Sittings of the House (29 March)

Debate between Pete Wishart and Martin Whitfield

Thursday 28th March 2019 Commons Chamber

[Pete Wishart]

I am pretty sure that the electors of Perthshire would be delighted if we were here making decisions, but that is the exact opposite of what we are doing. We have probably not made any decisions in this House for the past few months, and he is responsible for that.

Lastly, I totally and utterly support the shadow Leader of the House when she said that it is absolutely disgraceful that we were presented with tomorrow’s motion only 10 minutes before this debate was supposed to start.

[Martin Whitfield]

Does the hon. Gentleman agree that the business of the House motion makes reference to complying with Acts and the European Union documents, yet the motion that we are debating tomorrow acknowledges that we are not going to follow UK legislation and that we will catch up at some point in the future?

[Pete Wishart]

Absolutely, and I raised the question this morning with the Speaker about what exactly we are doing about section 13 of the European Union (Withdrawal) Act 2018. The hon. Gentleman is right. We have not seen the withdrawal and implementation Bill. We are expected to make critical decisions about the future of this country and about how we should progress Brexit without knowing what the Bill is. The Government are offering the ultimate blind Brexit. We are expected to give them a blank cheque to negotiate the political agreement as they see fit. This is the last throw of the dice for them. This is the only place they have left. The meaningful vote is dead, but they have tried to resurrect it by splitting it into two parts.