Article 50

David Winnick Excerpts

Tuesday 24th January 2017 Commons Chamber

[Mr Davis]

My hon. Friend is exactly right. Her question goes to the point that I have made previously at the Dispatch Box which is that that is why we took the case all the way to the Supreme Court. By the way, it was not just about the role of the House of Commons on article 50; it was also, of course, about the role of the devolved Administrations, which had in any event to go to the Supreme Court.

[Mr David Winnick (Walsall North) (Lab)]

Is the Secretary of State aware that many of us warmly congratulate the judges in the Supreme Court and the High Court on upholding parliamentary sovereignty, which the Government to a large extent tried to bypass in triggering article 50? The judges are not the enemies of the people but the defenders of parliamentary democracy.

[Mr Davis]

If the hon. Gentleman goes back through this old Member’s extensive experience, I do not think he will find that I have ever referred to the judges as the enemies of the people—just the converse. It is occasionally embarrassing to me that I sometimes use them.