Business of the House

Debate between Pete Wishart and Charlie Elphicke

Wednesday 3rd April 2019 Commons Chamber

[Pete Wishart]

Absolutely. My hon. Friend makes a very good point. This does present such a precedent, and I hope all parties across the House will make use of it and ensure that Bills are passed on Opposition days. This is a new way of doing things that should be looked on positively. I am really very surprised that the “take back controllers” cannot see the opportunities presented to this House to, in effect, take back control in this Parliament.

Doing this with a Bill for the first time ever is really interesting. I have to say to the right hon. Member for Normanton, Pontefract and Castleford (Yvette Cooper) that I think there are deficiencies in the Bill. Earlier, I called it a bit of a dog’s breakfast, but it is the only meal on the menu, so we have to take advantage of the opportunity that has been presented. What it does is ensure that we do not leave next week without a deal. It attempts to ensure that there is at least some sort of way forward in trying to renegotiate with Europe, and it will oblige the Prime Minister to come back and give updates about the progress she is making.

I think the right hon. Member for West Dorset (Sir Oliver Letwin) said, absolutely correctly, that if we do not do this we will have to leave it to the Prime Minister and take it on trust. What we have seen from this Government already is that they contemptuously ignore outcomes in this House repeatedly, and again and again. All of a sudden, however, we are supposed to trust them with the process of doing what they say they are going to do.

[Charlie Elphicke]

The hon. Gentleman says we would have to leave this as a matter of trust to the Prime Minister. The reality is that, if he had actually bothered to read it, he would see that the Bill simply makes a request to her, and she could completely ignore it. That is why this Bill is so pointless, and why it is an abuse of this House to be using the emergency legislation method. The precedent, which he acknowledges will be created, will be visited most dearly and deeply on Opposition Members when they find themselves seeking time but a Government cite this precedent, which they themselves have adopted, as to why they should not have it.

[Pete Wishart]

That sounds like some sort of admission that the Conservatives are on their way out and they are expecting to change places. God help us if what the hon. Gentleman says was ever actually the case. There are in fact lots of deficiencies in the Bill—I am quite happy to concede that—but what he presented is not one of them. The Bill explicitly mandates the Prime Minister to come back to ensure that there is a statement about any conversations she has with the EU. I suggest that the hon. Gentleman should perhaps read the Bill before he intervenes again.

This is a day for precedent, isn’t it? As another part of the breakthrough in the Brexit process, we now have the Prime Minister sitting down exclusively with the Leader of the Opposition. This idea to try to share Brexit with the Opposition is a huge elephant trap that has been set for the Leader of the Opposition, and he has gone wandering into it with his size 12 shoes, like some sort of hairy mammoth. That is exactly what the Opposition are doing today, and it will be fascinating. Today, remainer meets leaver across the table to discuss Brexit—a remainer whose party is a bunch of leavers and a leaver whose party is a bunch of remainers—so this will be fascinating. We are looking forward to the outcome of this particular meeting, and I think the whole House will be thoroughly entertained by the outcome. For Scottish National party Members, this looks a bit like Better Together 2.0: the sequel. Here are Labour and the Conservatives sitting down to conspire to take Scotland out of Europe against its will. That is exactly what will be done, or it looks very much like that to us on these Benches.