Business of the House

Oliver Letwin Excerpts

Wednesday 27th March 2019 Commons Chamber

[Sir Oliver Letwin (West Dorset) (Con)]

I beg to move,

(1) That, at today’s sitting –

(a) any proceedings governed by the resolution of the House of 25 March (Section 13 of the European Union (Withdrawal) Act 2018) or this order may be proceeded with until any hour, though opposed and shall not be interrupted;

(b) the resolution of the House of 25 March shall apply as if, at the end of paragraph (b), there were inserted “and then to a motion in the name of a Minister of the Crown to approve the draft European Union (Withdrawal) Act 2018 (Exit Day) (Amendment) Regulations 2019”;

(c) notwithstanding the practice of the House, any motion on matters that have been the subject of a prior decision of the House in the current Session may be the subject of a decision;

(d) the Speaker shall announce his decision on which motions have been selected for decision by recorded vote before calling a Member to move a motion under paragraph (f) of the resolution of 25 March;

(e) the first signatory of a motion so selected may inform the Speaker up to 4.00 pm that they do not wish a recorded vote to take place on that motion;

(f) having been so informed, the Speaker shall announce that information to the House and may announce a new decision on selection;

(g) the Speaker may not propose the question on any amendment to any motion subject to decision by recorded vote or on the previous question, and may not put any question under Standing Order No. 36 (Closure of debate) or Standing Order No. 163 (Motion to sit in private);

(h) debate on the motions having precedence under paragraph (f) of the resolution of 25 March may continue until 7.00 pm at which time the House shall proceed as if the question had been put on each motion selected by the Speaker for decision by recorded vote and the opinion of the Speaker as to the decision on each such question had been challenged;

(i) in respect of those questions –

(i) Members may record their votes on each question under arrangements made by the Speaker;

(ii) votes may be recorded for half an hour after the Speaker declares the period open and the Speaker shall suspend the House for that period;

(iii) the Speaker shall announce the results in the course of the sitting;

(j) immediately upon the conclusion of the voting period the Speaker shall call a Minister of the Crown to move to approve the draft European Union (Withdrawal) Act 2018 (Exit Day) (Amendment) Regulations 2019 and Standing Order No. 41A (Deferred divisions) shall not apply to that motion;

(k) during the period between 7.00 pm and the announcement of the results on the questions subject to recorded vote–

(i) no motion for the adjournment may be made;

(ii) the House shall not proceed to a division other than on the question referred to in sub-paragraph (j); and

(iii) the Speaker may suspend the sitting if any other business, including proceedings provided for in sub-paragraph (j) and in paragraph (g) of the resolution of 25 March, has been concluded.

(2) That, on Monday 1 April –

(a) Standing Order No. 14(1) (which provides that government business shall have precedence at every sitting save as provided in that order) shall not apply;

(b) precedence shall be given to a motion relating to the Business of the House in connection with matters relating to the United Kingdom’s withdrawal from the European Union other than any Business of the House motion relating to the consideration by the House of a motion under section 13(1)(b) of the European Union (Withdrawal) Act 2018, and then to motions relating to that withdrawal and the United Kingdom’s future relationship with the European Union other than any motion moved under section 13(1)(b) of the European Union (Withdrawal) Act 2018;

(c) if more than one motion relating to the Business of the House is tabled, the Speaker shall decide which motion shall have precedence;

(d) the Speaker shall interrupt proceedings on any business having precedence before the Business of the House motion at 5.00 pm and call a Member to move that motion;

(e) debate on that motion may continue until 6.00 pm at which time the Speaker shall put the questions necessary to dispose of proceedings on that motion including the questions on amendments selected by the Speaker which may then be moved;

(f) when those proceedings have been concluded, the Speaker shall call a Member to move one of the other motions having precedence;

(g) any proceedings interrupted or superseded by this order may be resumed or (as the case may be) entered upon and proceeded with after the moment of interruption.

I am very grateful to you, Mr Speaker, and to the House authorities, for the organisation you have tentatively put in place for today. Of course that organisation can only operate if the House approves this business of the House motion.

I would like to begin by explaining, in as plain English as I can, the two paragraphs of which the motion consists, neither of which is in any way complicated, but both of which have been drafted very carefully to ensure that the business proceeds smoothly and in good order as we go through what will no doubt be a quite complicated and highly contentious set of discussions about the substantive motions that have been tabled, from which you, Mr Speaker, have not yet selected, but that will no doubt be announced as a series of selections after we have completed the discussion and votes on the business of the House motion.

Paragraph (1) is an effort to order today’s business in an orderly way, given that there may be a considerable number of substantive motions selected by Mr Speaker and that will therefore be debated, and, at 7 o’clock if the business of the House motion is accepted, be voted on. I therefore draw the attention of hon. Members first to paragraph (1)(i), which describes the method of voting. It is the intention that, to avoid taking too long voting on the substantive motions, we should retire into the two Lobbies. The Aye Lobby will be devoted to those whose names begin A to K, and the No Lobby will be devoted to those whose names begin L to Z. There will be, in those Lobbies, voting slips—I think of a different colour, but very similar in character to the deferred Division slips that we have used today and are quite used to using—which will be in a bundle and will relate to all those motions on the Order Paper today that have been selected by Mr Speaker for vote at the end of the day.

[David Hanson (Delyn) (Lab)]

This is just a general point. I do not often follow tweets as being law and the way in which things will be, but I have just seen a tweet that says No. 10 will indicate that it will vote against the business motion in an attempt to thwart all the measures the right hon. Gentleman wishes to secure at 7 o’clock this evening. Does he agree that that would be a misuse of parliamentary time by the Government, given the will of the House as expressed only yesterday or the day before?

[Sir Oliver Letwin]

I do not know whether the right hon. Gentleman is reading a tweet that is a Trumpian tweet or an accurate tweet. I have followed the practice of not paying any attention to tweets of any kind at any time, but it may be, as the right hon. Gentleman says, that the Government will decide to whip Government Members against the business of the House motion. That is, of course, a perfectly legitimate thing for the Government to do if they wish to do it. It is slightly sad, given that those of us who have prepared the business of the House motion took great care to negotiate with the Government a suitable way to include the statutory instrument, which is needed to alter exit day, at the end of our proceedings. That is provided for in orderly way in the business of the House motion and I had hoped that that degree of co-operation might induce the Government to look kindly on the motion. But I am as perfectly aware as he is that it was not the intention of the Government to promote the indicative votes in the way in which the motion does. Therefore, I understand that they may whip against it.

I hope that not only the right hon. Gentleman but those of my hon. Friends who voted for this process in the first place will again vote in a Division, if there is one, to sustain the business of the House motion and to allow us to continue the process that we inaugurated by voting by a narrow, but nevertheless significant, majority for amendment (a), which stood in my name a couple of days ago. I look forward to being in the same Lobby as the right hon. Gentleman as we do that.

[Mr Philip Hollobone (Kettering) (Con)]

My right hon. Friend said that a significant majority voted in favour of his amendment. It was 329 votes to 302, which was 52% to 48%.

[Sir Oliver Letwin]

I think my hon. Friend’s mathematics is perfect. I observe that he has attached quite significant emphasis to the vote on the referendum result. Therefore, I hope that he joins me in the view that the majority for amendment (a) was indeed significant. I would like to point out to him and to some of my other hon. Friends who share his general views on these matters, which I entirely respect, that I, unlike he, have voted consistently, and will continue to vote consistently, for the implementation of that referendum result through the means of the Prime Minister’s deal and through meaningful vote 3, 4, 5 and to infinity. I shall go on voting for the Prime Minister’s deal to fulfil the referendum mandate. I profoundly hope that he might change his mind and join me in the Lobby to do so when it is necessary.

[Mr Bob Seely (Isle of Wight) (Con)]

If there is movement towards meaningful vote 3, and there is some indication that there is, will my right hon. Friend and his somewhat successful parliamentary insurgency work with the Government to ensure that there is time, presumably early next week if not this week, for a meaningful vote 3 to be back and presented to this House, either by way of a paving motion or directly?

[Sir Oliver Letwin]

My hon. Friend asks an entirely reasonable question to which there is an absolutely definitive answer. There has been no insurgency here—

[Pete Wishart (Perth and North Perthshire) (SNP)]

Will the right hon. Gentleman give way?

[Sir Oliver Letwin]

No. I will in a moment, but I must answer this point first. It is more productive to answer one point at a time.

I am absolutely clear that this is not an insurgency at all. It is an adjustment of the Standing Orders for today, and, if this is agreed, for Monday. It does not affect tomorrow, nor does it affect Friday, should the Government choose to make Friday a sitting day. Either tomorrow or Friday—personally, I would entirely welcome this—the Government may of course bring forward meaningful vote 3, for which I will vote. I hope my hon. Friends will vote for it. I give my hon. Friend a further piece of good news, which he will be easily capable of verifying, which is that should meaningful vote 3 pass on Thursday or Friday, there would be no further need for the whole of this process. This process has come about as a result of the increasing concern that many of us have had across the House of Commons that we were heading not towards an approval of the Prime Minister’s deal, but, alas, towards a no-deal exit, which is something I have pitted myself against for many months.

[Pete Wishart]

I am grateful to the right hon. Gentleman for giving way. I am very much enjoying the “Letwin People’s Parliament” already. It has much to commend it. I am sure he finds it as astonishing as I do that the Government intend to vote against this business motion. Surely he will agree with me that there was nothing to stop them bringing forward an amendment to his motion today and that there was nothing to stop them bringing an alternative business motion to the House today?

[Sir Oliver Letwin]

I promised myself throughout this process that I would be honest with the House and I cannot honestly say that I am astonished that the Government are voting against it. Although I regret it, I somewhat suspected that it might be the case—as I suspect, in fact, the hon. Gentleman did—but I do share his view that it is a pity that the Government did not do what would have remedied what the Government described as a constitutional oddity by endorsing amendment (a) and, indeed, at the right moment, by putting themselves on amendment (a) as signatories. Under parliamentary convention, which you, Mr Speaker, supervise, they would of course have immediately arrived at the top of the order and superseded any mere Back Benchers. It would have become a Government amendment and the ordinary order of the proceedings of the House would have been restored. That would have been the natural way to go. Alas, the Government decided not to do that and I understand that they had reasons for that.

[Sir Peter Bottomley (Worthing West) (Con)]

Returning to the subject of how we will vote, will my right hon. Friend say, or might the Speaker be able to tell us, whether the voting papers will be available before we go into the Lobby to avoid a great big crowd and to avoid slowing down the voting procedure?

[Sir Oliver Letwin]

I am sure that Mr Speaker will want to say something about that at a later stage, but I believe that the House authorities, who have been extraordinarily assiduous in this and have gone way beyond their mere duty, will have not only provided for the relevant pieces of paper to be in the Lobbies at an early stage, but provided very large numbers of copies of the Order Paper, so that Members will be able very quickly to refer from the voting slips to the actual motion and nobody has any confusion about what they are voting for or against.

[Kate Hoey (Vauxhall) (Lab)]

The Speaker has ruled that no amendments will be taken with the motion and obviously, I would not challenge him on that. However, is not this business motion today different from what was agreed last week, because now the right hon. Gentleman is proposing Monday as well, and amendment (a), in the name of my hon. Friend the Member for Stoke-on-Trent Central (Gareth Snell), has not been selected by the Speaker? Surely we are now voting on something very different from what was agreed last week.

[Sir Oliver Letwin]

The hon. Lady is absolutely right that paragraph (2), which I have not yet had time to talk about because of taking interventions, does indeed book a slot for Monday. The reason why is that I think there is quite a high chance that at the end of today’s votes, despite the best endeavours of the promoters of each of the motions that fall to be debated and voted on, they may not receive majority backing. Perhaps the hon. Lady was not present, but I said during the debate on my amendment (a), very specifically—this point was echoed by many of her hon. Friends in their remarks about amendment (a)—that we all recognise the fact that the first time round, it is very likely that there would not be a natural majority for one proposition or another and that we should therefore regard this as a process and not as a single point in time. I did also specifically say that I therefore anticipated that we would need a further day. In many discussions and interviews, many of us who have proposed the business of the House motion today and who were supporting amendment (a) have made that point. There is no novelty to it; it is simply carrying through what we said would be the case.

[Tom Brake (Carshalton and Wallington) (LD)]

Further to the intervention from the hon. Member for Vauxhall (Kate Hoey), does the right hon. Gentleman not agree that given that the Government have spent over 1,000 days on getting to where we are now, it would not be unreasonable for the House to have one more day to try to resolve this matter?

[Sir Oliver Letwin]

I do rather agree with the right hon. Gentleman about that. This is not the main burden of what I want to say today, but I share what may be his regret that about two and a half years ago, the Government did not take steps to create a cross-party consensus on this matter. The Irish Taoiseach did exactly that and put himself in a much stronger position as a result. When all this is over and hopefully we have arrived at some sensible way to deal with the whole Brexit issue, I hope that the whole nation will learn that lesson and we will realise that when we have great national undertakings, it makes sense to try to get a cross-party consensus about how to take them forward.

[Gareth Snell (Stoke-on-Trent Central) (Lab/Co-op)]

Further to the point that was raised by my hon. Friend the Member for Vauxhall (Kate Hoey), what assurances can we have that the business of the House motion that we will be asked to support on Monday will not also include another paragraph (2), which seeks to book a third day for indicative votes and a subsequent motion? I believe that the hon. Member for Grantham and Stamford (Nick Boles) referred to it as “daisy-chaining” in a briefing. If that is the case, can the right hon. Member for West Dorset (Sir Oliver Letwin) be up front about it? Also, what does he think is going to change between today and Monday? Every Member of this House has had the opportunity to table a motion with their thoughts on the way forward. Every Member of this House will have the chance to vote on it in an up and down straight vote, with no knock-out rounds. Will we not just repeat ourselves on Monday with the same potential options and the same votes, with the same arguments?

[Sir Oliver Letwin]

I am delighted that the hon. Gentleman, who has played an important part throughout these proceedings, raises both of those points, because they are ones that I wanted to come to anyway. Let me come to them in response to him rather than taking them later.

On the first question of whether there may be later stages beyond Monday, I do not believe that there needs to be any further round of voting after Monday on motions or propositions. I want to be very clear that I have said this to the hon. Gentleman so that he cannot later complain that there was any concealment at all, which is not part of our intention: I believe that if a majority for a particular proposition does emerge on Monday, as I very much hope that it will for reasons that I am about to come to, and if the Government do not immediately signal that they are willing to implement the majority view of the House of Commons at that point and if the Government have not by then—as I hope they have, although others may not—achieved a vote in favour of MV3, I think it would make sense for the House to move to the position of beginning to legislate to mandate the implementation of that majority. I think that would be a reasonable proceeding at that stage. It is only possible if we reach a majority view, of course.

I come now to the hon. Gentleman’s second point, which was the question of why Monday will be any different from today. The difference lies in two facts. This will be the first opportunity after a very long time—the right hon. Member for Carshalton and Wallington (Tom Brake) made this point—for the House of Commons, in an orderly way, to have the opportunity to express the views of Members in votes on specific propositions and for us all to see the lie of the land. When politicians do that, they very often discover that there is a basis for compromise and further informal, offline discussion that can lead to the crystallisation of majorities. In addition, it may be possible to structure the following Monday in a way that precipitates a majority, which it has not been the intention to do today. Today is purely indicative votes, and this is put today in a plain, vanilla way, so that everyone simply votes for all the things that they want to vote for and against all the things that they want to vote against, and we will see what the numbers are. This is purely a first set of indications.

[Mr Peter Bone (Wellingborough) (Con)]

rose—

[Mr Seely]

rose—

[Sir Oliver Letwin]

I give way to my hon. Friend the Member for Wellingborough (Mr Bone), because he made such a splendid case against me earlier.

[Mr Bone]

I was trying to compliment my right hon. Friend—I was just suggesting he should be sitting on the Opposition Benches. He is making a very interesting and well-thought-out speech, as he always does, and he is being exceptionally honest with the House, saying that on Monday he will again be taking over the Order Paper and that that would then possibly lead to a legislative programme and a Bill to implement whatever comes out as the most likely thing to succeed. Will he give the House an estimate of how many days he is going to have to take over between now and 12 April so that we can have a guide and at least the Government can have a guide to when they might get some of their business done?

[Sir Oliver Letwin]

The coda in my hon. Friend’s remark was, I think, an amusement, in the sense that I do not discern a vast pile of other Government business of the first order of importance currently being transacted in this House. The Government are rightly focused, as we all are, on the question of Brexit. We are approaching 12 April, as my hon. Friend and I both know and as he mentioned. Of course, he has a very different view of what would happen to our nation if on the 12th we left without a deal, and I respect that view. It is not my view and I do not believe that it is the majority view of the House of Commons, as expressed in a series of votes. Those of us who are determined to follow that majority view—as conscientiously as he believes that it is a good thing to leave without a deal, we believe conscientiously that it is not a good thing for our country to leave without a deal—want to prevent that eventuality. The only way we can do that is by crystallising an alternative majority and trying to carry it forward. That is what we will do, but there is an easy route to preventing that, which is for him and his like-minded colleagues, whose positions I understand, to compromise—as many of the rest of us have compromised—and to vote for MV3. Were that to happen, none of this would be necessary.

[Mr Bone]

What about the number of days?

[Sir Oliver Letwin]

I am sorry—I have not mentioned any more days than the days I have mentioned already because I do not think it will be necessary to have any more, although, of course, if there were legislation, there would be have to be a day or days for that in the House of Lords.

[Mr Seely]

I apologise for asking, but I am trying to find out about this process, as I suspect are millions of people throughout the country. I am asking about MV3 next week because, if my right hon. Friend has taken over the Order Paper on Monday, and if, based on the opinion of the House today and on Monday, we legislate for a customs union on Tuesday or Wednesday, MV3 becomes redundant. Is he assuming that the only day for a third meaningful vote on the Government’s withdrawal agreement is this Thursday or Friday, or can he envisage a time next week when there may be space for MV3 to come back—for example, before a day of customs union legislation on the Wednesday?

[Sir Oliver Letwin]

Again, that is a perfectly reasonable set of questions with a definitive set of answers. On a third meaningful vote this Thursday or Friday, that timetable has been set by the EU—it is not the making of any Member of the House or the Government. The EU made it clear in its legal decision that the withdrawal agreement had to be agreed by the House by 11 pm, I think, but in any event late at night, on Friday in order for 12 April not to be activated and to move us to 22 May. That would be necessary for the Government to pass the withdrawal and implementation Bill, which is in turn necessary for their meaningful vote to be meaningful—without the Bill it is a nothing, as both my hon. Friend and others on both sides of the House who study this very well understand. The fact is that the Thursday/Friday schedule this week has been set by the EU, not any of us, and there is nothing that I or anybody else here can do about it. It is very important therefore—for those of us who want to make sure we do not drop out without a deal on the 12th—to ensure that, if my hon. Friends do not support those of us who would be in the Lobbies voting for MV3 by Friday night, there is an alternative, and this is the only way we can do that.

[John Redwood (Wokingham) (Con)]

If the House voted for a particular outcome for negotiation with Europe that the Government thought either not desirable or not negotiable, who would do the negotiating, given that it is normal for only the Government to be a recognised negotiator?

[Sir Oliver Letwin]

My right hon. Friend, who is one of the two or three most distinguished and long-serving Members of Parliament and had a distinguished record in government, knows as well as I do that he is absolutely right: only the Government of the United Kingdom can negotiate with foreign powers. That is obviously true. It is also true, however, that the Government, like the rest of us, are governed by the law. Just as much as any private individual, Ministers are governed by the law. It frequently happens that, when Ministers bring legislation before the House of Commons and that legislation is amended in a way that they did not wish, they are still compelled to implement the law that the House and the House of Lords have passed as it is written. That is a justiciable matter and they are subject to judicial review if they do not do so. Now, I have said frequently that I do not think the Prime Minister’s Brexit strategy has been ideally suited to the task, but I have never met an hon. Member of this House, or any other living human being, who is more law abiding than the Prime Minister, so I am certain that she would follow not just the letter but the spirit of the law were there a law that flowed from a majority view of the House of Commons.

[John Redwood]

When, as is normal, the Government have control of the Order Paper, if the House amends legislation in a way the Government do not like, the Government need not bring that law into effect or go through the remaining proceedings necessary to make it a law.

[Sir Oliver Letwin]

As one would expect, my right hon. Friend is right, but actually the Government often choose not to do that; they often allow legislation that contains things they do not quite like to go forward because they have some greater objective. The truth is, therefore, that Ministers often do—he and I as Ministers had this experience—find themselves implementing legislation with which they are not wholly in accord, but they know how to do that, and the civil service knows how to support them in doing that, and that is of course what would happen in these circumstances.

[Mr Kenneth Clarke (Rushcliffe) (Con)]

Does my right hon. Friend agree that it is actually a very novel proposition that the House should have to pass a law to effect Government policy in this way? Can he think of any example in his experience—I cannot think of one, and my experience is longer than his—of the Government pursuing a policy on such a vital national matter knowing that they did not have the support of the House of Commons for the way they were going about it and simply defying the majority that had voted for another approach?

[Sir Oliver Letwin]

As my right hon. and learned Friend is not just a former Chancellor, Lord Chancellor and almost everything else, but is also the Father of the House, he will certainly have more experience of this than most of the rest of us put together, and if he cannot think of such a case, I will certainly not be able to. I do not know of such a case. Indeed, simply because of the possibility that people would raise this issue, I did some research to try to find out whether there was any such case recorded by historians, who have longer virtual memories than we have actual memories, and I could not find one.

That suggests that there is a pretty strong precedent that if the House of Commons, in a matter of extreme significance to the nation, passed a resolution expressing a clear view of how to proceed, it would be not unlawful—so far as I know, though that would be a matter for the Attorney General to rule on, not me—but nevertheless very constitutionally unusual for the Government not to accede to that resolution and to proceed in the way that the House of Commons had requested them to. I profoundly hope that if on Monday we find a majority view in favour of a particular proposition, the Government will say, as they ought to say, that they will carry that forward. I am merely protecting against the possibility that they take the view that it is not a binding utterance by the House of Commons. Under those circumstances, we have methods, through legislation, of compelling—undoubtedly by law—an action that otherwise might not occur.

[Mr Clarke]

My right hon. Friend may recall that the Maastricht treaty caused a little difficulty, on a cross-party basis, in the House. Had the Government been defeated by a motion disapproving of the treaty, would he and others then concerned about the treaty have been content had the Government then proceeded with their declared policy on the basis that they had stood on it at the election?

[Sir Oliver Letwin]

The answer is no, obviously, as my right hon. and learned Friend intends. He and I were on opposite sides—bizarrely—on that issue. I actually believe that the whole of this imbroglio is largely due to the fact that the wretched Maastricht treaty was approved by the House in the first place. Had there not been qualified majority voting, the British people would probably never have come to disapprove of the EU in the way that they did and we would have been spared all this, but that is ancient history. He and I have a long record of agreements and disagreements at different times. This afternoon, we are agreed.

[Mr Jacob Rees-Mogg (North East Somerset) (Con)]

In response to my right hon. and learned Friend the Member for Rushcliffe (Mr Clarke), my right hon. Friend said that for the Government to ignore a motion of this House would be constitutionally very unusual, but it has to be said that the process this afternoon is constitutionally deeply irregular.

[Sir Oliver Letwin]

I am particularly glad that my very distinguished hon. Friend has participated in this part of our proceedings. He has not, though he is an assiduous attender of debates, ever had the horror of having to listen to me on this subject because he has not been present when I have been speaking about it, but I have tried to say to those who have been present on each occasion that the proposition he has just advanced is manifestly false, and the reason is this: the Order Paper of the House of Commons—this is the most ancient principle of our constitution as a matter of fact—is governed by the Standing Orders of the House of Commons, and those are the property of the House of Commons and nobody else. They are the property not of the Executive but of the House of Commons. The courts recognise that in the principle of comity and never interfere in the proceedings of our House. That principle goes back not to 1906 when the Government—in my view, improperly—instituted Standing Order No. 14 in its current form, but way back into the origins of Parliament. From the very beginning, Parliament sought to establish its right, through the Speaker and otherwise, to control its own proceedings, which is a very proper thing for Parliament to do. We have been driven to this only in an extreme emergency—that is how some of us see it, though I know that he takes a rather different view—and we are doing it in a perfectly proper way through the amendment of Standing Orders, which it lies open to this House to do.

[Mr Rees-Mogg]

I cannot entirely agree with the constitutional proposition that my right hon. Friend is advancing. He will recall that, in the Tudor House of Commons, it was Privy Counsellors who guided the business. It is a principle of the greatest antiquity that the business of the House is guided by those representing the sovereign in Parliament. That principle is being eroded by today’s proceedings.

[Sir Oliver Letwin]

I little imagined that we would find ourselves debating the sequence of our constitutional history, but because my hon. Friend is genuinely learned in the matter and this may be my only opportunity ever to have this debate with him in the House of Commons before—thank goodness—I leave it, I want to explain to him that the succeeding history of our country was virtually focused on a debate about that very matter. It was because the House of Commons refused to be dominated by Privy Counsellors that all the things that happened in the later 16th and 17th centuries happened. I am on the side of those in the House whom I actually thought that, on the whole, my hon. Friend was on the side of, who wish to assert, over and against the Executive, that, ultimately, sovereignty lies here and not in Whitehall.

[Margaret Beckett (Derby South) (Lab)]

I am not entirely at one with the right hon. Gentleman, although I have some sympathy with the point that is being made. Surely, however, what we should recognise is that the House has been driven to these unusual proceedings today because the Government have failed to do their job.

[Sir Oliver Letwin]

We have a stellar constellation here today. The right hon. Lady is another very distinguished Member of the House who has held almost every post imaginable. She tempts me to do what I shall not do, which is to observe that the failure to reach cross-party consensus on this matter had two sides, and it would have been better if the two sides had worked together. That did not happen, and it is because it did not happen that we were at the mercy of the votes of some of my hon. Friends, and that is why we are where we are. I think the right hon. Lady will agree that what matters now is none of that history; what matters now is the fact that we are where we are, and we need to find a solution. That is what this is all about.

[Helen Goodman (Bishop Auckland) (Lab)]

May I bring the right hon. Gentleman back to the business motion? His proposal today is that we should have indicative votes and, depending on where a consensus appears to emerge, the House will have an opportunity to consider these matters again on Monday, and there will be a further business motion for Monday setting out in more detail than paragraph (2) the way in which we will proceed then. I just wonder if he could undertake, as he did before, to share the business motion with the House before the deadline for tabling motions and amendments, so that all Members will be able to make the most of the opportunity on Monday.

[Sir Oliver Letwin]

The hon. Lady has raised a very serious and important point. I think we should make that commitment, because people need an opportunity to see what rules of play will obtain on Monday and an opportunity to table amendments, and to consider, in the light of that, how to proceed. I believe that, if we are talking about tomorrow, Thursday—because the House is not currently due to sit on Friday—the sitting will be curtailed at approximately 5.30 pm, after the Adjournment debate. I therefore think—assuming that the House does not sit on Friday—that we should make a commitment to lay the Business of the House motion for Monday by 3.30 pm tomorrow, so that people have two hours in which to look at it and table amendments if they see fit.

Incidentally, I agree with the hon. Lady—it was part of the burden of what I was saying to my right hon. and learned Friend the Member for Rushcliffe (Mr Clarke)—that there is ample scope for thinking now, and in the succeeding hours, including tomorrow morning, about possible methods of voting on Monday to encourage, or even to ensure, some further convergence to reach a majority in favour of some alternative.

[Sir Patrick McLoughlin (Derbyshire Dales) (Con)]

Colleagues argue that there is no precedent for events of this kind. There will in future be precedents for such events. That is the way in which parliamentary rules have developed over many centuries.

Will my right hon. Friend now address the point that we do not yet know and will not know for another hour and six minutes: exactly what motions will we be voting on? We are expected to vote on them at 7 o’clock. Will he ensure that in future the House is given a proper choice, rather than the choice that is put by the Chair?

[Sir Oliver Letwin]

I am grateful to my right hon. Friend for his observation about precedents. As a former Chief Whip, he knows very well how these things happen. It is indeed the case that our constitution has evolved through a series of adjustments, and there will be a precedent in this instance. I hope, incidentally—because I am not actually a revolutionary—that it will not be taken as a precedent for events like this to take place every day of the week. I profoundly hope that our successors in the House will not for many decades face an emergency of the kind that we are currently facing, because this is not a way of proceeding that I think any of us would like our country to face in the future.

As for my right hon. Friend’s point about the motions, I am much more confident than his question suggested that you, Mr Speaker, will select a full range of motions representing a full range of views, and that there will be ample opportunity for people, genuinely and openly, to support the positions that they wish to support and object to the positions to which they object. I think we shall see that when you make your selection, Mr Speaker, because I know that your intention has been—as has mine, and, I think, that of the House as a whole—to use this as a genuine opportunity for people to come together on the basis of looking at a full range of options and having every sensible choice available to them.

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

Is the right hon. Gentleman surprised—does he, indeed, find it incredible—that the Government apparently do not have an opinion on the motions that we will debate later today—apparently the Cabinet will abstain and there will be a free vote for his colleagues—but do have an opinion about denying the House the opportunity to have the debate on indicative votes because they are going to vote against the motion that he is proposing?

--- Later in debate ---

[Sir Oliver Letwin]

I am in a very odd position, in that, as it happens, I know, roughly speaking, what the official machine has been saying about the whole of these proceedings. I know that it has been raising very serious concerns about the idea of Parliament acting in this way. In fact, it has even been reported to me that one very senior official described the situation as one in which it was necessary for Whitehall to save Parliament from itself—not in a formal meeting, but outside one.

I understand that because, as a Cabinet Minister for six years, I observed the way in which, in trying to govern the country appropriately, Whitehall necessarily takes the view that the Houses of Parliament as a whole are quite an encumbrance. It tries to govern the country in a way that will, so to speak, tolerate and obey the democratic necessities of a legislature that is sometimes annoying. But, so far as is possible, it governs the process. It is very difficult for the official mind to absorb the fact that, ultimately, that is not how our constitution works. Ultimately, how our constitution works is that Governments depend on confidence in the House of Commons, and the House of Commons—or, at any rate, the Houses of Parliament—is the sovereign body: the Crown in Parliament is the sovereign body.

It is actually a very important point that we are making here about how the country is ultimately governed. In that sense, I agree with my right hon. Friend the Member for Derbyshire Dales (Sir Patrick McLoughlin) that this is a precedent. It is a precedent for Whitehall to recognise that, in an emergency, the House of Commons is capable of controlling its own business in such a way as to find a solution with which the vast majesties of Whitehall and Government have been unable to provide us. If they were able to provide us with that solution, and if my hon. Friends were willing to vote for the proposition which the Government have conscientiously negotiated over a very long time—and, in my view, have rather admirably succeeded in negotiating—we would not be having this discussion. It is because Whitehall has failed, not owing to the inadequacies of any individual but owing to the basic difficulty of the situation, that the Commons is taking these steps, and I think that in those circumstances we are right to do so.

[James Cartlidge (South Suffolk) (Con)]

I am grateful to my right hon. Friend for giving way. He is being very generous.

Our hon. Friends are concerned about losing control of the Order Paper. Is not the answer, therefore, that if the Leader of the House confirms that we will have a meaningful vote on Thursday or Friday, when they go into the Lobbies, they have one motto in mind: “Vote deal, take back control”?

[Sir Oliver Letwin]

That is a neat way of expressing my hon. Friend’s view, with which, as it happens, I agree.

[Stephen Metcalfe (South Basildon and East Thurrock) (Con)]

I am listening very carefully to my right hon. Friend and I think the thrust of what he is saying is that, if meaningful vote 3 were to be approved, none of this would be necessary to go forward. Will he therefore reiterate his call for those on all sides of this argument to support the withdrawal agreement? It may not be perfect for either side, but it is the best thing we have on offer and now is the time to get behind it.

--- Later in debate ---

[Sir Oliver Letwin]

As my hon. Friend knows, that is my view and has been throughout, which is why I have voted for it throughout and will continue to do so.

[Martin Whitfield (East Lothian) (Lab)]

To come back to the business motion and in particular paragraph (1)(i), could the right hon. Gentleman elucidate what he feels success would be for a motion that we are voting on this afternoon? There is an Aye and a No in the vote, so what will success look like for an individual motion, or is this about a cumulative image created from all the votes for all the motions that Mr Speaker no doubt will choose in due course?

[Sir Oliver Letwin]

I am delighted that the hon. Gentleman brings me back to the business of the House motion, because it is traditional in these circumstances for people who are speaking to say they would like to make some progress and I certainly have not made very much yet. My view is that this is not about the precise number of votes cast for one motion or another, or indeed against one motion or another. It is about whether, when we look at the results as a whole and when we act in the way that I think politicians across the parties acting in the national interest can act, which is to seek a consensus, we get enough data to enable us to have sensible conversations about where we can go next. That is what I think would constitute a success here. I do not know any way to do that other than to have the kind of process we are going through, which is why I suggested we should go through it and so did others.

[Dr Andrew Murrison (South West Wiltshire) (Con)]

Does my right hon. Friend recall that the last time we went through something remotely like this was in 2009 in relation to Jack Straw’s well-meaning but ultimately doomed attempt to get a sense of where we should be going with House of Lords reform? I fear that today’s proceedings will end up very much in the same place.

[Sir Oliver Letwin]

But my hon. Friend needs to attend to the point that those of us who are proposing this have exactly recognised that precedent. What went wrong on that occasion above all was that it was a single point in time, it did not produce a single answer and therefore it was declared a failure. We are not seeking a single point in time here; we are seeking a process. We are using the first stage of that process as an act of discovery. We are then having a number of days in which politicians can talk to one another and try to achieve a consensus. That can be reflected in a further vote or set of votes. That is a very different process. I think that had that process been applied in the case of the House of Lords we might by now have had a sensibly restructured House of Lords, which alas we do not. But that is another piece of history that I am sure I must not deal with.

[Hilary Benn (Leeds Central) (Lab)]

The right hon. Gentleman is making a powerful case for giving the House the chance today to express its views. Further to the point just raised by the Chair of the Northern Ireland Affairs Committee, the hon. Member for South West Wiltshire (Dr Murrison), the truth is that we do not know what this will produce. It is called indicative votes for a reason: it is intended to give an indication of what the House thinks. But is not the most powerful point that the uncertainty is not an argument for not trying, bearing in mind that we are potentially 16 days away from leaving with no agreement, if the Prime Minister’s deal does not pass and if the EU were, heaven forbid, to refuse us a further extension? We should really get on with it.

[Sir Oliver Letwin]

I completely agree with every word of that. The point the right hon. Gentleman makes is exactly the reason why we are proceeding in this way. I want to take this opportunity to pay tribute to him and his right hon. and hon. Friends with whom we have been co-operating on this. Actually it has been a pleasure and the reason it has been a pleasure is because we share a fundamental concern with the interests of our country to have a way forward that is orderly and does not leave us with a disaster by mistake. We may differ on many things, but on that we are entirely joined, and that is the very purpose of this exercise.

Mr Speaker, although I have not myself said very much of what I was going to say, I think I have now gone on for much too long—[Hon. Members: “Hear, hear.] It has been in response to quite a lot of interventions. I discern that there are not any more around, so I think it falls to me to resume my seat.