Northern Ireland Backstop

Lord Clarke of Nottingham Excerpts

Tuesday 19th February 2019 Commons Chamber

[The Solicitor General]

What would be reckless and irresponsible is for the Government to provide a running commentary on sensitive negotiations. I would have thought it is as plain as a pikestaff to the hon. Gentleman that that is not the way negotiations should be conducted. Let the Government get on with this work at pace, which is what we are doing.

Rather than criticising from the sidelines, it now behoves the hon. Gentleman and all Opposition Members to work for a constructive solution and end the uncertainty. It is in his hands as much as it is in the hands of the Government.

[Mr Kenneth Clarke (Rushcliffe) (Con)]

I understand the dangers of a running commentary, but I have a little difficulty understanding by what process we have reached this point. As far as I can see, the serious negotiations are with the Democratic Unionist party and the European Research Group in my party to see what modifications to the withdrawal agreement we have negotiated they will accept. Ministers then go to Brussels to demand that the European Union accepts the changes and threaten it with leaving without a deal if the changes are not made. As my hon. and learned Friend understands it, are those roughly the tactics being pursued? Why does he think any European politician should accept a situation whereby the permanent open border in Ireland is subject to being terminated by the British Government at any stage they want or having an end date put on it, which seems to me a contradiction? Finally, does he think that the hard-liners in the ERG would accept even that, even if my right hon. and learned Friend the Attorney General produces some ingenious form of words that seems to make it legally binding?

[The Solicitor General]

As usual, my right hon. and learned Friend tempts me down many paths that I dare not take, simply because this is a negotiation between the United Kingdom and the EU. We heard yesterday from my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Exiting the European Union, who has been to Brussels and held a productive meeting with Michel Barnier, and my right hon. and learned Friend the Attorney General has been playing an important part in these negotiations. May I reassure my right hon. and learned Friend the Member for Rushcliffe (Mr Clarke) that the Government remain determined to get on with the job at pace?

--- Later in debate ---

[The Solicitor General]

I can assure my hon. Friend, who speaks with conviction and passion and serves his constituents admirably, that the Government will be taking a forensic approach. This is a detailed negotiation. The time for platitudes is long gone. We will be adopting his approach in the days ahead.

[Mr Kenneth Clarke]

On a point of order, Mr Speaker.

[Mr Speaker]

If it arises from the urgent question, and in deference to the Father of the House, let us hear it.

[Mr Clarke]

It is a genuine point of order. In the course of the exchanges, two Members of Parliament on the Government side of the House made reference to a civil servant, Sir Oliver Robbins, who they obviously regard as some sort of political enemy, although he is a non-political civil servant. They not only repeated newspaper rumours about what he was supposed to have been overheard saying, but they did so in terms that suggested he had been drinking too much when he was overheard, of which, as far as I am aware, there has never been the slightest indication, even in any of the newspaper reports on which they were relying.

Mr Speaker, people like that have no opportunity whatever of even knowing that these allegations are about to be made, or replying to them. An increasingly unpleasant personal tone is creeping into debate about Europe, mainly from the right-wing members of my party, and it will get quite out of hand if you do not issue a word of reproof and say that that is an abuse of the privileges of the House of Commons, and is not conduct that should be repeated.

[Mr Speaker]

I am grateful to the Father of the House. I have had a discussion about the matter with the Clerk. I will not argue the toss about wording—it is not, strictly speaking, an abuse of the procedures of the House and it is not disorderly; but I think it is extremely undesirable, and it does represent a rank discourtesy, and indeed, as the right hon. and learned Gentleman implied, a coarsening or vulgarisation of the terms of trade in political debate, which we should all strive to avoid. Let me say to the Father of the House that I did not react as quickly as I should have done to the right hon. Member for Rayleigh and Wickford (Mr Francois) when he said what he did. He was absolutely entitled to his point of view, and even to robust questioning of Ministers, of course, but he should not have said what he did about a serving civil servant.

Perhaps I can gently suggest, at the risk of embarrassing the Father of the House, that Members across the House, whatever their political views, would do well to seek to emulate his example. I have known him for 24 years, and throughout the time I have known him, I have always observed one thing: he plays the ball; he does not play the man or the woman. He sticks to the issues—rather as the Chair of the Brexit Select Committee does, on the other side of the House. That is the model that other colleagues should follow. So I thank the right hon. and learned Gentleman for stepping in; the point he has made is valid.