs union, a common market 2.0 or no deal. All these individual Brexits have failed to achieve a majority. None of them has been voted on in a combined offer with a people’s vote. Following the indicative votes on Monday, a lot of Members immediately understood that the next indicative voting options would include composite motions—for example, the Prime Minister’s deal plus a people’s vote, or a customs union plus a people’s vote. I worry that today’s agenda is deliberately designed to ensure that such composite motions are never considered by Parliament.

The indicative vote process has been a less divisive and less tribal process for finding a majority position. Testing the Prime Minister’s deal with a people’s vote must be done if indicative votes are to mean anything. There are about 200 Conservative Members who have voted three times for the Prime Minister’s deal, and it is Government policy. Add it to a people’s vote and we leave the EU in the way that the Conservative Government want, subject to the people confirming it.

In the same way, the Labour party has held a double position for six months, both supporting a people’s vote or referendum and wanting a softer Brexit than the Prime Minister. If the Prime Minister and the Leader of the Opposition today come to an agreement about a soft Brexit option, the assumption is that it will pass into law without a people’s vote and we will leave the EU on 22 May. An indicative vote on a Brexit deal plus a people’s vote would force some difficult choices on to many Members in this House.

Today is possibly the last day of Parliament taking control, not because Parliament has finished the indicative vote process, but because the original supporters are now scared of the outcomes. Just when Parliament could reach a majority, or at least try something that could command the support of 400 MPs, the process might be terminated. No wonder people say that our parliamentary democracy is broken.

Where to go now for at least 50% of the British people who want to stay in the European Union? Where to go now for the 1 million people on the “Put it to the People” march 10 days ago? Where to go now for the 6 million people who signed the petition to revoke article 50? At least 50% of the population are represented in Parliament by only about 10% of MPs. That is why our democracy is broken. I hope very much that the indicative votes process will continue until we have truly tested all options, especially composite motions that combine a Brexit and a people’s vote.

[Mr Charles Walker (Broxbourne) (Con)]

I will be extremely brief.

First of all, I want to say to my right hon. Friend the Member for West Dorset (Sir Oliver Letwin), who introduced the motion, that what we are debating is not a constitutional outrage, and nor is it an abomination. I want him to be assured of that. I accept fully that Standing Orders belong to the House of Commons. I say to the shadow Leader of the House that she is entirely right to say that the Government are wrong not to divide on Opposition motions. I have said that before as Chairman of the Procedure Committee and I am happy to say it again now as Chairman of the Procedure Committee. I would also say, however, that the Government are entirely right in their construct of Select Committees and Standing Committees. They did not rig the system and I accept that what the Government did was the right decision to make. I said that at the time, as well.

I am, however, concerned about what we are doing today. I am concerned about precedent. I have been involved in such a Bill—I think I sat through all its stages in 2012—which became the Mental Health (Approval Functions) Act 2012. It was a public safety Bill and I understood then why it needed to go through the House very quickly. I wish it had not needed to go through the House so quickly. That was not an ideal situation, but we were trying to prevent people from harming themselves and, potentially, others.

I do think that the texture—I say this as Chairman of the Procedure Committee, although I am not speaking on behalf of the Procedure Committee—of what we are doing today feels wrong. I cannot put my finger on it, but I think that we, as a House, will regret what we are doing today if the business motion is passed.

[Patrick Grady (Glasgow North) (SNP)]

I had the great pleasure of serving with the hon. Gentleman on the Procedure Committee in the previous Parliament. I think it will be for the Procedure Committee to consider this situation, once all of this is finished—if it is ever finished—in more detail and see what lessons can be learned. I hope that when the Committee does that it will look to other Parliaments on these islands, such as the Parliament at Holyrood, which has a Business of the House Committee and allows programming decisions of this kind to be made by consensus across the parties. I hope the Procedure Committee will consider that as a way forward.

[Mr Walker]

The hon. Gentleman makes an excellent intervention and we shall no doubt ask him to come to the Committee and give evidence to explain himself further.

Mr Speaker, I said I would be brief and I will conclude with this. I think we will regret what we are doing today. It does worry me and I will be voting against the motion. My right hon. Friend the Member for West Dorset is a decent, lovely and wonderful man, but there are people in this place who are not decent, wonderful and lovely. I fear that one day soon—I hope it will not be the case—we will be debating an expropriation of assets Bill in six hours. We would regret that bitterly.