European Union (Withdrawal) (No. 6) Bill

Lord Hunt of Kings Heath Excerpts

Report stage (Hansard): House of Lords
Friday 6th September 2019 Lords Chamber

Let the people decide who governs. There is plenty of time if the parties stick to the opinions we heard and as the leader of the Opposition has been saying all around the country, and as the leader of the Scottish nationalists and the leader of my party have been saying: we want an election. As we all know, there is plenty of time to have an election in October to allow the British people to choose parties that will either pursue the course set out in this Act—which would lie on the statute book and could be implemented by a new Secretary of State one minute after the formation of a Government—or a Government who wish to take this country out of the European Union, as the public have been promised, on 31 October. A general election will enable the people of this country to make that choice, not some cabal in the House of Commons.

[Lord Hunt of Kings Heath (Lab)]

Over the years that the noble Lord has been a Member of the House, he has regularly lectured it about its role in relation to the other place. Does he really think that this amendment, at this time, is at all appropriate for a revising Chamber?

[Lord True]

My Lords, I absolutely do. There is no purpose in this House if it is not to enable at some point the rights of the people to be sustained. Indeed, the one deliberate and absolute power of this House is that it can prevent the House of Commons extending itself indefinitely. We can require a general election after five years; we cannot in this case. That is an absolute power of this House under legislation. I am making a submission to and through this House to all the parties, and to people on both sides who support them, that this matter should be decided by a general election, not by House of Cards shenanigans on one side or the other—if you ask me, both sides are as bad as each other—as they try to do chess moves one against the other. I totally agree with what was said by the noble Lord, Lord Jones: it is doing nothing to advance the credibility of politics.