European Union (Withdrawal) Act

Lord Clarke of Nottingham Excerpts

Monday 25th March 2019 Commons Chamber

[Mr Kenneth Clarke (Rushcliffe) (Con)]

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[Kevin Brennan (Cardiff West) (Lab)]

rose—

[Mr Lidington]

I will give way to my right hon. and learned Friend, then to the hon. Member for Cardiff West (Kevin Brennan), and then I will make some progress.

[Mr Clarke]

On the Government’s commitment to avoid no deal, in line with the votes, my right hon. Friend has acceded that the Government do accept last week’s votes, which is in line with the constitutional convention that the Government do not proceed with policies that are rejected by this House of Commons. He has agreed that. Then he said that we therefore either pass the withdrawal agreement, which I have voted for, or ask for an extension, that being the only remedy presumably, but, as he rightly says, we cannot guarantee the Europeans would accept that. However, in line with the wishes of the House and what is now Government policy, if we are driven by the more hard-line people in this House to that circumstance, obviously the Government must revoke, in the hope that we start the whole process again once the House and everybody else has come back to their senses and found a consensus on how to proceed on the question of our future relations with the rest of the world.

[Mr Lidington]

With all respect, I disagree with my right hon. and learned Friend. I think he underestimates quite how severe the damage would be to already fragile public confidence in our democratic processes if the House voted to revoke the implementation of a decision that the majority of Members gave to the electorate in 2016, saying they would abide by their decision.

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[Mr Lidington]

If the right hon. Lady will bear with me, I want to come on to that shortly.

[Mr Kenneth Clarke]

My right hon. Friend has said that the Government are going to reject, or try to reject, the so-called Letwin amendment this evening but will then make Government time available for roughly the same thing. So as far as I can see, the only objection to the amendment is that it has been tabled by a Back Bencher and not by the Government. Would this not all be resolved if my right hon. Friend confirmed that the Government will make this Wednesday available for the purpose, since we do not have much time? It seems to me that we would then all be in total agreement and be able to proceed to the indicative votes.

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[Keir Starmer]

I honestly cannot see how exploring whether there is a majority for a different approach is inconsistent with anything that we have done so far. It is actually what we should have done two years ago, because the referendum answered just one question, which was whether more people would rather be in or out of the EU. It did not answer the next huge question, which was, “If we vote out, what sort of future relationship should there be?” That required serious and considered discussion, and really should have been discussed in this House to see whether we could reach an agreement.

[Mr Kenneth Clarke]

The hon. Member for Stoke-on-Trent Central (Gareth Snell) asked a serious question a moment ago about whether the Labour party would regard itself as bound to give support to any majority that emerges—the same question that we were putting to the Government. The whole thing is pointless if the Labour party is going to whip on all these indicative votes and then whip against a majority if that is not consistent with its manifesto, which also did not get the majority support of the public at the last election. We resolved all this in 1972—I apologise, because I do not normally go back into the depths of history—by having free votes on each side, because it would have been fatuous for the Front Benches to go as part of the process. Will the Labour party have free votes? Will it be bound by whatever majorities might emerge from the indicative voting?

[Keir Starmer]

If amendment (a) is passed tonight there will be an intense discussion about how the process will take place and what the options will be. When we see those options, the Labour party will take decisions about how to whip—[Interruption.] Let me complete the point. If one of the options is no deal, we will of course whip against it. If that is the outcome, we will reject it. Of course, we need to see the options.

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[Sir Oliver Letwin]

The danger that the hon. Gentleman speaks of is real—we all face it—but there is a solution to it, which is to ensure that as we approach a majority we sufficiently discuss that issue, not only among Back Benchers but with those on the two Front Benches, to ensure that there is what the shadow Secretary of State rightly referred to a few moments ago as a “sustainable majority”. We need not just a majority for something but a majority for something that will continue to persist as the various stages have to be carried through. That must be our aim.

[Mr Kenneth Clarke]

I have agreed with my right hon. Friend’s every word so far. He has just reached the key moment. As his amendment does not set out precisely the form that the indicative votes will take, there is a real danger that if everybody votes for their first preference, we will not produce a majority for anything. His amendment does not set out the basis on which the indicative vote motions are to be tabled. How are we to resolve the method by which we table them? The opinion of the hon. Member for Bishop Auckland (Helen Goodman) and myself is that the single transferable vote is the best way to steer people to one conclusion. It will force compromise, except from those who will vote only for their first preference. Unless my right hon. Friend has a better alternative, how does he guard against the danger of nothing getting a majority?

[Sir Oliver Letwin]

My right hon. and learned Friend is asking what is clearly one of the right questions. I give him two answers. The first is that, if this amendment is passed, we will need to think very seriously over the next 24 hours about the shape of the business of the House motion to determine the process for Wednesday, and indeed about how the process will carry forward beyond that. My own view is that, at least to begin with, it may be wiser simply to disclose where the votes lie on a plain vanilla basis—this point was made very forcefully a few moments ago—with all the voting going on at once, with pink slips in the Lobby at the end of the debate and not sequentially so that we do not have the gaming of sequence. On that basis we could discover which propositions that have been put forward commanded significant support and which did not. We should do so in the hope that, as politicians—we should remind ourselves that we are not just an ordinary electorate, but politicians who have spent our lives in this business—we can, in the succeeding few days, having observed the lie of the land, zero in on a compromise that could get a majority.

My second answer is that I do not at all discount the possibility that, at a later stage—I am sure that there will have to be a later stage, and indeed I hope that the business of the House motion will book a slot for a later stage—we should resort to some other method to crystallise the majority if we find that it is otherwise difficult to do.

[Mr Clarke]

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[Anna Soubry]

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[Sir Oliver Letwin]

I give way first to my right hon. and learned Friend.

[Mr Clarke]

Given that the process could take a few days more, as my right hon. Friend clearly explains, does that not underline that we had better crack on with this on Wednesday? If the Government will not, for some peculiar unknown reason, commit to Wednesday in their wind-up tonight, it is absolutely essential that we pass his amendment.

[Sir Oliver Letwin]

I find myself in the very odd position of being slightly more hard-line than my right hon. and learned Friend on this. I am afraid that we have to press this amendment tonight, because I do not believe that the Government have a clear view of how they would conduct this process. The terms of the amendment, which have been very carefully considered over quite a long time, are structured in a way that maximises our flexibility and our capacity as a House to work together. We should work with Members on both Front Benches on formulating Wednesday in the best possible way and producing a business of the House motion that, if possible, is a matter of consensus. That is best done under the framework of this amendment, and we should press it tonight.

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[Stephen Barclay]

My right hon. Friend had that exchange at the beginning of the debate with the Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster, who in his usual skilful way addressed the point by saying that the Government will make time available this week to take the matter forward.

[Mr Kenneth Clarke]

As my right hon. Friend has just indicated that the Government have something different in mind from the proposal of my right hon. Friend the Member for West Dorset (Sir Oliver Letwin), will he give us a little more detail than just “will make time available”? When will that time be? Will Members be able to table the motions that are intended for an indicative vote? Will the Government take any notice of the majorities that are achieved for any amendments?

[Stephen Barclay]

We are in danger of rerunning the opening of the debate. Indeed, the shadow Brexit Secretary asked whether the Government would give a binding commitment to respect and adopt whatever was passed, even though the Opposition, who made that request, were not willing to give that commitment. We cannot give a blank cheque when we do not know exactly what those votes will be—I am sure that, when the Father of the House was a Minister, he would have taken the same line.

The real issue is the constitutional significance of amendment (a) because it is unprecedented in its nature. The Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster has already addressed the kernel of the matter, which is whether the Government will make time available this week. Indeed, he set out at the beginning of the debate that, in good faith, we will have discussions with my right hon. Friend the Member for West Dorset, Opposition Front Benchers and Members from across the House on how the process should look. Amendment (a) does not set that out in detail, so the Government have undertaken to have that process and the Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster addressed that in his opening remarks.

On amendment (f), I reassure the right hon. Member for Derby South that the Government will return to the Dispatch Box in the event that the withdrawal agreement is not approved this week. We will also return to the House to consider plans for the week of 5 April after any indicative voting. As the right hon. Lady will know as a senior Member of the House, the decision on whether to enter recess is in the control of the House. Although we do not think it is sensible to try to set the Order Paper now for a date in two weeks’ time without knowing what will happen in the interim, I hope that she is content that the House will certainly have a say on the matter.