European Union (Withdrawal) Bill

Lord True Excerpts

Monday 18th June 2018 Lords Chamber

Moved by

[Lord True]

To amend Amendment 19P as follows—

19Q: At end insert—
“(5J) Any motion or resolution approved by the House of Commons or debated by the House of Lords under subsections (5A), (5C)(b), or (5F)(b) may not have the effect of binding Her Majesty’s Government to prevent or delay the United Kingdom’s withdrawal from the EU on exit day.”

[Lord True (Con)]

My Lords, I beg to move my amendment as set out on the supplement to the Marshalled List.

My noble friend Lord Hailsham has just indulged us with some Disraelian oratory on a Gladstonian scale, as far as time goes. I shall try to be a little more direct. I have to say to my noble friend that people outside this House and Parliament are getting a little tired of the parliamentary games here and the arcane language of the parliamentary discussions that go on. They are less interested in the rodomontade that we heard from my noble friend about who said what to whom when. They actually want to know when they are going to get Brexit, when it will be delivered, when it will be done.

If I may be direct with my noble friend—he is my noble friend—he is wrong. All the talk we have heard today lets the cat out of the bag: Grieve I, Grieve II, Grieve this, Grieve that. All this talk suggests to me that my noble friend is acting as the representative on earth of Mr Dominic Grieve—if your Lordships’ House could ever be described as earth; I would not wish to offend your Lordships by suggesting that it was anything other than heaven to be here. Perhaps I should say Mr Dominic Grieve’s representative here in heaven.

This House should not be taken for granted as an enforcement posse for any individual, whether in Parliament or anywhere else. It is interesting that the opinions of your Lordships are so taken for granted by that faction in the House of Commons that it is already openly talking about what will happen when my noble friend’s amendment comes back. I submit that in this House’s greatest days, your Lordships were never taken for granted in that way. It was never considered that your Lordships were a tale foretold or lobby fodder for someone else’s interest. This House has made abundantly clear that it is unhappy about Brexit. I do not think you need to be a reader of the Daily Mail to know that the House of Lords is unhappy in the majority about Brexit, although I do not agree on that. But there comes a point when enough is enough.

Today, having listened to my noble friend the Leader of the House and the very reasonable tones that she used in opening this debate—far from the clarion calls we heard afterwards—we should be cautious about lending support to those whose tactics will inevitably end by weakening the Government and undermining the United Kingdom’s negotiating position. Whatever your position in the argument, no good will come from perpetuating uncertainty by offering Motions and resolutions in perpetuity that might alter the United Kingdom’s position. That weakens our position at the negotiating table, and I do not think that your Lordships should do that.

I apologise to the House that this is a manuscript amendment laid before you. That is because my noble friend tabled an amendment last week which gave the House of Commons wide-ranging—one might say Cromwellian—powers to direct the Government by resolutions, which he called Grieve I. They would in effect be the kind of orders beloved of the Long Parliament in the 1640s. That was plainly unacceptable, as my noble friend has acknowledged. I laid an amendment, the defunct Motion F2, last Friday, to prevent any such direction. I thought that was the end of the matter and that we would debate it today. However, a weekend is clearly a long time in politics, because what my noble friend thought on Friday he disavowed this morning. This morning my noble friend telephoned me—from an interesting place, actually; we have heard about these contacts with the party opposite—to say that he was withdrawing his amendment and putting down another one that on the face of it was more limited in scope.

I do not flatter myself that I had anything to do with this rethink. Indeed, we have heard in all candour from my noble friend the reason for it. He was instructed to make the change by Mr Dominic Grieve.

[Noble Lords]

No.

[Lord True]

This is the truth. It has actually been stated in terms by the noble Viscount. There seems to be a tremendous frisson in the House when one talks about Mr Dominic Grieve. How many times in the speech of the noble Viscount did he adduce the name Dominic Grieve?

[Noble Lords]

Oh!

[Lord True]

Is it unacceptable? No, I am not giving way. I did not catch the remark opposite but I make the point that it is perfectly reasonable for me to address issues surrounding the same person. Mr Dominic Grieve claims that he does not wish to delay or frustrate Brexit—the same thing that is said by all those in that group. However, it seems to me that he is so assiduous in wanting to that he even takes time to go to the offices of the European Commission to report to Mr Alastair Campbell on progress. He is so worried about leaving the European Union that he declares himself ready to “collapse the Government”. There is no doubt that the noble Lord, Lord Grocott, is right: if the Government were unable to achieve the central purposes of the Administration they would be in jeopardy. “Collapse the Government”—hold that in your Lordships’ minds when you consider with whom you wish to align yourselves. Is that the game that your Lordships, in this unelected House, wish to play?

We hear time and again—we heard it again today from others—that none of their actions is intended to delay or prevent Brexit. However, when I see some of the actions, and hear some of their words, I have to say: you could have fooled me. I doubt that they are fooling the good people of Sunderland or Stoke. All that I ask is this: if they do not wish to delay or prevent Brexit, let them be as good as their words and make it clear that none of the Motions they talk about would frustrate it. I freely accept that my amendment might not be the best way of accomplishing this, but it is one way—one that I hope will be given consideration, if not in your Lordships’ House then by others. My amendment is simply an attempt to reflect in law what the people behind this amendment say they want; that is, not to delay or prevent Brexit.

I will not enter into the constitutional rights and wrongs of my noble friend’s aspiration to give the House of Commons potential control over the Government in negotiations, which an amendable Motion would do. However, I believe that to be utterly impractical and totally unconstitutional. It is ridiculous—utterly ridiculous—to conceive that the House of Commons, with over 600 diverse opinions and meeting in public, is capable of determining effective negotiations with the European Union, or indeed the Republic of Vanuatu. It is inconceivable and absurd.

The simple question before noble Lords on these amendments is whether any resolution or Motion outside an Act of Parliament should be capable of delaying or preventing the United Kingdom’s departure from the European Union, which an amendable Motion of the type proposed by my noble friend may well, or should it not? I submit that it should not. I submit that it is time for us to respect the votes—and listen to the roar that goes up—of 17.4 million of our fellow country- men and women in the referendum. For me, at least, those votes had meaning, profound meaning. I submit that we should respect the 27.5 million votes given at the last general election to parties promising to deliver what the British people had voted for, including the Front Bench opposite, who dive and duck to get out of the commitments that they gave at that general election. For me, those votes at that election had meaning, profound meaning. I submit that no parliamentary manoeuvre, no resolution and no Motion such as my noble friend’s amendment envisages should be permitted to have the effect of removing from the British people or eroding their opportunity to have what they asked for with awful clarity—leave. Frankly, no huddled meeting in Smith Square should be permitted to kick the aspirations of the majority further down the road.

This great House should not, by supporting my noble friend, give those who wish to frustrate Brexit a blank cheque to write on. My own amendment is entirely without prejudice to whatever each of your Lordships may decide on the noble Viscount’s amendment. The real question is on his amendment. Do your Lordships, including noble Lords on the Cross Benches, want to be party to further games of “collapse the Government”, or do we accept, as I do, that the Government have in Motion F made a serious attempt to compromise on which the House of Commons should now be allowed to decide? For my part, I think that the Government have gone far and tried long to meet the concerns expressed in another place, in your Lordships’ House and outside—further, actually, and longer than some of us might wish. But the Government are to be commended for that, and I shall support them on their amendments.

I add one final thing. Look at the Marshalled List and the width and breadth of the amendment laid by the Government in line with Motion F. It is perfectly possible that that amendment from the Government goes back to the other place and perfectly possible for the other place to amend and offer an amendment in lieu. The matter can be decided. It is time for each and every one of us to be clear where we stand, and where we think this House of Lords should go. This House has gone a long way and made its voice heard; it has carried many of the arguments for the remainer cause. Do we wish to go on delaying, preventing and prevaricating when the Government have made the offer on the Marshalled List that we have today? Do we wish to be accessories before the fact in parliamentary games to delay resolution and weaken this country’s negotiating position for months and months ahead, or do we say, “My Lords, it’s time enough—let the Commons decide on the matter that the Government have put before us in lieu”? I beg to move.

[Lord Howard of Lympne (Con)]

My Lords, this is not a debate about the integrity of Mr Dominic Grieve, and I shall do my very best to avoid mentioning his name again. It is a debate on the terms of the amendments before your Lordships’ House this afternoon. My noble friend the Leader made a cogent and compelling case for the government amendments and I do not intend to elaborate on it at any length. She made it clear that the effect of the amendment in the name of my noble friend Lord Hailsham would be to confer on Parliament a negotiating power that has always resided in the hands of the Executive in our country. That is why, as my noble friend the Leader said, Professor Vernon Bogdanor has described the amendment as a “constitutional absurdity”. It is a measure of the weakness of the case put forward by my noble friend Lord Hailsham that he was driven, in the end, to impugn the validity of the Article 50 vote in the House of Commons—a vote passed by a very large majority in the very House whose cause he purports to champion as the basis of his amendment.

I want to elaborate briefly on a point just made by my noble friend Lord True. My noble friend Lord Hailsham said, at the very outset of his speech, that the purpose of his amendment was to give the House of Commons the opportunity to consider it. It is a simple and irrefutable fact that the House of Commons will have that opportunity without passing my noble friend’s amendment. The House of Commons will have that opportunity if the Government’s amendment is passed, because that amendment has not been considered by the other place. So, when the Government’s amendment comes to the other place, it will be open to them to accept it, reject it or amend it. They can amend it in the terms of the amendment put forward by my noble friend Lord Hailsham. The very purpose of his amendment—

--- Later in debate ---

[Baroness Evans of Bowes Park]

On the point of justiciability, I refer to the noble Lord, Lord Pannick, who expressed the position correctly.

I hope that noble Lords will support the Government’s serious proposals before them rather than the amendment tabled by my noble friend Lord Hailsham. Should the House agree to the amendment in lieu, which has been tabled by the Government, the House of Commons will be given the chance to decide the procedure it wishes to follow for a vote. I ask whether it really is the right thing for this House, at this stage, to seek to push this issue further. It should be left to the House of Commons to take its decision. I think that this House needs to reflect very seriously on the decision it is about to make.

[Lord True]

My Lords, I listened carefully to the debate and I thank all noble Lords who took part. It ranged a bit more widely than my amendment and I can see that the House wishes to get to a vote on the main question. At some point it would be useful to show publicly, by name, what individuals in this House think about the specific issue—but that can be addressed in a different way on another occasion. I accept the point made by my noble friend the Leader of the House that ultimately these questions should be decided in the House of Commons; I am grateful for what she said.

However, repeating what I said at the outset, we have heard a lot about Commons procedure. The reality is that, under Commons procedure and the control of Mr Speaker, it would be conceivable for this matter to be addressed as an amendment in lieu without the support for the amendment of my noble friend Lord Hailsham. As the Leader of the House said, it is not necessary for your Lordships’ House to align itself with a faction in the House of Commons with an axe to grind—

[Noble Lords]

Oh!

[Lord True]

Well, if it is not an axe it is something else. To ensure that the House of Commons is able to decide this matter it is simply not necessary for this House to vote on my amendment or to support my noble friend’s amendment. Having heard what my noble friend said, I beg leave to withdraw my amendment and I will support the Government on the amendments that follow.

Motion F4 (as an amendment to Motion F3) withdrawn.