Business of the House

Peter Bone Excerpts

Wednesday 27th March 2019 Commons Chamber

[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.

--- Later in debate ---

[Valerie Vaz]

I thank the hon. Gentleman for his intervention. The House is only responding today to what it agreed on Monday. Let us face it: we would not have had the first meaningful vote if the House had not agreed to it, and we had to struggle to get it. Speaking of the meaningful votes, the first was lost by 68% to 32% and the second by 62% to 38%.

[Mr Bone]

Returning to the business under consideration, there has clearly been a change in the Labour party position. Up until today, we had always thought that if the Labour party did not support the Government’s position and did not think that the House supported the Government position, it would move a motion of no confidence, which is the normal way to proceed. Instead, there is this establishment of an alternative Government. Does that mean that the Labour party will no longer table motions of no confidence?

[Valerie Vaz]

I think the correct term—I am sure that you will correct the hon. Gentleman, Mr Speaker—is that we are Her Majesty’s Opposition. We are responsible, and we want to try to find a way through, which is what hon. Members on both sides are trying to do.