European Union (Withdrawal) Bill Debate
Full Debate: Read Full DebateLord Field of Birkenhead
Main Page: Lord Field of Birkenhead (Crossbench - Life peer)Department Debates - View all Lord Field of Birkenhead's debates with the Department for Exiting the European Union
(6 years, 10 months ago)
Commons ChamberAh! They are like spoiled children, aren’t they?
Is not another objection, if not the real objection, to the point made by the right hon. and learned Member for Rushcliffe (Mr Clarke) that it is the sort of point that should have been made in a Second Reading debate? We have two days for Report and Third Reading. That may be a stage at which the Government wish to look at these things, and it might be a time for huge innovation. Now is not the time to take Second Reading points, which could be dealt with later in the whole proceedings.
I certainly trust this House but, to be honest, many of the people who were pushing that amendment saw it as a way of delaying things before we got into the detail of getting an agreement. I did not get called to speak during the debate on amendment 7, but I will not go back over that amendment.
Is it not—[Interruption.] Yes, I am sorry, but I have got in again. One of the truths that we have to bear in mind—people on the outside will remember this even if people on the inside wish to deny it—is that from very word go, according to the great Guardian record of the European experiment, the great fear was that we the British people could not be told where this journey was taking us. Those of us who wanted a date and a time—even a British time—were concerned that large numbers of people throughout our whole history of being in the European Union have never been straight with the British people about where the journey was ending.