European Union (Withdrawal) Bill

Lord Lamont of Lerwick Excerpts

Monday 18th June 2018 Lords Chamber

[Lord Howard of Lympne]

The noble Baroness said “the chances are”; that was the operative phrase in her remarks.

It is often said in our debates that the purpose of the amendment put forward is to give the other place the opportunity to think again. It is a powerful argument, which has influenced many of your Lordships in putting forward amendments and in voting for them. I submit that it is not necessary to defeat the Government to achieve that objective with these amendments.

I shall say one more thing before I sit down. Many of your Lordships—conspicuously not my noble friend Lord Hailsham—have vociferously denied any intention to delay Brexit. The amendment tabled by my noble friend Lord True gives effect to those denials. The only people who need have any concern about the effect of the amendment put forward by my noble friend are those who indeed desire to delay Brexit. I therefore congratulate my noble friend on his amendment, and should he wish to test the opinion of the House on it, I for one will vote in its favour. The one thing that should not happen is that a message goes out from this House that this unelected Chamber is determined to delay the implementation of the wishes of the British people.

[Lord Lamont of Lerwick (Con)]

My Lords, I support the Motion moved by the Minister and oppose that put forward in both versions by my noble friend. He spoke with enormous force and eloquence; he left very little for the day of judgment. I am going to have Sunday lunch with him in a few days’ time, and I shall make sure that I am at the other end of the room, at the other end of the table.

[Noble Lords]

Oh!

[Lord Lamont of Lerwick]

I am going there for a family celebration—his family.

There has been an extraordinary set of manoeuvres in the House of Commons. I see that my noble friend Lord Dobbs is in his place. As the author of “House of Cards”, he must have wondered whether he had been given a whole lot of new episodes when we saw the Chief Whip, not chucking people off the roof of the Palace of Westminster but crawling on his knees, rather like a courtier at the court of the King of Siam—the role of the king being played by the right honourable and learned Dominic Grieve.

After all these negotiations—I cannot comment on what was said or not—it is clear that the Government have moved a very long way indeed. If we take Grieve I, version 1, the Government have accepted proposed new sub-paragraphs (5A) and (5B), which would have been inserted at line 37, although there is still some difference on proposed new subsection (5C) of Grieve I. I appreciate that my noble friend Viscount Hailsham has also moved in his latest manuscript amendment, because he has moved away from the specific word “direction” to the issue of amendment instead; I have a question for the Leader of the House about this, which I will put to her in a few minutes. One is bound to ask, as the noble Lord, Lord Grocott, hinted, why we have this extraordinarily convoluted process here, with a codification of what will happen at each stage. I know that people are very suspicious, but is this really necessary in parliamentary procedure when we could easily, at any stage, have Motions of censure or Motions of no confidence? The very prospect of a Motion of no confidence is bound to concentrate the Government’s mind. There are many ways in which the House of Commons can hold the Government to account and, as the noble Lord, Lord Grocott, said, there are many ways, other than this very complicated process, in which the Government can be held to account.

It is important to be clear about the exact differences. There have been many modifications, with Grieve I, Grieve II and the amendment put forward by the Government, but what are the differences from the changes that have been made? One is that they give the Government more control over the timetable, and another is the use of the word “neutral”. The Leader of the House, in moving the government Motion, referred to it being neutral simply to avoid it being amended. By that, does she mean that, if it were amended, that would be tantamount to a direction, as in the original version of Grieve I? Can she comment on the point raised by my noble friend Lord Hailsham about whether that would be justiciable? There was a suspicion—I say suspicion but of course it would be a very good reason—that the Government had put forward a neutral Motion as an option because they did not want this to be justiciable and did not want to get into the maze of the courts. I strongly agree with that but I would very much like to hear her comments on it.

What is the motive for this extraordinarily convoluted process? The right honourable and learned Dominic Grieve has said several times that it is to stop what he calls—the word was repeated by my noble friend Lord Hailsham—the “calamity” of no deal. On 12 June at col. 764, Dominic Grieve said that the purpose of his original amendment, if there is no deal, was to provide a mechanism whereby it goes to the House. However, I cannot think why the right honourable and learned gentleman, distinguished as he is, thinks that the Government, in the event of no deal, could avoid having to discuss it with Parliament. Obviously it would come to Parliament—it would be a major event. Do we really have to write it down with all these complicated provisions?

[Noble Lords]

Yes.

[Lord Lamont of Lerwick]

Noble Lords opposite are living in a slight fantasy land if they think we could reach no deal without there being a very long debate and a whole set of arguments in the House of Commons.

At no stage have I been an advocate of no deal in the negotiations, but not advocating no deal does not mean that we should rule it out in all circumstances, and it does not mean that you should rule it out as being on the table as a negotiating tactic. If, as Dominic Grieve has suggested, we make no deal completely unthinkable, we in effect undermine the position of our negotiators. If our negotiators cannot walk away from the table or if the other side—Monsieur Barnier and so on—know that they cannot do so, all the other side has to do is to sit there rejecting things until we eventually agree with everything it wants. Ruling out no deal completely as an option, even as a theoretical negotiating objective, would place the Government in an impossible position.

[Lord Adonis (Lab)]

My Lords, the amendment we are discussing does not rule out no deal; it lays down what will happen if there is no deal. There is a fundamental difference between the two.

[Lord Lamont of Lerwick]

But we are also talking about Motions and amendments, and the distinction was the very point I was making. Although my noble friend Lord Hailsham has removed the word “direction”, we have to consider what is meant by having amendments and the purpose of insisting that a Motion that the Government bring forward should be unamendable.

The second reason put forward, in addition to making no deal an impossibility, is parliamentary sovereignty. I do not wish to be too aggressive about this but to many of us this seems a very ironic reason when, for year after year in European matters, parliamentary sovereignty has just been ignored. A fundamental point, however, that we cannot forget is that on this issue we have ceded sovereignty to the people of this country. That is what we did when we held the referendum. Noble Lords talk about a meaningful vote but it seems that they want to make the vote on the referendum meaningless; the vote on Article 50, meaningless; and the election itself in which—

[Lord Reid of Cardowan (Lab)]

My Lords—

[Lord Lamont of Lerwick]

I will give way in a minute. Noble Lords want to make meaningless the result of the election, in which the overwhelming majority of people voted for parties wanting to support the result of the referendum. These were all meaningful votes as much as anything that is proposed in this amendment.

[Lord Reid of Cardowan]

I am grateful to the noble Lord. Can he elaborate on a statement he has just made? Four months ago, I asked the noble Lord who will be responding tonight to make it absolutely clear that the sovereignty of Parliament is supreme over everything that happens in this country, subject always to alliances, and that the sovereignty of Parliament could not be undermined by a referendum or by two referendums. Incidentally, for four months, the Minister has refused to respond to communications on this subject. The noble Lord has just said that we “ceded” sovereignty to the people though a referendum. Does he stand by that? Is parliamentary sovereignty no longer supreme in this country?

[Lord Lamont of Lerwick]

Parliament held a debate, Parliament voted, and Parliament decided to hold a referendum on this issue and to be bound by that referendum. Whatever the theoretical constitutional position of a referendum, many statements were made on both sides that we would be bound by the result of that referendum.

[Lord Garel-Jones]

Parliament authorised the referendum but it did not authorise the outcome of the discussions. That is what the Supreme Court has ruled.

[Noble Lords]

Article 50!

[Lord Lamont of Lerwick]

That of course is what Article 50 was about but it is also true that, during the election and during the referendum campaign, many commitments were made over and over again that we would honour the result of the referendum.

The most objectionable part of the original amendment, Grieve mark I, was the use of the word “direction”. To my mind, it obviously was impractical for Parliament to direct the Government in every aspect of the negotiation if there were a situation in which there was no deal. It is one thing for Parliament to direct our own Government as to what they can accept or propose, but what it has no control over is what the other side will accept. Therefore, by saying that Parliament would direct the negotiations, we would be forcing the negotiators to go to the other side with a list of things that we knew it would be able to accept, and, as I say, all flexibility would be removed from the negotiations.

Then we have the question: if Parliament is going to be directed, how will it be directed? There are 650 different Members of Parliament—

[Lord Hannay of Chiswick (CB)]

My Lords—

[Lord Lamont of Lerwick]

I would like to make a little progress, if I may. How would the will of Parliament be determined? It would be determined through political parties in the normal way, put down in the form of Motions in the House of Commons. I put it to the House that, really, this long and convoluted procedure would have little difference from the way Parliament would behave without this amendment being put in place at all.

Subject to the clarification from the Leader of the House about the Motion being justiciable and the reasons why we want it to be unamendable, I strongly support the amendment tabled by the Government and urge the House to reject that put forward by my noble friend Lord Hailsham.

[Lord Pannick]

My Lords, the noble Lord asks about justiciability. It is one of the most fundamental principles of our constitution that the courts do not and will not regulate proceedings in Parliament. Therefore, a court would presume, in the absence of the clearest statement to the contrary, that none of these amendments—in particular Amendment F3—is intended to depart from this fundamental principle. That is especially so when the mover of the amendment makes it clear that he does not intend to depart from that fundamental principle. In answer to the question from the noble Lord, Lord Lamont, it seems to me that the sanctions for any breach would be political, but they certainly would not be legal.