Business of the House

Lord Clarke of Nottingham Excerpts

Monday 21st October 2019 Commons Chamber

[Mr Rees-Mogg]

If you ask an economist anything, you get the answer you want.

[Mr Kenneth Clarke (Rushcliffe) (Ind)]

Further to the very valid point made by my hon. Friend the Member for Wellingborough (Mr Bone), I do not usually like to dwell on my status as a veteran of long standing in this House, but the fact is that I was here for the Maastricht treaty Bill and for the European Communities Bill when we first joined the European Economic Community. They were both debated for weeks on end, with many all-night sittings. On the Maastricht Bill, we had 20-odd days of sittings to satisfy the Eurosceptic Conservative Members who wanted a full discussion on it. Can my right hon. Friend reassure me that the Government are not simply trying to confine debate by narrowing the time and that they will be content, if the House wishes, to facilitate as much time as we need to consider this matter carefully? I see no reason at all why we should all rise in the evening just so that everybody can go to dinner and not sit on Friday for the convenience of the House of Lords. If the Government are for some reason insistent on dashing for this completely silly and irrelevant date on which they keep staking their fate, they should give us some proper time for debate. Two and a bit days of ordinary parliamentary hours are plainly quite insufficient.

[Mr Rees-Mogg]

My right hon. and learned Friend is somebody who has always wanted us to remain in the European Union and who disapproves of referendums. He has always made that absolutely clear—[Interruption.] No, that is relevant because that position deserves admiration because he has not tried to use procedural methods to hide his view. His view has been clear to the House and the country throughout, and I happen to think that that is extraordinarily impressive and straightforward. I bow to his position as the Father of the House, which is one of great distinction and gives him a sense of history for what goes on in this place. I would say to him that using accelerated procedures has come about because of the deadline that we have of 31 October, and here I disagree with him: this is not a phoney deadline. That deadline was set because of the workings of article 50. The point is that this should have ended in March. We have already had one extension and there is other business that this country needs to move on to. The second deadline is 31 October, and we have managed to get a new agreement with the European Union, which everybody said was impossible. That is a significant achievement by my right hon. Friend the Prime Minister, but because of that we now have this deadline to meet. Yes, of course I would be happy to sit overnight if that is what the House wishes. I am not entirely convinced that it is what the House wishes, but we need to get this legislation through, to deliver on what 17.4 million people voted for.

[Mr Speaker]

For the benefit of those observing our proceedings who are uninitiated on this matter, I should emphasise that it is now 49 years, four months and three days since the right hon. and learned Member for Rushcliffe (Mr Clarke) was elected to this House, and he has remained a Member of this House throughout that period. It is a quite remarkable state of affairs.

[Mr Clarke]

Mr Speaker, are you prepared to indulge me with a second question—a follow-up question—to the Leader of the House? My long-standing preference for Britain to be a member of the European Union has nothing to do with my question. I propose to vote for the Bill on Second Reading, and I will vote for Third Reading when we get there. The question is why are the accelerated procedures so accelerated? To have just two and a half days and not sitting on Friday is not a way to accelerate the procedures; it is a way to abbreviate them. Unless we are prepared to contemplate a more expansive debate, there is not the slightest possibility of considering the deal that has been obtained within the time available.

[Mr Speaker]

I think that is what is called the privilege of being the Father of the House; it is otherwise utterly disorderly!

European Union (Withdrawal)

Lord Clarke of Nottingham Excerpts

Tuesday 3rd September 2019 Commons Chamber

[Mr Rees-Mogg]

My hon. Friend makes a brilliant and incisive point and is absolutely right.

We need to examine what is being put forward to the House and to consider the concerning and odd fact that it is actually being permitted in the first place. Let us look at Standing Order No. 24 and the approach we are taking. As you know, Mr Speaker, I take an interest in the rules of the House.

[Mr Kenneth Clarke (Rushcliffe) (Con)]

I was astonished to hear my right hon. Friend agree that we would be perfectly all right to proceed on WTO rules. Does he accept that WTO rules will require the European Union to apply tariffs against our agriculture, fisheries and much of our manufacturing, in line with the tariffs it imposes against other third-party countries, and that WTO rules will require us to have a closed border in Ireland to enforce those restrictions? We cannot have it one way and another: we either obey the WTO rules or we ignore those as well and pretend we are going into some never-never land, but my right hon. Friend cannot simply accept calmly the argument that WTO rules would do no damage to our economy.

[Mr Rees-Mogg]

I must confess that I am surprised by my right hon. and learned Friend’s astonishment because I have been making the case for WTO rules for some time. It has been a sensible way to proceed and will allow us to carry on trading as we do with many other countries.

--- Later in debate ---

[Mr Kenneth Clarke (Rushcliffe) (Con)]

Mr Speaker, you are very generous to me. I will try to be extremely brief. The right hon. Member for Ross, Skye and Lochaber (Ian Blackford) has just enabled me to be briefer, because he made the key point in the last few moments of his speech when he talked about what really lies behind this Bill, from the point of view of Parliament and parliamentary democracy.

We all know that we are in the middle of an historic crisis, and we all know that our duty is to take the decision that will be best for future generations and will do least damage to our political standing in the world and to our economy. This horrendous debate, which is tearing the country apart, is doing great harm to our political institutions, and particularly Parliament. A large number of the population on either side of the European debate are beginning to hold Parliament almost in contempt. Fanatic leavers are convinced that it is wicked MPs who are undermining the people’s will and that we are solely responsible for the appalling deadlock we are in.

I am very glad that, with your help, Mr Speaker, my right hon. Friends and others have found this way of enabling Parliament to assert itself, give its view and face the fundamental challenge from a constitutional point of view which will determine the political relationship between Governments of all colours and Parliaments for quite a long time to come.

[Sir Edward Leigh (Gainsborough) (Con)]

Will my right hon. and learned Friend give way?

[Mr Clarke]

With great respect, I would love to debate with my right hon. Friend, and I often have, but my speech will get longer and longer once I give way. As Mr Speaker has not put me under the time limit, I will try to avoid giving way, to be fair to others.

The reason for this motion and the underlying reason for the opposition to it is simply that the Government are insisting on pursuing a policy that they know a majority in Parliament is opposed to. There is no precedent for it that I can think of—certainly not in modern times. I have been around for long enough, but 10 years ago, if a Government had attempted to implement a policy that they knew the majority of Parliament were against, it would have created outrage.

Parliament has twice voted against leaving with no deal. This Prime Minister has plainly determined that he has put himself in a position where he has got to have no deal. We have seen the most extraordinary attempts to avoid this House having opportunities to vote on that, to debate it and to play a role in it. If Parliament allows itself to be sidelined, the precedent that we will create for future generations and for the behaviour of future Governments of all complexions vis-à-vis Parliament will be quite horrendous.

We have heard arguments about the importance of limiting these emergency debates. My right hon. Friend the Leader of the House is very good at keeping a straight face when he is coming out with arguments that are almost incredible. The benefits of trading solely within the WTO I will leave on one side. I am sure the North Koreans thrive under that in every conceivable way. [Laughter] I think it is only the North Koreans, the Algerians and perhaps the Serbians who do that. When the Leader of the House says how important it is that this House defends its traditions by making sure that in no circumstances can it ever debate business of its own choice, even in an emergency—and I know that he is a profound parliamentarian and deeply committed to the wellbeing of this place—his ability to keep a straight face is quite remarkable. However, I am being deflected from the serious point I was making.

Prorogation was the final, almost charmingly naive, attempt to make sure that there was not even an opportunity by mistake for something on the Order Paper to enable anybody here to express their opinion. Apparently, it is suddenly frightfully important that the Government’s whole new policy package—which seems to be emerging at an extraordinary rate, in figures anyway—is put before Parliament before the end of October, when we have not really bothered with policy of that kind for a very long time. It is plainly impossible to put it off until the beginning of November!

Most importantly, apparently the reason for the extremely long break is that it is extremely important that we do not distract the public from paying proper attention to the party conferences! [Laughter.] We have to be respectful to the Trades Union Congress; we cannot distract the television sets of the nation from the Liberal assembly; apparently every Conservative MP is dying to go to the Conservative conference. [Laughter.] We know there are people who will have engagements there, but I am sure the pairing system can cope with that. The idea that at the moment of such historic crisis, such momentous decisions, the House can be faced with arguments of that kind, I find quite preposterous and very saddening.

Given that we are being treated in this way, it is quite obvious that the House must seize its own agenda—that is all that this evening’s vote is about—and make the most of the opportunity in the next few days. Then the House can make key decisions on what it will legally require the Government to pursue in the national interest: most importantly being strongly against just leaving with no deal. I would be amazed if a majority does not emerge, yet again. It is not that anybody really wants that—I think about 20 Members of the House of Commons really think it is a good idea to leave with no deal. It is the right of my party, that has given up and decided to get it over with: “Leave with no deal; it’s all the fault of the Germans, the French and particularly the Commissioners—all the fault of Parliament. Have a quick election, wave a Union Jack and then we will sort out the bumps that will come when we have left.” The House must stop that, and use the opportunity.

Tomorrow we will debate the merits of the arguments. We will go on and on. I am dying to intervene in more of the arguments—I have already spoken in this House more than most on Europe, and we all know where we stand on the leave/remain arguments—but there is one point of real substance that I would like to address tonight, on which I am afraid for the first time ever the Leader of the House was slightly annoying me. He was using what is currently the cliché, extreme right-winger argument, that anybody who wants to stop a no-deal Brexit is actually reversing the referendum. I think we exactly reflect the public; Parliament, in its paralysed confusion, entirely reflects the division of the public, where there is no clear majority for anything, so far, except that we are against leaving with no deal. We cannot get a majority for anything else; everything else has so far been blocked by hard-line right-wing people who do not want any deal with foreigners, and people’s vote people, who will not vote for anything that involves leaving the European Union because they want another referendum. I am afraid they have, so far, outnumbered the middle. I think more of them should join the middle, because I believe, with great reluctance, that the obvious compromise, to bring together both public opinion and this House, is a soft Brexit where we keep the present economic ties.

My right hon. Friend the Leader of the House says that I am just defying 17 million people. Well, I have not defied 17 million people. I have already compromised. I was not in favour of the referendum. I feel very self-justified, looking back on it. I did not vote for it; I made it clear that I was not going to change my lifelong opinions because of one day’s vote on a simple question on the terribly complicated subject of our national destiny. I even voted against invoking article 50; I was guilty of that. Since then, I have accepted that the only way to proceed is a soft Brexit: to leave the political union and stay in those superbly free trade arrangements, which British Conservative Governments took a leading role in creating. I have voted for Brexit three times. If the Bill gets passed, and if we get on to the substance of the thing, I will vote for Brexit again. I have had the privilege of at least once voting alongside the Prime Minister and the Leader of the House in favour of Brexit, on terms which they now treat with derision.

I do not want to listen to conspiracy theories about the Irish backstop. Sadly, I do not think any of the English public take any interest in Irish political affairs; nine out of 10 have no idea what the Irish backstop is. It is an entirely closed little debate—but a very important one, I concede. I am strongly in favour of the Irish backstop unless we could replace it with something that is, equally, absolutely guaranteed to preserve the Good Friday agreement. At the root, we have to deliver to the people, and I think we could get a broad mass of the public together on something that keeps our economic ties together and attempts—as the EU keeps doing under British leadership—to extend free trade through more and more EU trade agreements, which we took the leading part in pressing for and which we are now about to walk out of to go back to WTO terms all over again, with South Korea and Mercosur and so on. That must be stopped.

I would like to see a Bill in which we put more positive steers from this House. We all know what we are against—no deal—but we cannot agree on what we are for. I do not think that making it a legal obligation to seek a customs union or to have some regulatory alignment would make the Prime Minister’s position more difficult in Europe; they would just wonder why on earth no British leader had asked for that before. I will leave that until the proceedings on the Bill.

If this Parliament does not pass this motion, it will be looked back upon with total derision. What sort of a Parliament was it, in the middle of this crisis, that said to the Government—this new Government, this populist Government, storming away as it is—“Oh yes, we quite agree with you: we should not be troubled with this. The Executive, as we have just been told, have absolute powers. We are only a debating society, only commenting when we are allowed. Feel free to deliver what you wish by 31 October.”? Then we go back to our constituents and say, “It is very important that you have us to represent you in Parliament, to look after your interests, but as it happens we have given unbridled powers to Boris for the next few months on the European question.”

You may gather, Mr Speaker, that I am going to vote for this motion, with more passion than I usually go through the Lobby. It is an extremely important evening.

[Several hon. Members rose—]

Business of the House

Lord Clarke of Nottingham Excerpts

Monday 1st April 2019 Commons Chamber

[Andrea Leadsom]

The right hon. Gentleman quotes selectively from the Attorney General’s comments. All I can say is that the Government have concerns about the precedent that this sets, and they are legitimate concerns. Opposition Members may one day be in a position to be concerned about parliamentary conventions and dangerous precedents.

[Mr Kenneth Clarke (Rushcliffe) (Con)]

When the Leader of the House last made this point, I pointed out that the Prime Minister promised that if her deal was not passed, she would find time and make arrangements for the House to have indicative votes. Had the Government done that, the procedural point that the Leader of the House raises would never have arisen. Having got where we are, and given the situation the country is in, will the Leader of the House reconsider indicating that the Government still intend to resist anything that the House passes that they do not approve of? The whole thing could have been sorted out if the Government’s promise to put their own arrangements for indicative votes in place had been honoured.

[Andrea Leadsom]

My right hon. and learned Friend has a slightly different recollection from my own. Indeed, the Prime Minister did say that she would seek the views of this House, but my right hon. Friend the Member for West Dorset (Sir Oliver Letwin) came forward with his motion prior to the Government being able to do so. The Government respect that, but are concerned about the precedent.

Last week, the House considered a variety of options as a way forward and will do so again today. What was clearly demonstrated last week is that there is no agreed way forward, but urgent action is needed. I continue to believe that the deal the Government have negotiated is a good compromise that delivers on the referendum, while protecting jobs and our security partnership with our EU friends and neighbours.

--- Later in debate ---

[Sir Bernard Jenkin]

Very droll. My hon. Friend rather misses the point of my opening remarks that I do not wish to discuss Brexit. I simply point out that he voted for the European Union (Withdrawal) Act 2018, which legislated for us to leave the EU with or without a withdrawal agreement. He put that on the statute book with me, so in that respect, parliamentary democracy has been served.

[Mr Kenneth Clarke]

My hon. Friend keeps referring to me, yet I voted for the Prime Minister’s withdrawal agreement three times. I accept that the House, by a large majority, is settled on a course, which I deeply regret, to leave the EU, and therefore I am trying to make some progress on what the House can agree about the form of that leaving. The Government are not prepared to give the House time to express an opinion or reach an agreement on that. As my hon. Friend the Member for Grantham and Stamford (Nick Boles) implied a moment ago, I strongly suspect that my hon. Friend the Member for Harwich and North Essex (Sir Bernard Jenkin) would take a different view if the Government were excluding no deal, which had, by some chance, the support of the majority of the House—though 400 people voted against it the last time it was raised.

[Sir Bernard Jenkin]

I say to my right hon. and learned Friend that the problem with the process of indicative votes is that MPs are free to pick and choose whatever policies they like, without any responsibility for what happens afterwards. There is an obvious flaw in that process—I look particularly at Opposition Members. Especially in a hung Parliament such as this, it is not unreasonable to suspect that individual Members might have ulterior motives for supporting or opposing particular measures, rather than voting just on their merits. After all, the House of Commons is a theatre, within which different political parties compete for power, either by trying to avoid a general election or trying to get one by collapsing the Government. Amid that chaos, who is to be held accountable for what is decided?

Business of the House

Lord Clarke of Nottingham Excerpts

Wednesday 27th March 2019 Commons Chamber

[Sir Oliver Letwin]

As one would expect, my right hon. Friend is right, but actually the Government often choose not to do that; they often allow legislation that contains things they do not quite like to go forward because they have some greater objective. The truth is, therefore, that Ministers often do—he and I as Ministers had this experience—find themselves implementing legislation with which they are not wholly in accord, but they know how to do that, and the civil service knows how to support them in doing that, and that is of course what would happen in these circumstances.

[Mr Kenneth Clarke (Rushcliffe) (Con)]

Does my right hon. Friend agree that it is actually a very novel proposition that the House should have to pass a law to effect Government policy in this way? Can he think of any example in his experience—I cannot think of one, and my experience is longer than his—of the Government pursuing a policy on such a vital national matter knowing that they did not have the support of the House of Commons for the way they were going about it and simply defying the majority that had voted for another approach?

[Sir Oliver Letwin]

As my right hon. and learned Friend is not just a former Chancellor, Lord Chancellor and almost everything else, but is also the Father of the House, he will certainly have more experience of this than most of the rest of us put together, and if he cannot think of such a case, I will certainly not be able to. I do not know of such a case. Indeed, simply because of the possibility that people would raise this issue, I did some research to try to find out whether there was any such case recorded by historians, who have longer virtual memories than we have actual memories, and I could not find one.

That suggests that there is a pretty strong precedent that if the House of Commons, in a matter of extreme significance to the nation, passed a resolution expressing a clear view of how to proceed, it would be not unlawful—so far as I know, though that would be a matter for the Attorney General to rule on, not me—but nevertheless very constitutionally unusual for the Government not to accede to that resolution and to proceed in the way that the House of Commons had requested them to. I profoundly hope that if on Monday we find a majority view in favour of a particular proposition, the Government will say, as they ought to say, that they will carry that forward. I am merely protecting against the possibility that they take the view that it is not a binding utterance by the House of Commons. Under those circumstances, we have methods, through legislation, of compelling—undoubtedly by law—an action that otherwise might not occur.

[Mr Clarke]

My right hon. Friend may recall that the Maastricht treaty caused a little difficulty, on a cross-party basis, in the House. Had the Government been defeated by a motion disapproving of the treaty, would he and others then concerned about the treaty have been content had the Government then proceeded with their declared policy on the basis that they had stood on it at the election?

[Sir Oliver Letwin]

The answer is no, obviously, as my right hon. and learned Friend intends. He and I were on opposite sides—bizarrely—on that issue. I actually believe that the whole of this imbroglio is largely due to the fact that the wretched Maastricht treaty was approved by the House in the first place. Had there not been qualified majority voting, the British people would probably never have come to disapprove of the EU in the way that they did and we would have been spared all this, but that is ancient history. He and I have a long record of agreements and disagreements at different times. This afternoon, we are agreed.

--- Later in debate ---

[The Leader of the House of Commons (Andrea Leadsom)]

Mr Speaker, I rise briefly to respond on behalf of the Government. First, I am grateful to my right hon. Friend the Member for West Dorset (Sir Oliver Letwin), who has sought to ensure that the Government’s business for today, a very important statutory instrument that regularises the legal position vis-à-vis our exit day from the European Union, is able to be addressed.

The Government are disappointed that the amendment in the name of my right hon. Friend and others was agreed by the House on Monday. A clear commitment had been made by the Government to provide time for the House to find a majority for a way forward. I take my role as Leader of the House very seriously. I have always been very clear that the Government will listen carefully to Parliament, but today’s motion is an extremely concerning precedent for our democracy.

[Mr Kenneth Clarke]

Will my right hon. Friend give way?

[Andrea Leadsom]

I will not take any interventions, because this is a Back-Bench day in the name of my right hon. Friend the Member for West Dorset.

For many years the convention has been that it is for the Government, as elected by the people, and with the confidence of this House, to set out the business. It is for Parliament to scrutinise, to amend, to reject and to approve. What today does is effectively turn that precedent on its head: those who are not in Government are deciding the business, and there are inevitable—

--- Later in debate ---

[Valerie Vaz]

I thank the right hon. Lady for her intervention. On the question of whether the withdrawal agreement can be amended, I have sitting beside me the shadow Secretary of State for Exiting the European Union, my right hon. and learned Friend the Member for Holborn and St Pancras (Keir Starmer), who has been in discussions with the European Union. We have been in the European Union for more than 40 years, and we know that it would be open to any discussions, such as those that it has held with my right hon. and learned Friend, if that was what was decided. We cannot ignore what our constituents—people of all generations—said to us when they took time out last weekend to tell Parliament exactly what was going on.

[Mr Kenneth Clarke]

The hon. Lady will recall that the Prime Minister tried to dissuade the House from taking control of the business today by saying that if we did not do this, the Government would allow time for indicative votes to be taken. However, we were never given any details, any clear commitment, or any undertaking that any notice would be taken of those motions. Today, we have an alleged constitutional crisis because the House is setting the business, but if the Government had tabled a motion, an amendment, setting out their own clear proposals for taking the views of the House and discovering what the favoured option was, this whole argument about the process could have been avoided as an irrelevance and we could have resumed the serious business of ensuring that a majority in this House was in support of the Government’s policy being pursued.

[Valerie Vaz]

I cannot follow that, other than to say that I have always admired the right hon. and learned Gentleman, even before I came to this place. I have always been totally in awe of him, and I absolutely agree with what he says.

Points of Order

Lord Clarke of Nottingham Excerpts

Wednesday 9th January 2019 Commons Chamber

[Mr Francois]

I am sorry, but that is utter sophistry.

[Mr Kenneth Clarke (Rushcliffe) (Con)]

On a point of order, Mr Speaker. In recent years—[Interruption.]

[Mr Speaker]

Order. The Father of the House is on his feet; let us hear the right hon. and learned Gentleman.

[Mr Clarke]

In my opinion, in recent years this House has seen a considerable diminution of its powers and has often seemed rather indifferent to the eroding of some of the powers we used to have to hold Governments to account. You, Mr Speaker, have been assiduous in maximising the opportunities for the House to hold what happens to be the Government of the day to account and in giving the opportunity for debate and for voting. I find it unbelievable that people are putting such effort into trying to exclude the possibility of the House expressing its opinion on how it wishes to handle this matter, and I suggest to some of my hon. Friends—the ones who are getting somewhat overexcited—that perhaps they should don a yellow jacket and go outside.

[Several hon. Members rose—]

Privilege (Withdrawal Agreement: Legal Advice)

Lord Clarke of Nottingham Excerpts

Tuesday 4th December 2018 Commons Chamber

[Andrea Leadsom]

I agree with my hon. Friend that the House needs to exercise some caution, and I wish to explain precisely why.

The issue we are debating today is the Government’s duty to protect Law Officers’ advice in the national interest. The House has previously recognised the importance of the principle that information cannot always be disclosed. This is always guided by the need to protect the broader public interest. This is directly reflected in the Freedom of Information Act 2000, brought in under a Labour Government, which sets out a careful scheme for balancing the twin imperatives of transparency on the one hand, and of safeguarding the public interest on the other. The consequences of not following those principles are obvious. The House might request, by way of a Humble Address, information that could compromise national security or which might put the lives of our troops in danger.

[Mr Kenneth Clarke (Rushcliffe) (Con)]

Obviously, parliamentary sovereignty and the duty of Government to obey motions is extremely important to the House, but my right hon. Friend is rightly describing the other problem of the confidentiality of legal advice, which Labour and Conservative Governments need as well. Is there not a sensible solution to this, as opposed to this current party political exchange? The Opposition could agree to receive a confidential briefing on Privy Council terms, look at the documents and have the Attorney General point out those parts that, in everybody’s view, might damage the national interest or damage the negotiating position of any Government of any party, and in effect agree to redact the documents. The politically embarrassing bits, which are what the Opposition are after, and all the rest of it can come out.

Both the conventions—that the House must be obeyed and that the Attorney General’s legal advice should be confidential—should be protected, and that is a possible way of reconciling them.

[Andrea Leadsom]

I am grateful for the advice of the Father of the House, but he will appreciate that the right hon. and learned Member for Holborn and St Pancras (Keir Starmer) wants all legal advice to be put into the public domain without any attempt to protect the national interest.

--- Later in debate ---

[Mr Kenneth Clarke (Rushcliffe) (Con)]

I follow up entirely on what has just been said by the hon. Member for Swansea West (Geraint Davies). He and the right hon. Member for Leeds Central (Hilary Benn) obviously have some sympathy with what I said.

It seems to me that the House is facing an extremely difficult dilemma, which was exactly the one faced by the Attorney General yesterday. There are two very important constitutional principles involved here that are important to people on both sides of the House, and unfortunately the present situation puts them in direct conflict with each other. The first is the sovereignty of Parliament and its ability to instruct the Government to do things that the Government do not want to do.

I will not repeat what my hon. Friend the Member for North East Somerset (Mr Rees-Mogg) said, because I entirely agree with everything he said, but the Humble Address is an extremely important weapon of this House. It is the duty of Parliament sometimes to instruct the Government to do things. We know that whenever the Government lose a vote, they think Parliament is wrong—they disagree—but they should comply. Parliament in recent years has greatly weakened its powers vis-à-vis the Executive. We should all think ahead to future Parliaments and simply not weaken it any further.

The Government did not vote against the motion when it was before the House because they knew they were going to be defeated. We all know why they asked Conservative Members not to vote at all. I disapprove of that. A Humble Address is an instruction. I disapprove of refusing to vote on Opposition motions and other motions. It may well be that constitutionally they are not legally binding, but we have never previously had a Government that just said, “Well, the House of Commons can express opinions if it wants, but as they’re not legally binding, we won’t bother to attend, and not many of us will listen to it.” That is a very unpleasant step.

Ahead of us are votes, including the meaningful vote on the withdrawal agreement and votes on the Bill that is necessary to implement that. Particularly on the meaningful vote, I hope that the Government abandon the idea that the only vote of any legally binding significance is the one on the Government’s proposal—yes or no—and that if the House wants to pass amendments or motions or express a different opinion, that is very interesting and a matter of opinion, but the Government will ignore any amendments. That was virtually what was being urged on the Procedure Committee a few weeks ago.

I hope that when we get on to sorting out the procedure for next week’s vote on amendments and the motion and for the Bill that ultimately follows, we go back to the standard procedure, whereby amendments can be tabled to Government motions before the motion is put, and when amendments are carried, the only vote remaining of the House is whether it approves of the motion as amended. With great respect, I do not think we should take any notice of all this stuff about the Government’s duty being to listen to what the House says and then decide, in their opinion, whether the public interest justifies complying with it. I am entirely on the side of the critics.

On the other hand, as my hon. Friend the Member for North East Somerset said, the Conservative party will deeply regret when one day it is in opposition that it has challenged the authority of Parliament, and the Labour party might well come to regret when it gets into government its attempts to override the convention that Governments are entitled to confidentiality when they get legal advice from the Attorney General. It is quite ridiculous to throw out either of those principles, because there are occasions when they are both extremely important.

I am not a lawyer in the same rank as my right hon. and learned Friend the Attorney General, though I have practised for many years. I once declined an offer of an appointment as a Law Officer, because I preferred to stay in the departmental job I was then in. I am now totally out of date—I accept that—but I am very familiar with the circumstances when a lawyer gives advice to his clients and gives honest opinions of the legal advice. Of course a lawyer is talking about the circumstances of the case, but Law Officers’ advice in particular, which I have seen many times when I have been given it as a Minister, is all muddled up with questions of policy, the law, arguments about tactics and comments on what the other side might do. Advice is given to a client in a way that 100% should be an accurate expression of the lawyer’s opinion of the law, but it will be coupled with lots of other things, because the lawyer does not just sit there ignoring the merits or what the client wants to achieve.

[Justine Greening (Putney) (Con)]

My right hon. and learned Friend is making a powerful argument. He is saying that the House should not have to choose between those principles, and what we should have expected was more leadership from those on both Front Benches in order to reach a proper, thoughtful solution on how to strike the right balance—just as we have on security matters, for example. This is a unique position we find ourselves in, but it was not beyond the wit of the political leaders in our country to reach a solution and avoid this point.

[Mr Clarke]

My right hon. Friend summarises my argument in a very neat way. That is exactly the case. I will not do the Father of the House “What it used to be like” and all that sort of thing, but I would have expected—it would easily have happened in my time—the usual channels to sort this situation out.

[Mr Peter Bone (Wellingborough) (Con)]

Oh dear!

[Mr Clarke]

Well, perhaps the usual channels were more reliable in the past. We would get together and agree that the House has passed a resolution, but there are these problems, and we satisfy the Opposition that their political desires can be satisfied and they can get all the documents with the embarrassing political opinions of the Attorney General—though I do not think they will find much, because the Attorney General is pretty candid. He is a very sound Brexiteer. He and I do not agree on Europe in the slightest.

They can excise things such as security, which we have talked about. I do not know what is being excluded or held back, but it is likely to be comments on the negotiating position of the Commission, the strengths and weaknesses of the Government’s case and where there are risks. A great deal of a lawyer’s advice is, “This is my opinion, but the risks involved are this”. Some of these comments about other Governments, the Commission and so on it may well not be in the public interest to disclose. There are reasonable people on both sides of the House and on the Procedure Committee, and I would have thought that we should certainly consider where we are going.

[Sir Oliver Heald (North East Hertfordshire) (Con)]

Will my right hon. and learned Friend give way?

[Sir William Cash]

Will my right hon. and learned Friend give way?

[Mr Clarke]

I will not give way, because I am concluding. It will not take too long, because it is just my one suggestion that I am pursuing. I have made it twice now, so I will not labour it too long.

It seems to me likely that the motion we are debating is going to be carried. There must be a very considerable risk of that. I do not know whether the Chief Whip thinks he has a majority for resisting this motion. Even then, I would hope that we will consider how to do this in a responsible way that does not prejudice the national interest or the interests of British Governments. I would also hope—I am not sure that the Committee of Privileges is the best place to do this, but it was done in the case of the Exiting the European Union Committee, as we have been reminded—that somebody nominated as responsible by the Opposition could have a look at the documents and give the Attorney General the opportunity of explaining why, yesterday, he was so obviously wrestling with a dilemma or problem of conscience about its simply not being in the national interest to put all this in the newspapers. The previous problem was solved by redactions, and I still urge that there should be redactions.

Nobody in the Opposition is going to allow the Government just to hold back things that are politically embarrassing, somewhat at odds with what the Government are now saying or advocating a tactic that the Government in the end chose not to use, and all that. Because we lost the motion for a Humble Address, I fear that Conservative Members have to be braced for that if these documents do come out. However, there is a public interest in not undermining the confidentiality of the legal advice.

I repeat my suggestion. No one knows where we are going in politics, who will be in government and who will be in opposition for very long, but what matters is that this Parliament is not weakened any further and that the ability of Governments of whatever party to rule in the national interest is not undermined. I repeat my suggestion, and I think that if the Opposition are victorious, they should in the public interest consider how far they wish to press it. I am sure that the House as a whole would accept it if they held back in some ways and the Law Officers’ confidentiality was left intact.

[Several hon. Members rose—]

Business of the House

Lord Clarke of Nottingham Excerpts

Thursday 1st November 2018 Commons Chamber

[Andrea Leadsom]

I am sorry that the hon. Gentleman is disappointed. He will realise that it was important to prioritise the Budget debates this week. Standing Orders specify that the Backbench Business Committee is allocated 35 days each Session, and, as I acknowledged last week, although this is an extended Session, the Committee has already had more than the number specified in the Standing Orders. I will work closely with him, however, to find other dates.

I point out gently that in response to requests from hon. Members for Government time to be given to debates that have also been priorities for the Backbench Business Committee, we have held debates on subjects such as the use of folic acid, the centenary of Armistice Day and, importantly, road safety, which I know the hon. Member for Bradford South (Judith Cummins) has been keen to pursue. I hope that the hon. Gentleman will bear with me, and I of course will seek Back-Bench time as soon as possible.

[Mr Kenneth Clarke (Rushcliffe) (Con)]

The Leader of the House, in replying to the hon. Member for Perth and North Perthshire (Pete Wishart), confirmed that we are going to have a meaningful vote on the Government’s agreement when it comes back from Brussels, and she confirmed that we are going to have meaningful votes, because there will be amendments to that motion. She was of course right to say that the Government cannot ratify the draft agreement if this House rejects it, but does she accept that the meaningful votes on the amendments mean that if an amendment is passed, the Government will feel that they should go back to Brussels and try to negotiate a deal as amended by the majority of this House? I hope she is not reverting to the argument “It’s the deal we’ve got or no deal at all,” which the Government were defeated on when we debated the withdrawal Bill earlier this year.

[Andrea Leadsom]

My right hon. and learned Friend is absolutely right to point out the facts of the case, which are that the Government will bring forward a vote on the deal that they have negotiated, it will be an amendable motion of the House, and should the House amend that motion, the Government would take action on those amendments. However, I must point out to the House again that having negotiated a particular deal with the European Union, it may well not be possible for the Government to proceed on the basis of an amended motion. Whether the House will be asked to decide whether it agrees that the Government negotiate on the basis of the agreed deal will be a matter for the House.

Business of the House

Lord Clarke of Nottingham Excerpts

Monday 16th April 2018 Commons Chamber

[Andrea Leadsom]

As I have already said, the Prime Minister has just answered questions for three and a quarter hours. She gave individual responses to individual questions, which is a much more detailed response than in a general debate. We are now looking forward to the urgent debate put forward by the hon. Member for Wirral South (Alison McGovern), and that is what we are all waiting for.

[Mr Kenneth Clarke (Rushcliffe) (Con)]

I have been asking myself for some days why the Government would not table a substantive motion in this House and put the matter to a vote. I cannot rid myself of the unworthy suspicion that there may have been some doubts as to whether we would get a majority for it, and whether we might repeat the 2013 experience.

Does my right hon. Friend agree that, having listened to three and a half hours of questions—a performance by my right hon. Friend the Prime Minister of outstanding endurance and assurance—it is quite obvious that there is a large majority in this House in favour of the action that the Government have taken? Will the Leader of the House discuss the matter further with colleagues and lay any fears on one side? We would be in a stronger position if the House gave a big majority for the action.

[Andrea Leadsom]

I am very grateful to the Father of the House for his advice, and I will, of course, take it away.