European Union (Withdrawal) Bill

Lord Grocott Excerpts

Ping Pong (Hansard): House of Lords
Wednesday 20th June 2018 Lords Chamber

[Lord Adonis]

My Lords, I have made it very clear that I am not giving way to the noble Lord.

It is precisely because of this dangerous new doctrine of government sovereignty trumping parliamentary sovereignty that those of us standing up for parliamentary democracy sought to enshrine these key procedural issues in the Bill. It is a sad day for Parliament that we did not succeed and that we may now be dependent on the Government to observe conventions that they have so far been unwilling to preserve.

I will make one final point on the position of this House. We have been remarkably assiduous on this Bill. I think it is true to say that we have spent longer debating it than any other Bill in our entire 800-year history—and, tellingly, we spent about 50% longer debating it than did the House of Commons. As a long-serving Member of your Lordships’ House, perhaps I may be allowed to say that our besetting weakness in this House is self-congratulation. It is not helped by the fact—I learned this trick as a Minister—that making a great show of congratulating the House on the brilliance of its revision is a seduction technique to minimise the extent of that revision.

In defence of the noble Lord, Lord Callanan, he has not gone in for much seduction, but there has been far too much self-congratulation on the other Benches of this House in the face of the reality of the situation that we face. The reality, as I see it, is this. We are presently on course for a hard Brexit and there is still no provision in statute to prevent such an outcome. On the contrary, the Government, with wafer-thin majorities—but none the less sufficient majorities—in the House of Commons have fought off all attempts at setting new national policy on a sensible and credible course. The truth is that for those of us in both Houses of Parliament who favour a sensible Brexit, and a people’s vote to allow the people to stop Brexit—

[Lord Grocott (Lab)]

Will my noble friend give way?