Ian Murray
Main Page: Ian Murray (Labour - Edinburgh South)Department Debates - View all Ian Murray's debates with the Attorney General
(5 years, 2 months ago)
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The Attorney General
The Supreme Court judgment said that the Government got the law wrong. We have to accept that, but it is perfectly true that in doing so, it effectively invented or created a new legal principle which hitherto had been a political convention and defined that principle in a new legal test. It is crystal-ball gazing to know whether any court would decide to do that. It did, though the Court below, led by the Lord Chief Justice, concluded that it should not.
Ian Murray (Edinburgh South) (Lab)
During the Attorney General’s theatrical rant earlier, he inadvertently forgot to answer the question from my right hon. Friend the Member for Delyn (David Hanson). How much has this Prorogation and all the legal advice and legal consequences cost the UK taxpayer?
The Attorney General
I do not know—that is the answer to the question—but if the hon. Gentleman wants to know, he can put down a written question, or I am happy to write to him if he would like. I am very happy to disclose that in due course, once the costs are known. But I say to him that all those costs could have been saved if he had just voted for an election. We could have avoided these cascades of cash falling upon so many lawyers in so many jurisdictions by the simple act of him having the moral guts and not being chicken.