Business of the House

Debate between Deidre Brock and Peter Grant

Thursday 26th January 2017 Commons Chamber

[Peter Grant]

I am grateful for that point. It is never a good idea to speculate about court cases here, especially if people have as little legal training as me, but those factors may well come back to haunt the Government in a big way.

The Prime Minister has given herself a political imperative to implement article 50 by 31 March.

[Deidre Brock (Edinburgh North and Leith) (SNP)]

Further to the point made by the hon. Member for Bermondsey and Old Southwark (Neil Coyle), will my hon. Friend join me in taking the opportunity to thank the democracy campaigners, particularly Gina Miller? Their actions and the interventions of the courts have meant that a Prime Minister who sought to ignore Parliament and treat the powers entrusted to her as an absolute privilege has been brought back into some sort of line. The campaigners’ contribution will have long-lasting effects on this issue and others.

[Peter Grant]

I concur with my hon. Friend’s comments. It is in extremely bad taste for anyone to bad-mouth the motivation of someone who has just won a court case. Someone who has won a case in the High Court and the Supreme Court was by definition right to bring it. The treatment that Gina Miller got after the High Court case was utterly shameful and I hope that there will be no repetition of it.

To come back to the matter in hand, I would like the Government to explain why they have taken this unusual procedural step today. Why is the Bill, possibly the shortest Bill we will consider during the Session, expected to attract so many amendments that the Clerks need extra time to collect them all?