Leaving the EU: Meaningful Vote

Dominic Grieve Excerpts

Monday 22nd October 2018 Commons Chamber

[Mr Dominic Grieve (Beaconsfield) (Con)]

To ask the Secretary of State for Exiting the European Union if he will make a statement on Her Majesty’s Government’s policy on how any motion under section 13(1)(b) of the European Union (Withdrawal) Act 2018 is to be put before the House of Commons for decision.

[The Secretary of State for Exiting the European Union (Dominic Raab)]

May I start by welcoming the question from my right hon. and learned Friend the Member for Beaconsfield (Mr Grieve)?

The European Union (Withdrawal) Act 2018 confirmed in statute the Government’s long-standing commitment to provide Parliament with a vote on the terms of our final deal. When it comes to the motion that we consider at the point when the approval of the House is sought, the decision whether the motion is amendable or not will be a matter for you, Mr Speaker, not for the Government. However, the Government have made clear our expectation, subject to your prerogatives, that the motion will be amendable. The Government’s response, dated 10 October, to the report of the Select Committee on Exiting the European Union, “Parliamentary scrutiny and approval of the Withdrawal Agreement and negotiations on a future relationship”, stated:

“Of course, we accept that the Speaker may permit the tabling of amendments to the motion, as is usual convention.”

That understanding is also reflected in our response to the inquiry by the Select Committee on Procedure, which I provided on 10 October. Both responses were made publicly available on the Committees’ websites in the interests of transparency and to ensure that this House understands the Government’s position on the matter—although again, I defer to the House and to you, Mr Speaker, on procedural matters that fall within the prerogatives of the House.

It will be evident to hon. Members that any amendment to the motion would not be able to effect amendments to the withdrawal agreement or the future framework, which will have been agreed at the international level between the United Kingdom and the European Union; nor could any such amendment delay or prevent our departure from the EU as set out under article 50. It is worth reminding the House that the timing of our departure from the EU is set out in international law under article 50 of the Lisbon treaty, which this House voted to trigger.

The Government committed to giving Parliament a vote on the deal, and section 13 of the European Union (Withdrawal) Act 2018 sets out how that will happen. In passing that Act, Parliament confirmed its ultimate role in delivering on the will of the British people. Approving the final deal will be the responsibility of the House of Commons alone—a responsibility I know all hon. Members will take very seriously indeed.

[Mr Grieve]

While I have every sympathy with procedural problems that the Government may encounter and any honest attempt at finding a solution to them, I have to say that I find the Government’s position as stated in the memorandum they sent to the Procedure Committee entirely unsatisfactory. It departs from the plain assurances given repeatedly to the House that we would be enabled to express a desire for alternatives when voting to reject or accept any deal.

To remind my right hon. Friend, when his predecessor, our right hon. Friend the Member for Haltemprice and Howden (Mr Davis), appeared in front of the Exiting the European Union Committee on 25 April, to Question 1383 from the Chair:

“Can you give an assurance that the Government’s motion on the withdrawal agreement will be amendable? Yes or no?”,

our right hon. Friend replied:

“Mr Chairman, if you can tell me how to write an unamendable motion in the House of Commons, I will take a tutorial.”

Actually, one way of reading the memorandum is that that is exactly what the Government are planning to do. I might add that the promises were repeated by my hon. Friend the Member for Wycombe (Mr Baker) on 18 April in front of the Select Committee on the Constitution, and that throughout debates on the Floor of the House in June, when we were looking at unamendable motions, no one on the Treasury Bench demurred from the oft-repeated statements that the motion on the substance of the deal would be amendable.

Could my right hon. Friend please tell the House how he can reconcile those statements with the Government’s plain submission to the Procedure Committee recommending that a vote is first taken on the Government motion and before amendments are considered? What happens if Parliament approves the Government motion, but then amends it afterwards? Are the Government suggesting that they have what they need to ratify or not? Surely the issue will be no clearer if the Government adopt their method rather than the one they are criticising in the memorandum. Why, if there is a genuine problem over uncertainty, which I do understand, have the Government not suggested allowing different motions and choices to be put to the House for a view to be expressed prior to the Government motion being put? Why does that not feature in the Government’s submission at all?

My right hon. Friend knows that a lot in this House depends on trust. If I may say to him, the difficulty with the memorandum is that on one reading of it—I am glad to hear what he said at the Dispatch Box—it tends to undermine trust in the Government’s intention to honour the commitments they gave to the House.

[Dominic Raab]

I welcome my right hon. and learned Friend’s question and his comments. Let me try to address them, if I may. He fears, if I understand correctly, that the Government are in favour of an unamendable motion, but in fact, as the memorandum he cites makes clear in paragraph 4:

“The approval…will be a substantive motion”—

that was, I think, the first point he made—

“and therefore, under existing House procedures, will be amendable.”

I hope that gives him some reassurance. It is also worth pointing out the implications that we set out in paragraph 6 of the memorandum, which was published on 10 October, which is that

“due to the legal status accorded to the motion under s. 13 of the 2018 Act,”

which I know he scrutinised very carefully,

“a clear decision on approval of the motion is needed in order for the Government to be able to ratify the Withdrawal Agreement.”

Again, I hope that that makes clear what the basic challenge is.

If I understand my right hon. and learned Friend correctly, he may wish to change the terms of the agreement that has been struck. I think that would come up against very real, practical and diplomatic obstacles. So late in the day, there would not be time to revisit the negotiation. Secondly, just from a practical, diplomatic point of view, is he really suggesting that at that point we would actually be offered different or more favourable terms? I think that that is unlikely in the extreme.

It is very important that this House is presented with a very clear decision of the most meaningful sort available, which is between the terms of the best deal that the Government can negotiate and the alternative. I hope and I am sure that that will focus minds when that point comes.