Business of the House

Debate between Jacob Rees-Mogg and Baroness Beckett

Tuesday 22nd October 2019 Commons Chamber

[Mr Rees-Mogg]

I am grateful to my hon. Friend for a characteristically good idea on how we might be able to proceed. The only difficulty is that the programme motion has been voted down, and to sit in the way my hon. Friend suggests would require another programme motion, and there is no indication that that would meet with greater satisfaction from the Opposition. The House of Lords also has to consider this Bill in due time, so I fear that his great solution is not going to be a way forward.

[Margaret Beckett (Derby South) (Lab)]

I had not intended to seek to intervene on this exchange, but I am so offended by the remarks of the hon. Member for Shipley (Philip Davies) that I feel inclined to do so.

[Margaret Beckett]

It is not the truth; it is in fact something that we are only allowed to call a terminological inexactitude—in other words, it is absolute rubbish to suggest that people who voted against this programme motion only did so to delay Brexit or because they are opposed to Brexit. Any hon. Member who understands their duties in this place should never have voted for this programme motion in the first place. I say further that the right hon. Member for Chingford and Woodford Green (Mr Duncan Smith), who is a former leader of the Conservative party, is equally at fault in not understanding when the sensible thing to do is to accept with good grace the very generous and sensible offer immediately made by my right hon. Friend the Leader of the Opposition.

Finally, on the question of limbo, I rather thought one had to be pure of soul to get in, so not many people are going to end up there.

[Mr Rees-Mogg]

I think the original understanding of limbo—one that is no longer widely accepted—is that it was a place for the souls of the unbaptised and for those who died before salvation was brought to us at the point of the Resurrection, but I think the understanding now is that that is rather a narrow interpretation.

The issue of what motivates people to vote in this House is one that is always very difficult to settle. I have always accepted that right hon. and hon. Members in this House want what is best for the country, but think that there are different ways to do it. But we must draw conclusions from people’s actions, and I do not think it is unreasonable to conclude that people who voted against the Second Reading of this Bill and against the programme motion are not the greatest admirers of the proposals towards Brexit.