Lord Wallace of Saltaire
Main Page: Lord Wallace of Saltaire (Liberal Democrat - Life peer)Department Debates - View all Lord Wallace of Saltaire's debates with the Leader of the House
(5 years, 8 months ago)
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Baroness Evans of Bowes Park
As I said, we hope to work towards bringing the deal back this week. Under the terms of the EU conclusions, the agreement was that the deal had to pass this week for us to get the extension to 22 May. Our hope is that we get the deal through this week. Obviously, if we do not, the next crunch point will be 12 April. I suppose we could ask the EU if we could bring the deal back next week but, under the current terms, we need to bring it back this week. That is why we will be working hard to ensure that we can get a majority for it.
Lord Wallace of Saltaire (LD)
My Lords, may I clarify the business for this week? I have spent my career in international relations, although I am not a lawyer. The noble Baroness, Lady Deech, is entirely correct in saying that we need to carry an international agreement into domestic law for it to happen; this House and the other House will be doing so this week. Then, at some very urgent point within the next 10 days at the latest, the withdrawal agreement, however modified, again must be put before both Houses. If it is not, we will still be stuck with the date of 12 April.
Baroness Evans of Bowes Park
We have laid the statutory instrument to which the noble Lord refers, and our intention is to debate it on Wednesday.