Sittings of the House (29 March)

Geraint Davies Excerpts

Thursday 28th March 2019 Commons Chamber

[Geraint Davies (Swansea West) (Lab/Co-op)]

On a point of order, Mr Speaker. The House will be asked to agree the withdrawal agreement on the presumption that it will subsequently agree the political declaration, yet it is clear that the House has not agreed the political declaration in the past, by 230 and 149 votes. How is it in order to ask us to agree the withdrawal agreement on that assumption?

[Mr Speaker]

The responsibility is that of the Government to table the motion that the Government wish to table, subject to the overriding constraint of procedural propriety. The hon. Gentleman asks how it can be orderly; it can certainly be orderly, and it is for the House to decide whether it endorses it. The motion that it is proposed by the Government to have debated tomorrow is not the same, or substantially the same, as that which has previously been disposed of by the House—for the benefit of those observing our proceedings from beyond the Chamber, I use the term “disposed of by the House” in the sense in which we use that term in Parliament, meaning treating of, decided by.