Business of the House
Debate between Valerie Vaz and Seema Malhotra(5 years, 9 months ago)
Commons ChamberRead Full debate Read Hansard Text Read Debate Ministerial Extracts
Seema Malhotra (Feltham and Heston) (Lab/Co-op)
I will support the motion today. I thank the right hon. Member for West Dorset (Sir Oliver Letwin) and my right hon. Friend the Member for Leeds Central (Hilary Benn), and I am proud to have worked with them on how to try and move forward. My concern when I first drafted one of the original meaningful vote amendments in December 2017 was that, should the House not agree to a deal, we would need some sort of process or roadmap by which we would then have some chance of moving forward in an orderly fashion. Indeed, the position we are in today is down to a profound lack of leadership from the Prime Minister. She did not involve the House early enough or build a consensus on how to move forward. Instead of the disappointment expressed by the Leader of the House, I am surprised that we did not hear some profound regret that the Prime Minister and the Government had not engaged the House considerably earlier on the negotiating objectives. Instead, they have continued down a track that was clearly going to lead to the same place: defeat every single time.