Business of the House

Joanna Cherry Excerpts

Wednesday 3rd April 2019 Commons Chamber

[Andrea Leadsom]

As my right hon. Friend the Member for West Dorset said, it will be a matter for the other place, and the Government will have no involvement in that whatsoever, so I am afraid that I am unable to answer that question.

[Joanna Cherry (Edinburgh South West) (SNP)]

Will the right hon. Lady give way?

[Several hon. Members rose—]

--- Later in debate ---

[Joanna Cherry (Edinburgh South West) (SNP)]

It is a pleasure to follow the hon. Member for Stone (Sir William Cash). We do not agree about much, but I know he cares passionately about the constitution of his country and I very much respect him for that. I rise to support the business of the House motion and to lend my support to the amendment tabled by the right hon. Member for Leeds Central (Hilary Benn) of which I am a co-sponsor.

Despite the disappointing lack of support for the motion I tabled in this House on Monday, which was designed to protect the whole UK from a no-deal Brexit, I remain of the view that only cross-party working can resolve the crisis we are in at present. As I have said previously, it is no secret that I came to this House primarily to advance the cause of Scottish independence, and it is also no secret that I, in line with the wishes of my constituents and my country, do not wish to exit from the EU, but I see the priority at present to be protecting all the nations of these islands, and in that I include the Republic of Ireland, from the economic and social damage that would be done by a no-deal Brexit. That is what is informing my position today.

It has been said previously—it is not terribly original, but I am going to say it again—that this Government are in office but not in power, and have all but officially lost the confidence of this House. That is why Parliament must take control, to try to protect all the nations in the United Kingdom from the incompetence of this Conservative Government. And I would just say that part of the problem, and part of the problem that the hon. Member for Stone was referring to, is the inability of this Government to get to grips with governing as a minority Government. That is not an easy thing to do, but if they want a tip on how to do it effectively, I suggest that the Prime Minister speak to the First Minister of Scotland, who is here to see her today, because she runs an effective minority Administration. The Prime Minister might also want to look at the history of the former First Minister of Scotland, who ran a very effective minority Administration for four years—so effective that he went on to gain an outright majority in a system designed not to give outright majorities. There is a lesson in that for all of us.

[The Leader of the House of Commons (Andrea Leadsom)]

rose—

[Joanna Cherry]

I will not give way to the right hon. Lady because she persistently refuses to give way to me and I do not want to take up too much time, so it is tit for tat I am afraid on this occasion.

I support this business motion and I support amendment (a) because we must keep control of the House, not just for today but, as the hon. Member for Bath (Wera Hobhouse) said, very importantly for Monday. I am one of many people who think the Bill laid before the House is somewhat deficient. It certainly would not give the degree of protection that the amendment I moved on Monday would have, and which also had a Bill behind it, but we are not there and there is not much I can do about that. I may try to amend the Bill later, but it is the best we have for now, and I see it as an insurance policy against the talks between the Prime Minister and the Leader of the Opposition breaking down or coming up with an even more unsatisfactory situation than we are in at present, which I suspect is what is going to happen.

I also very much agree with the hon. Member for Bath and the right hon. Member for Leeds Central that we must secure the indicative votes slot for Monday and we should be doing that particularly to make sure that composite motions are debated and options for the future combined with the option of a second referendum are debated on that day. The majority of political parties in this House support a second referendum, and I include in that the official Opposition, having regard to their conference motion.

I was interested to hear from the evidence that the Secretary of State for Exiting the European Union gave to the Exiting the European Union Committee this morning that even the Prime Minister might now acknowledge that a second referendum or people’s vote has to be an option. It has been a cause for concern to some of us that Labour Front Benchers have seemed less than enthusiastic about that option on occasions, but I know that they have not written it off completely. I entreat them to ensure that it stays on the agenda, and Monday will provide a way of doing that.

I also say to Labour Members that if their leader cannot secure a second vote in his talks with Prime Minister, he will never be forgiven. He will be remembered as the Labour leader who helped to deliver a Conservative Brexit, and I am sure that no one in the Labour party would wish him to be remembered in that way. As things stand, I am prepared to give him the benefit of the doubt, because we do not yet know the outcome of those negotiations. However, I also want a fall-back position, which is that the House of Commons should have control of the agenda on Monday so that we can hold the indicative votes.

I know that a lot of Conservative Members are really worried about the precedent that could be set by today, and I sort of understand their worry, but I would say to them that today we really are in extremis. The whole of the United Kingdom is at serious risk of crashing out of the European Union without a deal, and that would be a disaster for the economies of these islands and for our social fabric—[Interruption.] People are muttering at me that I should vote for the withdrawal agreement, but that is not my mandate. Please try to understand and respect the fact that there are Members of this House who were elected on a manifesto of stopping Brexit. They should please desist from trying to ram their opinions down our throats, because that is not acceptable.

[Sir William Cash]

I much respect the honesty of the hon. and learned Lady, and actually she is right. I have never, in any of the debates on this issue—heavens above, there have been enough of them—criticised the SNP, because I know that it has that manifesto commitment. I also know that its objective is the independence of Scotland. Adding to the point that she has already made, I want to ask her this. If the truncated procedure that we are witnessing now had been applied to, for example, the Scotland Act 2016 or to any amendments to it, would she not have regarded that as an unbelievable travesty?

[Joanna Cherry]

I would, and that is a point that I am coming on to address. I must point out to the hon. Gentleman, however, that the Scotland Act was indeed an unbelievable travesty because, when it passed through this House, 56 of the 59 MPs who represented Scotland here were Scottish National party MPs, yet not a single one of our amendments was accepted. So in fact, the present system can be a travesty, without having this process tacked on to it.

[Angus Brendan MacNeil (Na h-Eileanan an Iar) (SNP)]

I do not want to wander too far from the current matter, but just a week before the independence referendum, David Cameron said that if Scotland voted to remain in the United Kingdom, all forms of devolution would be there and all would be possible. When it came to our amendments, however, none was able to be there and none was accepted.

[Joanna Cherry]

My hon. Friend is absolutely right. Many promises were made by David Cameron, Ruth Davidson and others during the Scottish independence referendum that have not been kept.

[Richard Benyon (Newbury) (Con)]

The business motion?

[Joanna Cherry]

I will return to the business motion, which in fairness I have addressed so far—[Interruption.] I know that people sometimes do not want to hear the SNP voices in this House, and that has not gone unnoticed in Scotland. Judging by my mailbox, it certainly has not gone unnoticed by many of my constituents who are not natural SNP voters but who still do not like the sight of SNP MPs being howled down. Conservative Members might like to bear that in mind. I am sure that Ruth Davidson will be on the phone to them, because she seems to think that she is going to beat me in my constituency at the next general election—[Hon. Members: “Hear, hear!”] I wouldn’t get too excited, because the person they sent last time did not succeed, and that was before this fiasco unfolded.

I shall get back to my main point, which is the legitimate concern of Conservative Members that what is happening today might set an unfortunate precedent. I say to them that we are in extremis today because of the Government’s failure to govern properly. Nothing in this sorry, chaotic fiasco of Brexit should set a precedent for anything we do in the future. What we are doing today, we are doing only because we are in extremis.