Arrangement of Business

Lord Forsyth of Drumlean Excerpts

Monday 18th March 2019 Lords Chamber

[Lord Pannick (CB)]

My Lords, I respectfully advise the noble Lord, Lord Adonis, that just as an Act of Parliament was required to invoke Article 50, an Act of Parliament would be required to revoke it.

[Lord Forsyth of Drumlean (Con)]

My Lords, could my noble friend the Chief Whip confirm that the Prime Minister has told the House of Commons on no fewer than 108 occasions that we shall be leaving the European Union on 29 March? Yesterday I listened to the Chancellor on “The Andrew Marr Show” telling Andrew Marr that we were not in a position to be able to leave on 29 March. Whom should I believe? If I believe the Chancellor, what on earth have the Government been doing?

[Lord Harris of Haringey (Lab)]

My Lords, I will certainly not engage in the continuing dispute between my noble friends Lord Adonis and Lord Grocott, who seem to have developed an antipathy to each other in recent weeks. I too am grateful to the Chief Whip for making this statement today. What he said has been helpful, but does not go far enough in enabling noble Lords to plan what their commitment will be over the next few weeks.

I assume that somewhere in government is a series of contingency plans. I would be appalled and surprised if the very able people in the Civil Service had not been working through a series of permutations—indeed, I would be very surprised if the clerks to this House and to the other place had not been working through a series of permutations. Something is clearly going on, because one understands from the usual gossip mill, involving the staff who support the Members of this House and the other place, that the first week of the Easter Recess will not be happening and that there may be Saturday sittings. They may be misinformed—I do not know where these ideas come from—but it is incumbent on the Government to give us an indication of those contingency plans for various eventualities.