Leaving the EU: Business of the House

Karin Smyth Excerpts

Wednesday 12th June 2019 Commons Chamber

[The Secretary of State for Exiting the European Union (Stephen Barclay)]

May I be the first to congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for North Dorset (Simon Hoare) on his election to that important Select Committee, at an important time for it?

I want to begin by picking up on a few of the points that the right hon. and learned Member for Holborn and St Pancras (Keir Starmer) made in his opening remarks. The first passage of his speech covered what the motion does not do. He set out that it does not cover the legislation that it would unlock—it does not cover the substance, and it does not cover the form. So often in our exchanges at the Dispatch Box, he tells me how much he does not like a blind Brexit, and yet what we have before the House is, in essence, a blind motion. He devoted his opening remarks to the extent to which this is a blind motion, for it does not contain the detail on the basis of which the House will decide.

Interestingly, in the context of the Conservative leadership election, the right hon. and learned Gentleman went on to point out that a new Prime Minister would be limited—they would be unable to go to Brussels to secure a change of substance to the backstop—and yet his position is that a Labour Prime Minister would be able to go to Brussels to secure that. Within his remarks, one can see the contradictions inherent in the motion.

Let me deal with the substance of the motion. Section 1(b) gives precedence to any motion from any individual MP over Government business, and section 1(c) states that it is for you, Mr Speaker, to decide whether that motion is brought before the House over other motions. In essence, sections 1(b) and 1(c) say that an individual MP and the Speaker—two Members of the House—can override Government business. That is the effect of the motion. It puts in the hands of just two Members of Parliament the decision on which business takes precedence. That is what the text of 1(b) and 1(c) says.

[Karin Smyth (Bristol South) (Lab)]

The current Prime Minister has got stuck in a triangle composed of the Brexit that the Conservative party wants, the constitutional make-up of the United Kingdom, and the successor to the Good Friday/Belfast agreement and all it contains. She has not been able to sort out that triangle. What will be most important to the new Prime Minister when he goes to Brussels: the Brexit he is promising the Tory party, the constitutional make-up of the United Kingdom, or the legacy of the Good Friday/Belfast agreement?

[Stephen Barclay]

First, the hon. Lady says “he”, but there are a number of female candidates in the leadership election and one should not pre-empt the outcome. Secondly, we do not know who the Prime Minister will be. Thirdly, first let me deal with the text. [Hon. Members: “Answer the question.”] I will happily come on to it, but I thought we were here, as per the direction of Mr Speaker and as the hon. Member for Stoke-on-Trent Central (Gareth Snell) said in an intervention, to debate the motion. [Interruption.] The hon. Member for Heywood and Middleton (Liz McInnes) may chunter, but I am not surprised that she does not want to debate the motion, because it is a flawed motion, for reasons I will come on to. Labour Members do not want to debate the text that is before the House.