Article 50 Extension Procedure

Peter Grant Excerpts

Monday 18th March 2019 Commons Chamber

[Kwasi Kwarteng]

I am delighted, and not wholly unsurprised, by my right hon. Friend’s intervention. I have followed his speeches and declarations in the House with interest for many years.

The referendum happened, but we must also get legislation through Parliament. We live in a parliamentary democracy, and last week the House made very clear its view that we should take no deal off the table and seek an extension of article 50. My right hon. Friend the Prime Minister outlined a series of measures whereby she and her Government would try to follow the directions of the House in respect of the extension and in respect of taking no deal off the table.

[Peter Grant (Glenrothes) (SNP)]

I commend the right hon. Member for Putney (Justine Greening) for submitting the urgent question, and I thank you, Mr Speaker, for granting it.

Last week, the House voted by a sizeable majority to rule out any possibility of our leaving the EU without a deal. If the Government, by prevarication or otherwise, cause us to crash out without a deal, that will surely be the greatest case of contempt of Parliament in the history of not just this but any Parliament. The Government have 11 days left in which to take the action that they must take to prevent that from happening. When no deal was ruled out last Tuesday, there were 17 days left, so the Government have used more than a third of their time doing precisely nothing. The Minister was full of promises about what they intended to do, but could give no answers about what they had done to seek and secure that extension.

Let us consider the options that we now have. The Minister must accept—I hope that he will accept—that the Prime Minister’s current deal is not coming back. It is finished, and the Government must come forward with another solution. If they do not—given that the House has clearly rejected the threat of being forced out without a deal—and if they cannot sort this out within 11 days, the only option is for them to revoke article 50.

In a written statement on 15 March, the Prime Minister said:

“In accordance with the motion the House approved on Thursday 14 March 2019 the Government will now seek to agree an extension with the EU.”

Why did the Government not start to do that when the Prime Minister made her statement? What was the purpose of delaying for the best part of a week, a third of the available time for the disaster to be averted? Will the Minister vote for the statutory instrument that he mentioned to extend article 50—given that he has already voted against that—or will he follow the Prime Minister and the Secretary of State into the book of shame that lists the names of those who speak in favour of a measure at the Dispatch Box and then vote against it?

Last Tuesday, the Attorney General published his legal opinion, and within hours we were being told by an hon. Member that the Attorney General had extended that advice. Can the Minister tell us whether the Attorney General has amended, extended, reviewed, revised or in any way changed the legal opinion that he published last week? If so, why has Parliament not been notified—or is all the talk about the Vienna convention just a fantasy, an attempt to bring on board reluctant Members to vote for a deal that we now know is dead in the water?

Yesterday, the Prime Minister tweeted that we should all be

“pragmatically making the honourable compromises necessary to heal division and move forward”.

Does the Minister recall that the Scottish Government put forward an honourable compromise in December 2016 that would have prevented this mess and that his Government rejected it out of hand? Why does the Prime Minister not practise what she preached in her tweet yesterday? Why do the Government not now accept that they cannot give the answer themselves and that they must talk to other parties to get us out of this disastrous mess?

[Mr Speaker]

Order. I have the greatest possible fondness for the hon. Gentleman, and I hope that he will not take it amiss if I say that while I greatly enjoyed listening to his dulcet tones, he did exceed his allotted time: indeed, he took three times his allotted time. I savoured every word, but he did exceed it. It was supposed to be a minute, and he took three.

--- Later in debate ---

[Kwasi Kwarteng]

The hon. Lady gently reminds me of a couple of facts, and I will gently remind her of a couple of facts. We still face a choice. I do not share the assumption that the meaningful vote will not come back and that the deal is dead. I think we can command a majority for the deal in this House. Until the meaningful vote has passed, or until the deal is completely impossible, I do not want to prejudge the reasons why we should have a longer extension. That is my view, and the hon. Lady has her view, which I fully understand.

[Peter Grant]

On a point of order, Mr Deputy Speaker.

[Mrs Madeleine Moon (Bridgend) (Lab)]

On a point of order, Mr Deputy Speaker.

[Mr Deputy Speaker (Sir Lindsay Hoyle)]

I was only going to take the first one. Points of order should actually come after the final urgent question, but I know it is in relation to this urgent question and the Minister is waiting.

[Peter Grant]

In reply to an earlier question, the Minister stated that, on many occasions, the House has considered and rejected amendments that sought to revoke article 50. As a matter of fact, those amendments have never been selected for debate, and therefore they have never been considered and voted on by the House.

Mr Deputy Speaker, can you advise me, first, on how we can give the Minister a chance to correct his error? It is always better to correct one’s own error. Secondly, and more importantly, can you confirm that, given such amendments have never been selected, there is no impediment in the Standing Orders or in “Erskine May” convention to one being brought forward and considered at a later date?

[Mr Deputy Speaker]

As we both know, that point of order is about correction, and the hon. Gentleman has put it on the record. I do not think we need to go any further than that.