Business of the House

Lord Warner Excerpts

Thursday 4th April 2019 Lords Chamber

[Lord Forsyth of Drumlean]

Indeed, and perhaps even at this late stage the noble Baroness might be prepared to reconsider her Motion. I would be perfectly happy if we had Second Reading today and took the Committee stage another day; there is no great issue here.

The noble Baroness suggested that the amendments had been tabled by people in favour of no deal; that is what she said. As I said at the beginning, this is not actually about the merits; we will get on to those later. As she sought to imply that one was coming from a biased position, I wonder if she would like to look at the pamphlet produced by Sir Stephen Laws and Professor Richard Ekins, entitled Endangering Constitutional Government: The Risks of the House of Commons Taking Control. They also picked up those words I quoted from Oliver Letwin, and this is what they say:

“By those words, Sir Oliver announced his intention to create a constitutional crisis, and invited MPs to join him in a flagrant and destructive attack on our current constitutional settlement. However, even if many MPs resile from the conclusion that the Commons must become the Cabinet, the course of action MPs have now set in motion, with help from the Speaker, is one which undercuts the Government’s capacity to govern and its freedom to set the agenda—to propose policy which Parliament might then choose to resist, adopt or adapt.


If the Commons continues down this path unopposed, the Government will end up in office but unable to govern. The Commons would nominally have confidence in the Government but would in practice not extend to the Government the freedom that such confidence would otherwise entail to carry out any policy initiative. Again, the constitution does not require that Parliament should accept the Government’s proposals. But unless the Government enjoys the initiative in formulating and proposing policy, the country cannot be effectively governed; and the relationship between the political authorities and the people will break down if MPs act in mutually inconsistent ways in performing their dual role both as an electoral college for government and in exercising oversight over the conduct of public affairs”.


What a mess we are in. Members opposite, in this House, of all places, where we have conducted the debate in a civilised manner—

[Lord Warner (CB)]

My Lords, does the noble Lord accept that the Prime Minister has accepted that her Government cannot get her legislation on Brexit through the House of Commons and needs to consult the rest of that House on alternative approaches?

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Moved by

[Lord Warner]

That the Question be now put.

[Lord Warner]

My Lords, I think the mood of the House is that we should move as expeditiously as possible through these amendments to the Motion, so that we can consider the substance of the European Union (Withdrawal) (No. 5) Bill as quickly as possible. I therefore urge the House that the Question be now put on this particular Motion.

[The Lord Speaker]

I am instructed by order of the House to say that the Motion “That the Question be now put” is considered a most exceptional procedure and the House will not accept it save in circumstances where it is felt to be the only means of ensuring the proper conduct of the business of the House. Further, if a Member who seeks to move it persists in his intention, the practice of the House is that the Question on the Motion be put without debate. Does the noble Lord still wish to move this closure?

[Lord Warner]

He does.

[Lord Lilley (Con)]

My Lords, on a point of order—

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[Baroness Noakes]

My noble friend makes very good points. I hope that the Front Bench opposite is reflecting on them.

The House is being asked to handle this Bill on a one-day basis and, in effect, tear up the rules under which we normally consider legislation. This has led to a speakers’ list being closed before this business Motion is even finished. This Motion was not available to noble Lords until they came in this morning, so some will not have had the opportunity to put their names down to speak at Second Reading.

[Lord Warner]

Is the noble Baroness not aware that we have had extensive conversations about this? Yesterday, the House of Commons managed to amend its procedures so that it could complete consideration of the Bill within four hours. They expect us to deal with the Bill with due expedition. The majority of the House of Commons voted for this Bill. We are now getting to the point where this House is being exposed to a filibustering set of manoeuvres by the Conservative Benches.

[Baroness Noakes]

I remind the noble Lord that it was a majority of one in the other place. I do not think that the other place can be proud of the length of time it devoted to this legislation yesterday. Second Reading was 55 minutes; towards the end speakers were given two minutes; the Secretary of State had a very short time to wind up. That is not a proper way for any chamber to handle legislation. I would not hold it up as an example to this House, which should be doing things properly. We accept that we can have an accelerated procedure.

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[Lord Cormack]

No, I will not give way—I will in a minute. My noble friend has the next amendment and doubtless he too will speak at some length: I hope it will not be the half-hour or 20 minutes we have just had, because that is far too long. It is really important that we get on to the Bill. We have four more amendments, I think, after this one; then we have a Statement; and then we have my noble friend Lord Forsyth’s important debate—although it is not as urgent as the business that will then be before your Lordships’ House. I wish we could approach this in a consensual, adult manner and do two things. First, I hope my noble friend Lord Forsyth will be willing to have his reports debated next week. There will be plenty of time. The first week of our Recess has been cancelled—I make no complaints about it. Therefore, he has plenty of time and it would be a very good idea.

Secondly, I think that we should have Second Reading today—here, I agree with my noble friend Lady Noakes—and move on, not on Monday but tomorrow. The House has met on Fridays before. The other place is not meeting tomorrow, so there would be no delay whatever in the parliamentary process if we took Report tomorrow. I really think we have to be sensible and I ask noble friends in all parts of the House who were there to remember that April day almost exactly 37 years ago when the House met on a Saturday. That was the most dire of emergencies and both Houses met on the Saturday after the Falklands invasion. So there is nothing sacrosanct about any day other than Sunday as far as your Lordships’ House is concerned. In the war I believe there was one Sitting on a Sunday, but that is beside the point. I urge both Front Benches to talk seriously about this. It does nobody’s cause any service, whether they are a supporter or an opponent of the Bill, to be going bleary-eyed through the Lobbies at 2 am, 3 am, 4 am, 5 am or 6 am. It does no service to anyone.

I have two hopes, and I shall not say any more during the debate today. That may please my noble friends but at least I do not blether on as long as some of them do. I hope that we can heal the bitterness to which my noble friend Lord Empey referred a few hours ago. I hope also that we can make genuine progress on this Bill. I beg my noble friends who have amendments to come to withdraw them, to hold their fire and to make their speeches in the main debate, which I hope we will get on to very soon, and I hope that we can finish the Bill tomorrow. That would make abundant sense, both here and outside.

[Lord Warner]

My Lords, I wish I thought that the Members sitting around the noble Lord who has just spoken would take any notice of his message but, having listened for more than four hours to a set of procedural issues that have nothing to do with the Bill we are supposed to be discussing today, I suggest to the House that we put the question.

[Lord Lilley]

If that was just a suggestion, may I respond to it?

Moved by

[Lord Warner]

That the Question be now put.

[The Deputy Speaker (Baroness Pitkeathley) (Lab)]

My Lords, I am instructed by order of the House to say that the Motion “That the Question be now put” is considered a most exceptional procedure, and the House should not accept it save in circumstances where it is felt to be the only means of ensuring the proper conduct of business in the House. Further, if the Member who seeks to move it persists in his intention, the practice of the House is that the Question on the Motion is put without debate. Does the noble Lord still wish to move the closure?

[Lord Warner]

I do.

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[Lord Lilley]

No, but when I have I certainly shall. I am trying to get on because I want to deal with the central argument that was put forward by the noble Baroness, Lady Hayter: namely, that it would be a disaster if we do not get this legislation through because of the amendments that we are now considering and if we leave with no deal on WTO terms. I maintain that it would not be a disaster. What would be a disaster would be denying democracy—

[Lord Warner]

My Lords—

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[Lord Warner]

I have a question to put to the noble Lord, not to the House. He seems to be developing an argument in which there are two classes of Bill that come from the House of Commons. He argues that this House should consider whether a Bill passed by the House of Commons is one which is appropriate for this House to consider or not. Can I be clear that this is the doctrine he is now trying to argue?

[Lord Hamilton of Epsom]

Quite clearly they are different sorts of Bills: either private Bills or public Bills. That is pretty obvious. This one seems to be a private Bill, which, as my noble friend Lord Forsyth pointed out, did not even have anybody’s name on it when it appeared here because it had not had its First Reading. We are breaking all our rules to try to introduce this Bill, in a vain attempt to try to change the price of fish over these negotiations. What the Bill actually does is make life more difficult for my right honourable friend the Prime Minister, rather than easier. Why we would want to meddle around in this way, and mess about with our constitutional arrangements, I cannot understand. However, if the one good thing to come out of this is that the usual channels are at last starting to work again in your Lordships’ House, then we have something to be thankful for.