Oral Answers to Questions

Emily Thornberry Excerpts

Thursday 7th December 2023 Commons Chamber

[The Attorney General]

May I start by thanking the former shadow Solicitor General for his great work while in that post and in particular for his championing of the pro bono movement, which I know he has always taken extremely seriously? It has been and remains a pleasure to do business with him. He knows perfectly well—better than most—that I cannot give from the Dispatch Box the details of legal advice that I have been giving to the Government, or of whether or not I have been giving such advice. That remains the case. I remain very comfortable in my role, and I hope that I will remain in this role to give the Government legal advice for a long time to come.

[Emily Thornberry (Islington South and Finsbury) (Lab)]

I join colleagues on both sides of the House in welcoming the new shadow Solicitor General, my hon. Friend the Member for Kingston upon Hull East (Karl Turner), to his place. I am delighted to see his predecessor, my hon. Friend the Member for Hammersmith (Andy Slaughter), still contributing to our debates. It is a pleasure and a blessing to work with both of them.

As the previous questions illustrate, there is an intense level of public interest both inside and outside the House about the legal implications of the new Rwanda Bill. While I appreciate that there is a doctrine of client confidentiality, it is nevertheless right to ask the Attorney General formally if she will publish her full legal advice on the Bill, as happened with the Brexit withdrawal agreement, or a summary of the legal position, as happened with the Northern Ireland Protocol Bill. In particular, will she set out the advice given to her colleagues across Government on whether the introduction and implementation of the Bill is compatible with their obligations under the ministerial code and the civil service code?

[The Attorney General]

The right hon. Lady understands, as I hope all of us in the Chamber do, the complications of the Law Officers convention, which means that I simply cannot go into the details of my advice here. On very rare occasions, either legal advice has been leaked or, more recently, I am glad to say, a summary of the Government’s legal position, which may or may not include the Attorney General’s advice, has been provided. The sort of circumstances in which we would envisage that to be appropriate would be if we were taking military action overseas, for example. It is not something that is done on a regular basis.

What I would say to colleagues, because there has been a great deal of interest in the legal position surrounding the Bill, is that the use of a section 19(1)(b) statement is not unprecedented. In fact, I remember, as a much younger lawyer, when Tessa Jowell used such a statement for the Communications Act 2003. That Act went on to be tested in the Strasbourg Court and the Government were successful in that case, so I would not read too much into the use of a section 19(1)(b) statement. It is unusual, but not unprecedented.