Early Parliamentary General Election Bill

Debate between John Whittingdale and William Cash

3rd reading: House of Commons & Committee: 1st sitting: House of Commons
Tuesday 29th October 2019 Commons Chamber

[Sir William Cash]

Indeed. It is when sunset comes to an end that Dracula comes out of his crypt. I am not referring to my right hon. Friend, of course. What I am saying, however, is that the consequences of the Fixed-term Parliaments Act have been abominable for the proceedings in this House.

[Mr Whittingdale]

May I congratulate my hon. Friend on the perspicacity that he showed during the passage of the Fixed-term Parliaments Act, as he has done on so many other occasions? He might recall that the then leader of the Liberal Democrats advocated the Fixed-term Parliaments Act on the basis that it would give much greater political stability to our system in future years. Does my hon. Friend agree that that was about as accurate a prediction as all other Liberal Democrat predictions?

[Sir William Cash]

Absolutely, and of course that legislation was cobbled together for the very simple reason that they wanted to keep in with the Liberal Democrats. That was the real purpose of the Fixed-term Parliaments Act, and it was one of the most pernicious aspects of the coalition.

I understand, by the way, that part of the coalition deal included a plan to get rid of the 1922 committee. The coalition wanted to bring Ministers into that committee, which would have destroyed it. I fired what could be described as an almighty Exocet, and guaranteed that Ministers would not be allowed to vote—on the pro bono advice that we received from a very eminent QC whom I instructed.

A book by Matthew d’Ancona was brought to my attention a few months ago. On reading it, I found—to my astonishment but great interest—that the then Prime Minister, in a conclave with his closest advisers before the coalition began, was talking about the coalition and how he was going to conduct his Prime Ministership, and he said to those advisers, “I have a choice to make. Am I going to go into a coalition with Nick Clegg or Bill Cash?” I found that most interesting.

That is why this clause stand part debate is highly relevant. We have this extraordinary situation in which the whole issue of an early general election is, largely speaking, the product of all the shenanigans on the Opposition Benches and the other shenanigans with our own colleagues in the House, some of whom lost the Whip and all the rest of it. I strongly believe that this business of having a general election, which, but for this Bill, would not have been put through, is connected with the very reason why people wanted a coalition back in 2010, which was to stop people like me banging on about Europe—I remember the then Prime Minister saying that—but they did not have a chance. That point has to be made.

European Union (Withdrawal Agreement) Bill

Debate between John Whittingdale and William Cash

2nd reading: House of Commons & Programme motion: House of Commons
Tuesday 22nd October 2019 Commons Chamber

[Mr John Whittingdale (Maldon) (Con)]

It is a pleasure to follow the hon. Member for East Dunbartonshire (Jo Swinson), the leader of the Liberal Democrats. I give her and her party credit for consistency. No one has ever been in any doubt about where they stand on Europe. Unfortunately, that is not the case for the Labour party, whose leader, as my right hon. Friend the Member for Chingford and Woodford Green (Mr Duncan Smith) has already pointed out, supported leaving the EU for a long time, fought an election on the wish to respect the result of the referendum and said consistently that a second referendum was out of the question.

Members will be aware that the hon. Member for Cardiff West (Kevin Brennan) was forced to abandon his 60th birthday party as a result of the House sitting on a Saturday. The House may not be aware that he and I were born on precisely the same day and that, as a result of the programme motion, I have now postponed my own 60th birthday party. However—unlike, I suspect, the hon. Gentleman—I regard that as a small price to pay, and one that I am very willing to pay, if the result is that we get Brexit done.

Members have said that the Bill is being rushed through and that there has not been time to look at it properly. I have been privileged to serve as a member of the Select Committee on Exiting the European Union since 2016, and we have spent an awful lot of time scrutinising the process by which the UK will leave the European Union. We looked at the withdrawal agreement as originally proposed by my right hon. Friend the Member for Maidenhead (Mrs May), and, of course, we have taken numerous sessions of evidence for the purpose of further examination.

As was pointed out by my right hon. Friend the Member for Chingford and Woodford Green, many parts of this withdrawal agreement are similar to what was presented by the previous Prime Minister. The major differences between the agreement that we are considering today and the previous one are the changes that have been made, first, to the Northern Ireland protocol, and secondly to the political declaration and the direction of travel for our future trading agreements.

Like the Prime Minister, the Foreign Secretary, the Leader of the House and my right hon. Friend the Member for Chingford and Woodford Green, I did not support the Government in the first two meaningful votes, but I did support them in the third, because I wanted us to fulfil the promise that had been made that we would leave the European Union by 29 March.

[Sir William Cash]

Will my right hon. Friend give way?

[Mr Whittingdale]

I will give way briefly.

[Sir William Cash]

I just wondered whether my right hon. Friend was aware that the provisions relating to parliamentary sovereignty and those dealing with the protection of vital national interests, both of which are included in this Bill, would not have appeared in the previous Bill.

[Mr Whittingdale]

I am grateful to my hon. Friend, because I was about to say why I regarded this Bill as being a considerable improvement on the previous agreement, and he is right to point that out. The agreement that we are considering this afternoon does address the principal concerns that a number of us had, particularly about the so-called backstop and the risk that this country could be locked indefinitely into membership of the customs union, which would prevent us from achieving one of the great prizes offered by Brexit, the ability to negotiate our own trading agreements.