Business of the House

Lord Ashton of Hyde Excerpts

Wednesday 30th December 2020 Lords Chamber

[Lord Ashton of Hyde]

That, in the event of the European Union (Future Relationship) Bill being brought from the House of Commons, Standing Orders 46 (No two stages of a Bill to be taken on one day) and 47 (Commitment of Bills) be dispensed with to allow the Bill to be taken through all its stages today and the Committee to be negatived.

[Lord Ashton of Hyde (Con)]

My Lords, on behalf of my noble friend the Leader of the House, I beg to move this first Motion standing in her name on the Order Paper. This Motion will allow us to take all stages of the European Union (Future Relationship) Bill later today. If the provisions in the Bill are to come into force before the end of the transition period, Royal Assent must be notified during today’s Sittings of both Houses. I am grateful to Members in the usual channels for the constructive discussions that we have had about how best to use the short amount of time available to us today. It was agreed that the priority should be to enable as many Back-Benchers as possible to take part in the Second Reading debate, which is what we have done.

The arrangements for consideration of this Bill are clearly not in keeping with our usual practices and I want to be clear that I do not want our proceedings today to be taken as any sort of precedent as to how legislation should be considered in future. We have jointly taken a pragmatic decision, across the main opposition parties and keeping the Convener informed, about how best to use the limited time available.

I inform the House that, in order that our main debate on the Bill can start as planned, if this debate, including any votes on the Motion or any amendments to it, extends significantly beyond 1 pm, the second Business of the House Motion will not be moved and the debate on the coronavirus regulations will not take place today.

Amendment to the Motion

Tabled by

--- Later in debate ---

[The Deputy Speaker (Baroness McIntosh of Hudnall) (Lab)]

My Lords, before I call the Chief Whip to reply, is there any other Member in the Chamber who wishes to contribute to this debate? As there is not, I will call the Chief Whip to reply.

[Lord Ashton of Hyde (Con)]

My Lords, I echo the previous speaker’s remarks on the staff who have helped us be here today. They have to do it; we do it for fun, and because, actually, we have a serious job in front of us. As I made clear in my opening remarks, we had to make a difficult decision about how best to use the time available to us.

I turn specifically to the amendments in the name of the noble Lord, Lord Adonis. You can tell he was the Secretary of State for Transport: you wait for weeks for an Adonis amendment and then two come along at once. But that is why I am particularly grateful that he has not moved the first—and ruined my joke, really.

But, seriously, he and a lot of other noble Lords have asked why the House was not recalled earlier than today. The deal was agreed late on Christmas Eve, and the Bill and its associated documents then had to be finalised, so today is the soonest the legislation could be considered. Also, bearing in mind that we are in the middle of a pandemic, we had to use hybrid proceedings—which involve speakers’ lists beforehand—otherwise we would have excluded many Peers who wanted to speak.

Perhaps I might say a quick word about the timing—about before and after. The reason that we have to finish today, in this sitting, is that the UK and the EU need to exchange notification of completion of procedures for provisional application early on Thursday 31 December. This exchange cannot be done until the Bill has received Royal Assent, as the passing of the legislation is a necessary procedure for provisional application. So we were very much stuck in a gap between being able to do it when the Bill and its associated documents were ready and having to do it at a very quick pace.

If we did as the noble Lord would like and had a provision for a substantive Committee stage, the time available for Second Reading would necessarily be reduced, and far fewer Back-Benchers would be able to take part. As I said, our proceedings today cannot be open-ended—Royal Assent must be notified to both Houses today.

We have heard that many noble Lords do not like the deal, and there have been criticisms of the negotiating process; I expect that we will hear more of that later on today. But I ask the House to consider what the alternative will be if the Bill does not complete its passage through the House today, which the noble Baroness, Lady Hayter, referred to.

If I might say a word about precedent, I repeat what I said in my opening remarks that the way we have to consider the Bill today is not in keeping with our usual practices. The House rightly takes pride in its role as a revising Chamber, but today, time really is of the essence, and I consider these circumstances to be exceptional.