Business of the House

Lord Stoneham of Droxford Excerpts

Wednesday 30th December 2020 Lords Chamber

[Lord Stoneham of Droxford (LD)]

My Lords, as a member of the usual channels I have to accept my collective responsibilities in that mechanism, but I must say that I am unhappy with the cavalier way in which Parliament is being treated over such an important piece of legislation. We should never have been put in this situation. There were remedies to avoid it if the Government had wanted to use them, but they decided not to.

However, we must accept that we are where we are, as the noble Lord, Lord Adonis, has said. When we discuss the legislation, we will face the situation that the Commons, after four and a half hours’ debate, will probably have passed it by a huge majority, and we will be left with six hours to discuss it. We thought it important that those in the House who wanted to discuss it should at least have that opportunity today. That is why the longest session should be available for Second Reading.

Frankly, if the whole issue around Europe and the deal is about getting back control, this is about getting back control for the Government, not Parliament, and we should all be very concerned. We would have liked at least two days for the debate. We also asked for a full day’s debate to follow once we have had time to discuss and analyse the details. I am grateful to the Chief Whip for conceding a day, but one day next Friday is too soon and inadequate.

We must accept that this is a special situation, as the Chief Whip has said. He has told us that it will not be a precedent and assured us of that in the usual channels. I accept that with good grace. However, this leaves us with a situation where our Select Committees will have to do a great deal of heavy lifting. Our European Union Committee and our trade agreement committee will now have to look at the legislation clause by clause. We should have regular reports from them on their progress so that we can, subsequently, do our due diligence on this legislation and on the deal.

Having said that, doing this in one day will sadly require a lot of people in this Chamber. One thing that we will have to look into again in the new year, given what is going on outside with the Covid pandemic, is whether we should be encouraging people to be in this Chamber, certainly in these numbers, in future.

For today, we in the usual channels accept that the deed is done. There will be a big vote in the Commons. We regret the lack of scrutiny that we will have, but I very much hope that, as the Chief Whip has accepted that this will not be a precedent, we will get the opportunity to scrutinise this Bill and the deal through the work of our Select Committees in the coming months.

[The Deputy Speaker (Baroness McIntosh of Hudnall) (Lab)]

I call the noble Baroness, Lady Hayter—oh, I call the noble Lord, Lord Purvis.