European Union (Notification of Withdrawal) Bill

Lord Howard of Lympne Excerpts

Report stage (Hansard - continued): House of Lords
Tuesday 7th March 2017 Lords Chamber

[Lord Pannick]

As I have said, this is the Prime Minister’s undertaking, but since the noble Lord has asked me—I do not have to tell him this, given his enormous experience—if the House of Commons were to give its approval, this House would, in my judgment, rightly be told that it should be very slow indeed to take a different view from the elected House. If we were to disagree with the Commons, I understand that it would be open to the Government immediately to take the matter back to the Commons for a further confirmatory resolution, which, if agreed, would lead to a further approval Motion in this House. I expect, at that stage, it would be exceptionally unlikely that this House would stand its ground. I repeat, however, that if the Government were dissatisfied with that, which is the consequence of the undertaking given by the Prime Minister, it is open to the Government to bring forward an amendment in the other place. Indeed, it was open to the Government in this House to bring forward an amendment to this amendment to deal with the matter.

[Lord Howard of Lympne (Con)]

I am grateful to the noble Lord for giving way. He says that it is “exceptionally unlikely” that this House would insist in those circumstances on having its way, but that falls some way short of dealing with the point raised by the noble Lord opposite. Does the noble Lord not agree that this proposed new clause, in effect, gives this House a statutory veto on the decision made by the Prime Minister with the support of the other place to implement the decision of the British people to leave the European Union?

--- Later in debate ---

[Lord Higgins]

My Lords—

[Lord Howard of Lympne]

My Lords, it is a great pleasure to follow the noble Lord, Lord Grocott, and I agree with much of what he said—

[Noble Lords]

Order!

--- Later in debate ---

[Lord Taylor of Holbeach]

Yes, indeed. I will let my noble friend Lord Higgins speak next and include my noble friend Lady Altmann in the list to speak later.

[Lord Howard of Lympne]

I am grateful to my noble friend. I long ago came to the painful recognition that many Members of your Lordships’ House think that to serve in this place without having served down the Corridor in the other place is an absolutely enormous advantage. Therefore, it is with some temerity that I seek to draw on my 27 years’ experience in the other place—not as long as my noble friend Lord Heseltine—to make a preliminary observation. At the end of the negotiations, there will be either an agreement or a decision by the Government to leave the European Union without an agreement. Whichever of those scenarios comes about, the other place will have its say. Not only will it have its say, it will have its way. If the agreement that is reached by the Government is unacceptable to a majority of the Members of the House of Commons, they will vote accordingly. If the Government propose to leave the European Union on terms which are unacceptable to a majority of the Members of the House of Commons, they will vote accordingly. They do not need the authority of Mr David Jones to do that. They do not even need the authority of my right honourable friend the Prime Minister to do that, and they certainly do not need this proposed new clause to do that. They do not need any authority to do that. They will have their say. They will have their way. For those of us who believe that parliamentary supremacy rests with the House of Commons, that is the ultimate safeguard.

I make a couple of observations about the proposed new clause. In the end, the noble Lord, Lord Pannick, admitted—not quite explicitly but in effect—that, in its present form at any rate, it provides a veto for your Lordships’ House. He said that it was extremely unlikely that your Lordships would exercise that veto. In the end, he was obliged to accept a lifeline from my noble friend Lord Hailsham. However, as is so often the case when you examine a lifeline in detail, it proves not to be quite as effective as at first sight it appeared. The lifeline offered by my noble friend was that the Government might enshrine the Motions necessary by virtue of the proposed new clause in an Act of Parliament so that the Parliament Act could be activated. I ask your Lordships to consider that situation. The Government will have agreed the terms on which they are going to leave the European Union. The House of Commons will have approved those terms but this House will have rejected them and we will have to hang around for a year until the Parliament Act can be used to ensure that the House of Commons gets its way. That was suggested by my noble friend Lord Hailsham. Even my noble friend Lord Heseltine acknowledged the need for the minimum of delay. We all want the minimum of delay. The notion that the nation should stand around for a year waiting for the Parliament Act to be invoked for the House of Commons to get its way illustrates how unnecessary this amendment and proposed new clause are.