Outcome of the EU Referendum

Lord Lester of Herne Hill Excerpts

Monday 27th June 2016 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Stowell of Beeston]

I am afraid that I do not agree with the noble Lord. I am not going to comment on the different campaign teams and their campaigns. In my view, the people who voted to leave the European Union last Thursday knew that they wanted to leave the European Union. Their decision may have been motivated by a range of different things, but suggesting that they did not know what they wanted and that we should therefore somehow now seek another referendum to ask them, “Are you sure?”, is not the right way for us to go from here. I think that the right thing for us to do now is to focus on implementing that decision and to do so in a way that brings success and opportunity to the people of this country. We should make sure that it delivers a future that is good for everybody in this country.

[Lord Lester of Herne Hill (LD)]

My Lords, we are a parliamentary democracy in which Parliament is meant to be supreme. The leave campaign focused on restoring the powers of Parliament as one of its aims. Can the Leader of the House tell the House whether, before triggering Article 50 of the treaty, the Government will seek the approval of both Houses? If not, what do the Government envisage to be the role of Parliament? Will they rely purely on prerogative powers like a medieval king or will they involve our supreme legislature before taking the decision?

[Baroness Stowell of Beeston]

As I have already said, clearly it is very important that Parliament has a role in this process, but at this time I am not able to specify what that role is.