Business of the House

Patrick Grady Excerpts

Thursday 26th November 2020 Commons Chamber

[Mr Rees-Mogg]

The House last sat on Christmas day, I understand, in 1656 and it is not the intention of Her Majesty’s Government, or my right hon. Friend the Chief Whip, to ask us to sit on Christmas day, or indeed the feast of St Stephen, this year. I will give updates on Government business and plans for recesses in the normal way, but at the moment have no further information to give.

[Patrick Grady (Glasgow North) (SNP)]

The Leader of the House spent more time on Twitter defending his decision not to allow virtual participation in debates than he did at the Dispatch Box on Tuesday, despite his claims of a debate. As the Leader of the House he should be the servant of the House—the servus servorum populi, perhaps. Unlike the Pope, however, he is not infallible. He needs to stop digging. He has to admit the he misread the will of the House. He has misunderstood what Members want. If he is so convinced of the strength of his arguments, he should schedule a debate in Government time. Let us have a proper call list. Let us have a full airing of the issues and a free vote, and see what the House wants to do on virtual participation.

[Mr Rees-Mogg]

I thought the hon. Gentleman was Scottish. It turns out he is a Gaul, or at any rate he has a great deal of gall to say what he has just said when there was two hours of debate. The House could have come to a decision, but he, with his friends the socialists, decided not to allow that vote to happen. One hon. Member managed to talk out his own amendment. This is a most unusual way of carrying on, but the Government have done everything they can to facilitate the ability of the House to come to a decision. As I said earlier, if you looked at the schedule of business for Tuesday and the matters that were under discussion, it was extremely likely, for anybody looking at that Order Paper, that the matter would come to a debate. That we did not do so is actually down to the Opposition Members who decided to talk at length early on. We tried to facilitate the House. That opportunity was not taken advantage of. I am deeply sorry about that, because I was hoping that my right hon. Friend the Member for Chesham and Amersham (Dame Cheryl Gillan), for example, would be able to appear remotely. The hon. Gentleman and the right hon. Member for Walsall South (Valerie Vaz) managed to stop that.