Business of the House

Diana Johnson Excerpts

Monday 10th December 2018 Commons Chamber

[Andrea Leadsom]

I take my duties as Leader of the House extremely seriously. They are to be Parliament’s spokesman in the Government as much as to be the Government’s spokesman in Parliament. I can absolutely assure the hon. Gentleman of that. I am listening very carefully, but it is nevertheless in the national interest that we go away and seek further reassurances before coming back to the House for the meaningful vote.

[Diana Johnson (Kingston upon Hull North) (Lab)]

I wish the Leader of the House would stop talking about the national interest when what she is actually talking about is the Conservative party’s interests. This House passed a business motion with specific dates and times for the debate to take place. Of course the Government can choose when to schedule business, but we have agreed a business motion proposing a debate and a vote at a certain time, and I fail to understand how she can stand there today and say that it will be acceptable later on for one of the Whips to shout “Tomorrow” for the continuation of the debate, when we are in fact going to be debating the Ivory Bill tomorrow and not the motion that we in this House all agreed we wanted to debate.

[Andrea Leadsom]

I understand the hon. Lady’s concerns, and I can assure her that the Government will return with the meaningful vote once the Prime Minister has addressed the concerns expressed by hon. Members right across the House. It is simply not right to say the Government are looking at Conservative party interests. The Government are looking at delivering on the will of the people expressed in the referendum in 2016, where a significant number of people voted to leave the European Union. That is the absolutely essential task of this Government in bringing back this meaningful vote.