European Union (Withdrawal) (No. 6) Bill

Neil Gray Excerpts

3rd reading: House of Commons & Committee: 1st sitting: House of Commons
Wednesday 4th September 2019 Commons Chamber

[Richard Graham]

I understand the hon. Gentleman’s point of view. There are 650 Members of this House, all of whom, if we designed the perfect deal ourselves individually, would have differences from each other. However, we are at the stage where I believe the vast majority of people in this country want this issue resolved. Therefore, if we are to decide whether we want to accept a default position of no deal because we cannot reach agreement on a deal, this would be the moment for all of us to ask ourselves what we really want: do we really want a deal at all, or are we prepared to go straight to a no deal?

My amendment does not call for the Government to have a vote on no deal. It accepts that, if the vote for a deal were lost, this Parliament would have had myriad opportunities to support a deal and would, in that situation, have failed. I believe this amendment is fair to almost every point of view in this House. It gives us all one last chance to vote for a deal if we do not want no deal.

[Neil Gray (Airdrie and Shotts) (SNP)]

The hon. Gentleman’s amendment is of course predicated on the Prime Minister actually negotiating a new deal. What evidence does he have, because I cannot see any, of there even being a negotiating team in place, as the 30 days evaporate like snow off a dyke? Can he show us that there is any evidence of a new deal coming back from this Prime Minister?

[Richard Graham]

In fact, the hon. Gentleman misreads part of the point of my amendment, which is not to prejudge whether or not the Prime Minister and this Government come back with a deal. I believe the Government are genuinely trying to get a deal, but it is perfectly possible either that they do not succeed, or—this would be the hon. Gentleman’s view—that they are not really trying that hard. In either of those events, my amendment would allow this House to vote on the deal that was put before this House previously. It would give everybody one more chance—the hon. Gentleman’s party says it is against no deal—a chance to vote for a deal. If, in that situation, the House were to say, “We don’t like this deal: it’s not good enough for us”, there could be no hiding from anyone in this country about why we had gone for no deal. It would be because this House failed the final opportunity to prevent that. I believe, in that situation, this is fair to everyone.