Compliance with the European Union (Withdrawal) (No. 2) Act 2019
Debate between James Duddridge and Andy Slaughter(5 years, 1 month ago)
Commons ChamberRead Full debate Read Hansard Text Read Debate Ministerial Extracts
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.
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Andy Slaughter (Hammersmith) (Lab)
The Minister is knowingly confusing the Government’s negotiating position with the authority of the law as made in Parliament and enforced by the courts. The Prime Minister says, without evidence, that the Supreme Court is wrong, and now he is saying that he will not follow a very clear provision in an Act of Parliament. Does the Minister accept that that trivialises and undermines the rule of law?
James Duddridge
No. It is not the Government who are causing the confusion; it is the Act itself and the constitutional position we found ourselves in through a number of areas, including the Fixed-term Parliaments Act 2011, which means that we cannot have a general election and resolve this by going back to the people, who have already decided in a referendum—a referendum that our predecessors in this House fully supported.