Business of the House

Debate between Hilary Benn and Iain Duncan Smith

Wednesday 3rd April 2019 Commons Chamber

[Hilary Benn]

The hon. Gentleman makes a really good point, because it was not clear from the Prime Minister’s statement yesterday how the propositions, if the two of them are not able to reach agreement, will be constructed and put to the House. Obviously, we will wait with interest to see what may come out of the discussions taking place today and—who knows?—tomorrow, but it does give the House a chance to interpose in this process. If I were the Leader of the House, I would be enthusiastically supporting amendment (a), because it may well be that votes on Monday will be exactly what is required to take this process forward, whether as a result of something that comes out of the talks or from the House itself.

[Mr Duncan Smith]

I am genuinely grateful to the right hon. Gentleman, and I hesitate to correct him, but if he thinks back to what he has just said, he will see that he has made a comparison that does not stand. He compared what happened in the indicative votes with the failure of the Government’s motion. The Government had to get a majority of the House, and they are 48 short of that, whereas not one of the indicative votes got within whispering distance of a majority of the House. Is the right hon. Gentleman suggesting that if the indicative votes process is brought back, each element should meet the requirement of a majority vote of the House?

[Hilary Benn]

I was making the much simpler point that none of the propositions has carried. The Prime Minister said in her statement that

“the Government stands ready to abide by the decision of the House.”

That is important. She was referring to the indicative votes that may follow the process that we are currently undertaking. In my view, anything that the House indicates it is prepared to support—the difference is that indicative votes are so called precisely because we ask the House to indicate whether it is prepared to move in a given direction—would have to be considered by the Government. If a proposition were adopted, the Prime Minister would have to go to the European Union and seek to change the political declaration. At that point, it would come back to the House, and the test that the Government rightly set in section 13 of the European Union (Withdrawal) Act 2018—the approval of the House for both the political declaration and the withdrawal agreement—would have to be passed.