Business of the House

Pete Wishart Excerpts

Monday 28th October 2019 Commons Chamber

[Mr Rees-Mogg]

I do not think my hon. Friend’s point is really the right one to be making on this occasion. The withdrawal agreement Bill did indeed achieve its Second Reading, and then lost its programme motion. My hon. Friend will be aware that without a programme motion, or an allocation of time motion coming forward subsequently, the Bill remains simply in limbo. But the reason for not bringing forward an allocation of time motion is that the House has made its mind clear: it does not want to deal or engage seriously with the withdrawal agreement Bill. That means that the only sensible option remaining is to go back to the British people to see what they have to say—to trust the people and democracy, and in so doing ensure that we can stop this stalemate.

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

I thank the Leader of the House for this short statement. Scottish National party Members look forward to meaningfully engaging with the piece of legislation that is to be brought forward. We will be scrutinising it very closely in the course of the morning before it is presented to the House. I have just a couple of questions for the Leader of the House. Will we be able to see the draft Bill soon so that we can properly consider it? When will it be made available to us? The date of 12 December is mentioned in the information that I have received from the Leader of the House. Will he explain his thinking behind that particular date? We look forward to engaging with the Government tomorrow, and will look very carefully at what is included in the Bill.

[Mr Rees-Mogg]

I thank the hon. Gentleman for his enthusiasm for an election, and pay credit to the Scottish National party for actually wishing to engage with its own voters, unlike some socialist parties that I can think of—[Interruption.] Other socialist parties; I am corrected.

The hon. Gentleman asks a very specific question about the date proposed for the general election. It is customary, though not established by law, that we have our elections on a Thursday. The reason that the date of 9 December did not work is that it would have required Parliament to dissolve just after midnight on Friday 1 November in order to provide the statutory 25 working days to prepare for an election. That would have made it very tight to get Royal Assent for the Bill that is to be introduced tomorrow, but we also we need to pass the Northern Ireland budget Bill before Parliament dissolves to ensure that the Northern Ireland civil service has access to the funding it needs to deliver public services in Northern Ireland. There are therefore technical reasons why that earlier dissolution would not actually have worked. I also think the British people are very comfortable with elections on Thursdays as a matter of routine.