Legal Advice: Prorogation Debate

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Department: Attorney General

Legal Advice: Prorogation

Emma Hardy Excerpts
Wednesday 25th September 2019

(5 years, 2 months ago)

Commons Chamber
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Urgent Questions are proposed each morning by backbench MPs, and up to two may be selected each day by the Speaker. Chosen Urgent Questions are announced 30 minutes before Parliament sits each day.

Each Urgent Question requires a Government Minister to give a response on the debate topic.

This information is provided by Parallel Parliament and does not comprise part of the offical record

Geoffrey Cox Portrait The Attorney General
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I am not sure I could have put that language in a parliamentary way. The Supreme Court’s decision was legitimate, perfectly reasonable and proper. We should be proud of our judiciary and proud of its independence in all jurisdictions—I apply that to the inner house, the outer house, the divisional court. Lawyers will disagree on some of those complex and fundamental principles, and that is what has happened here.

John Bercow Portrait Mr Speaker
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If the point of order relates to the matter of which we have just treated, I will take it.

--- Later in debate ---
Emma Hardy Portrait Emma Hardy
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During the urgent question, the Attorney General made a joke about the phrase, “When did you stop beating your wife?” Part of the reason people are so upset about Prorogation is that the Domestic Abuse Bill has fallen, as my hon. Friend the Member for Nottingham North (Alex Norris) just said. May I seek your advice on how the Attorney General can perhaps learn to moderate his language and not make jokes about domestic violence?

John Bercow Portrait Mr Speaker
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It is open to the Attorney General to respond if he wishes, although he is not obliged to do so.