Business of the House

Tommy Sheppard Excerpts

Monday 1st April 2019 Commons Chamber

[Tommy Sheppard (Edinburgh East) (SNP)]

I had not intended to speak in this debate, but I wish to do so briefly because I am astonished and not a little outraged at what is happening. Members of the public who are watching our proceedings will be incredibly exasperated, not only at the fact that a hard-right faction in Parliament is using lengthy speeches about procedure to try to prevent us from getting on to the debate, but because the Government are acting with extreme bad faith towards Parliament.

Let us remind ourselves why we took control of the Standing Orders that give the Government the right to set the agenda: because the Government are incapable of using that right to move this process forward. They have done one of two things: they have either brought a proposition that has manifestly failed to get a majority back to the House completely unchanged, in the vain hope that the passage of time will allow them to browbeat their opponents into submission; or, even worse, they have filled our agenda with stuff that we do not need to discuss as a matter of urgency, leading to the embarrassing situation in which, in a moment of national crisis, this House has finished its business early and we have been sent home with nothing to discuss. That is an outrage and that is why Parliament is taking control of the agenda so that we can move the process forward. I believe we will do that if we get the chance to get at the matter today. I therefore hope we can take the vote, agree to take control into our own hands and then make better use of it than the Government are able to.

Question put.