European Union (Withdrawal) Bill

Lord Hamilton of Epsom Excerpts

Monday 18th June 2018 Lords Chamber

[Lord Wallace of Saltaire]

I thank the Leader of the House for the generous remarks she made about the role of this House. It is particularly important that she sees it as an important part of her role to defend the role of this House and of Parliament as a whole. We have noticed in recent months, and even more in recent weeks, some pretty anti-parliamentary language in the press. I note that at the end of Quentin Letts’s one and a half page rubbishing of Dominic Grieve, he said:

“The sight of the elite grabbing power from the Queen’s government will rupture trust in the ballot box and could imperil centuries of British support for parliamentary democracy”.

[Lord Hamilton of Epsom (Con)]

I am very interested in the noble Lord’s remarks. Were they not his remarks rubbishing the Foreign Secretary when he was standing at the Bar?

[Lord Wallace of Saltaire]

I am not sure that these are in any sense the same. I was merely criticising the Foreign Secretary for not being Foreign Secretary. He does a lot of other things, but certainly does not fulfil the role of Foreign Secretary.

I am now talking about some fundamental constitutional issues, which are the relationship between Parliament and Executive Government. They are at stake in this and very much matter when it comes to how much of a role we play in looking at the detail.

We have seen some rather violent language in the media in the past few weeks. I spoke to a Cross-Bench Peer this morning who said, “It is intimidating and, frankly, I feel intimidated”. I know that many MPs, particularly women MPs, feel actively intimidated by the violence which they get on social media. I think the Government ought now to be saying to the right-wing media that violent language encourages violence. We are in a dangerous situation in which parliamentary democracy—that is to say, reasoned debate within a clear structure of rules—is something which we have to defend.

I note that the Sun on Sunday editorial accused MPs of having contempt for democracy and said:

“Such is the contempt these MPs have for democracy when it delivers a vote they don’t like … they seem neither to know or to care what they will unleash”.


I am worried about what the current atmosphere might unleash. It therefore seems to me that the way in which both sides conduct this debate is very important.