Article 50

Yvette Cooper Excerpts

Tuesday 24th January 2017 Commons Chamber

[Mr Davis]

The short answer is yes. My hon. Friend cites paragraph 122 of the decision and the Court’s commentary. The purpose of the Bill is to meet the requirements of the Supreme Court to deliver the instruction from the nation at large and to do so in the national interest. That entails a straightforward, easily comprehensible Bill so that the country at large can see what Parliament is doing and what decision it is visiting on the Government.

[Yvette Cooper (Normanton, Pontefract and Castleford) (Lab)]

I agree with the Secretary of State that Parliament must respect the result of the referendum, but I hope that he agrees that the Government do not have a blank cheque from either Parliament or the public on what kind of Brexit they now pursue. He says that there will be votes in the process. Given that the Government have said they are ruling out being in the customs union, the common external tariff and the common commercial policy, and that, as he knows, there are strongly held views on different sides about the impact that that will have on our manufacturing industry, which will be crucial to our future, can the right hon. Gentleman say when he will give Parliament a vote on that decision?

[Mr Davis]

I would say a couple of things to the right hon. Lady. First, we are asked on the one hand to tell the House what our plan is, and then we are told, “Oh, but we don’t like that, so we want a debate or a White Paper”—[Interruption.] No, it is fine; I perfectly understand the argument. The simple truth is that there will be any number of votes—too many to count—in the next two years across a whole range of issues. For example, I can see the sort of issue she is raising coming up in the great repeal Bill, in subsequent primary legislation, and perhaps even in subsequent major secondary legislation as well. I am quite sure there will be a number of votes on that subject in the next two years.