Points of Order

Kevin Brennan Excerpts

Monday 11th March 2019 Commons Chamber

[Mr Speaker]

Taking the last point first, I am happy to agree with the hon. Gentleman and to confirm that it is certainly not my view that it is desirable to proceed on the basis of manuscript amendments. It is far preferable that colleagues should have plenty of time in which to table amendments in the usual way. If, however, that proves not to be possible, I have to adjust. It is obviously much more popular with Members of the House if I say, yes, I will consider manuscript amendments than if I simply preclude them from consideration.

As for the question of motion singular or motion plural, I think that the hon. Gentleman is, as usual right: there will need to be two motions. [Interruption.] I am grateful. It is always useful to have the ballast of endorsement from a sedentary position from the right hon. Member for Rayleigh and Wickford (Mr Francois). I cannot count on it at all times, and therefore, when I have it, I should put it in the bank and earn interest on it. Yes, there will need to be two motions: a business of the House motion and a substantive motion relating to the withdrawal agreement. It would be helpful to know about that earlier rather than later.

At this stage, I do not know whether the Government are thinking in terms of protected time—that is to say, a guaranteed number of hours irrespective of when we start—or in terms of a conclusion of the debate at 7 o’clock and votes immediately thereafter. Again, it would be helpful to know earlier rather than later. Of course, it is perfectly possible, and highly desirable, that tonight’s statement either by the Under-Secretary of State for Exiting the European Union, the hon. Member for Worcester (Mr Walker), if he is delivering it, or—more likely, perhaps—by the Secretary of State for Brexit, makes that clear. That will then satisfy not only the curiosity of the hon. Member for Rhondda (Chris Bryant) but the interests of a great many other Members besides.

[Kevin Brennan (Cardiff West) (Lab)]

Further to that point of order, Mr Speaker. As I have always understood it, our system is based on Cabinet government. Does what we have now heard mean that the Government will be laying a motion to which they are inviting amendments from Members of this House and which will be about the most important decision we have taken since the second world war, and it will not even have been considered by the Cabinet?

[Mr Speaker]

Well, I am extremely grateful to the hon. Gentleman. I think that that is, I will not say above or below my pay grade, but on a different remuneration scale—let me put it like that. I know that he served with very considerable distinction as a Minister in the past. In fact, I remember beetling over to his ministerial office on one occasion in years gone by. He was a figure of considerable celebrity in the then Government. I have never been a Minister, still less a member of the Cabinet. Quite how the Cabinet operates, when it meets and what is discussed, I have no way of knowing, so whether the Cabinet will have met to discuss this matter, I do not know. But I can say to the hon. Gentleman that whatever motions are tabled, they will be tabled in the name, and therefore with the authority and, by implication, the full agreement, implicit if not explicit, of the Government.