Business of the House

Debate between Neil Coyle and George Kerevan

Thursday 26th January 2017 Commons Chamber

[George Kerevan]

I take that point. I am not saying this to chide the Government, but I am trying to bring out into the open in this Chamber what we all know: the Government have been introducing a new parliamentary convention that flows on from the fact that we had a referendum that went against the Government. In panic and shock, the Government, whose Back Benchers are divided, decided on a new convention, which was to use the Crown prerogative to ram through whatever they wanted, based on the decision for Brexit in the referendum. That is in stark contrast to the whole history of this Chamber.

[Neil Coyle]

Will the hon. Gentleman give way?

[George Kerevan]

I want to make a few points; we are running out of time and we want to hear the Minister.

I want to say clearly that in a panic the Government chose to attempt to use the royal prerogative, but that has been struck down this week by the Supreme Court in a momentous and historic decision. One would have thought that in the light of that, the Government would have more regard to the procedures of the House and how its business is formulated, to give the House a proper say in the historic decision on Brexit. Did the Government learn that lesson? No, they came back with a one-line Bill to be fast-tracked. That is why, in the Government’s attempt to make some amends, we are discussing a way of getting some extra time, over the weekend, to draft amendments and new clauses to go with that fast-track procedure.

Hon. Members have every right to worry that the Government still have not got the point that we are now to have proper parliamentary scrutiny, including control over how the debate is conducted in the House. To underline that, let us look at what the explanatory notes say about the need for fast-tracking. First, we are told that there was an “unexpected” step in the process required by the Supreme Court. It is no fault of this House that the Government do not understand what is happening in the real world. It is no fault of Members on either side of the House if the Government were caught by surprise—the rest of us were not—and it is not an excuse for fast-tracking.

The second explanation for the fast-tracking is that this step

“would cause considerable delay to commencing the formal exit process”,

but the triggering of article 50 by the end of March is a random, arbitrary decision by the Government. That is not this House’s decision. The Executive are saying we have to fast-track the Bill because they have decided when they want to do it by. If that becomes a principle of how we do business—if the Government can say, “We want to do something next week, so we are going to fast-track everything”—it will be an abrogation of democracy, and we cannot have that.