Leaving the EU: Meaningful Vote

Stephen Doughty Excerpts

Monday 22nd October 2018 Commons Chamber

[Dominic Raab]

All I would gently say to my hon. Friend is that there is nothing meaningless about this vote. It would be one of the most ground-breaking decisions that the House has had to make for a generation: the decision on whether or not to accept a deal negotiated by the Government with the EU that works for all parts of the United Kingdom. I hope that at that point we would have some consensus in the House on a decision to accept the deal and move forward to the implementing legislation.

[Stephen Doughty (Cardiff South and Penarth) (Lab/Co-op)]

Let us cut to the chase. The Government have tried to gag Parliament at every turn in this process. Now they have a choice. The position that the Secretary of State is trying to take is, essentially, that it is no deal versus the deal that the Government have. That is not politically, constitutionally or morally sound. Further to the question from the right hon. Member for Loughborough (Nicky Morgan), will the Secretary of State tell us whether he took legal advice, when he took it, and who commissioned it? Was it him?

[Dominic Raab]

I have not commissioned any specific, bespoke legal advice on the point the hon. Gentleman raises, but we have been informed right the way through about the implications. Section 13 of the withdrawal Act was informed by legal advice not just from Government lawyers, but from all the lawyers across the House. It was scrutinised very carefully and at length in Committee, and it will give effect to what the House voted through in the Act.