Business of the House

David Linden Excerpts

Wednesday 3rd April 2019 Commons Chamber

[Mr Harper]

I completely agree, but my major point was that I do not like the process whereby we do not consider Bills properly and then expect the Lords to do all the scrutiny. Certainly, when I was taking constitutional legislation through this House a number of years ago, as Minister for Political and Constitutional Reform, I tried to ensure that we had sufficient time to debate it properly, because for important constitutional matters, and particularly for this matter, which is effectively about enacting the result of a referendum of the people, it is important that it is elected Members who make the final decisions, not Members of the other place. My principal point on the substance of the business of the House motion is therefore that it provides insufficient time to allow proper scrutiny of the Bill.

The hon. and learned Member for Edinburgh South West (Joanna Cherry), the hon. Member for Perth and North Perthshire (Pete Wishart), my hon. Friend the Member for North East Somerset (Mr Rees-Mogg) and my right hon. Friend the Member for Chingford and Woodford Green (Mr Duncan Smith) all referred to precedent. I think that a dispute broke out on the SNP Front Bench, because the hon. Member for Perth and North Perthshire acknowledged that this process was indeed a precedent, and the hon. and learned Member for Edinburgh South West then tried to differentiate it and say that it was not really a precedent, arguing that Brexit is such an unprecedented process that we cannot draw any lessons from the use of this procedure. I think that they are mistaken.

I think that my hon. Friend the Member for North East Somerset and my right hon. Friend the Member for Chingford and Woodford Green made very reasonable points. As a former business manager, I think that future business managers will note that Members from a number of different parties have accepted this as a legitimate process. It is perfectly true, as the shadow Leader of the House said, that Clerks would not allow anything disorderly to take place. That is correct, but a majority in this House can override Standing Orders and ram things through, and it is convention and self-restraint that stop Governments using their majorities in inappropriate ways.

Members on both sides of the House ought to reflect on the fact that if in future a Government with a significant majority choose to use that majority to override the usual conventions and procedures of the House and ram through pieces of controversial legislation in a day, those Members cannot complain that the Government are behaving inappropriately. I would deprecate that behaviour and would not want any part in it, but the people will be watching these proceedings and following this precedent. I am pretty sure that someone will try to use this precedent again at some point, and Members may regret supporting it today.

[David Linden (Glasgow East) (SNP)]

The right hon. Gentleman is speaking about the importance of honouring conventions, which are one of the things that govern this House, but is there not a degree of hypocrisy in the Government making that argument? So often in this Parliament we have seen the Government, who refuse to accept that they are a minority Government, riding roughshod over conventions such as granting Opposition days and taking cognisance of Opposition day motions passed by the House.

[Mr Harper]

I accept some of the arguments that the hon. Gentleman makes. I have not been a member of this Government; I have not served as a Minister under this Prime Minister. Certainly when I was a Minister and when I was responsible for scheduling the business of the House as the Government Chief Whip, we did vote on Opposition days, and when we had a longer Session we gave the Opposition the appropriate number of days. I often argued that we should restrain the use of our majority, to ensure that we behaved properly. There is some substance in what the hon. Gentleman says. There has been, to some extent, an equal and opposite reaction by the Opposition, who have explored mechanisms such as use of the Humble Address because they have been frustrated that the Government have not responded appropriately to Opposition days. The Government should reflect on that.

But in a way, that rather proves my point, which is that if Members behave in this way today and ram through a piece of controversial, contested legislation without a consensus in the House, they should not be surprised if in future a Government with a majority use this precedent and behave in the same way. When those Members are arguing against that, they will find the arguments they are making today being thrown back at them, and the force of their argument will be undercut.