Brexit: Date of Exit

Lord Shinkwin Excerpts

Monday 8th April 2019 Lords Chamber

Asked by

[Lord Shinkwin]

To ask Her Majesty’s Government what steps they took to ensure that Parliamentarians were aware that the United Kingdom’s date of exit from the European Union could be changed by a decision of the European Council.

[The Minister of State, Department for Exiting the European Union (Lord Callanan) (Con)]

My Lords, various EU treaties outline the role of the European Council in any negotiations to leave the EU. We have been clear that any extension requires agreement from the Council. We sought and agreed an extension with the Council. This was followed by debates in both Houses, which supported the Government’s decision to extend Article 50.

[Lord Shinkwin (Con)]

My Lords, I thank my noble friend for his reply. He will be aware of the growing sense of disbelief at the decision to collude with anti-Semitic Marxists to thwart the will of the people. That aside, I do not recall your Lordships’ House being told during the passage of the European Union (Withdrawal) Act 2018 that the Brexit date inserted in that Act was, in effect, purely academic. Why did the Government not make crystal clear the simple fact that the EU could go over our heads and change the date on which Parliament had decided we would leave the EU?

[Lord Callanan]

I understand very much the concerns of my noble friend, but there are two processes in play here. There is the Article 50 process, which is a matter of international and European law, and the domestic EU withdrawal Act, which had to be changed to reflect that new date using secondary legislation powers in the Act, which were extensively debated at the time, as he will recall. Following that, there were debates in both Houses that then agreed those dates.